CBTV: ‘Final Serving’ by Florian Maubach
Cartoon Brew’s 2014 Student Animation Festival continues today with Final Serving (Nachschlag) by Florian Maubach. The film was produced at Kunsthochschule Kassel in Kassel, Germany.
Final Serving is the tale of a knight who defends his home and wife from other knights, and the reward that he receives for doing so.
Like the story itself, Maubach’s drawings and animation are gracefully spare. The film stands out for its striking formalist qualities: color is restricted to black, white and grey, and cuts are restricted to just a handful throughout the length of the film. On the other hand, the camera is used liberally, moving rhythmically throughout and around the mise en scène. The extensive use of a camera in a hand-drawn film is both novel and effective, revealing the lonely desolation of the setting while amplifying the story’s general sense of unease and disorientation.
Continue reading for comments from the filmmaker Florian Maubach:
THE IDEA
The development of the film started with a series of drawings. A knight in different stages of his life. At first he was a good looking, strong knight. In the next drawings he started to put on weight. In the last drawing he was just a human ball. I asked myself how could this happen and started to create a story around these drawings. At this time I saw the movie Mondo Cane and was fascinated by the part about the men feeding their women. I think this scene, along with some other observations I made on how people interact were the main inspiration for the short.
TOOLBOX AND PROCESS
I used a Cintiq 12WX and the software TVPaint for doing the animatic, animation and coloring. I used After Effects to set some masks, to add the sound file, and to export the final film.
CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED
Nachschlag (Final Serving) was my first longer narrative film. There were a lot of things I did the first time. Working together with a musician and foley artist, giving instructions to others working on the film, and working on a project for a period of nearly a year. But I think that to tell a story that everybody could follow and especially to find a good ending was the biggest challenge for me. It took a long time to try different storylines and endings in the storyboard. By creating a very detailed animatic, I could develop the story together with rough animation.
INSPIRATIONS
As I mentioned, I was mainly inspired by the scenes from the film Mondo Cane from 1962, but also from the comic book series Socrates by Christophe Blain, with beautiful drawn characters. During a visit at the Modern Art Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, I found a great sculpture by a Lithuanian artist. It was a fat king sitting on his throne holding a scepter and orb. For me, the sculpture had the perfect design.
WHERE YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS
Actually I don’t really know where I will be in five years. In two years I will graduate from the university, and my goal is to continue working on my personal films and to find a job in the field of animation in Germany or somewhere else.
FOLLOW THE FILMMAKER
Website: FlorianMaubach.de
Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival is made possible by the generous support of our Presenting Sponsor JibJab, a company that has shown consistent commitment to supporting young and emerging talent. We’d also like to extend a thank you to our grand prize award sponsor, Microsoft.
