Project

Made for Hooomans

Three spec spots, one supervisor, and a whole lot of oat milk.

Sometimes a project comes along that’s just a joy from start to finish. The Made for Hoomans campaign was also produced at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg as spec work, the project gave a talented student team the freedom to do exactly what they wanted, without a client looking over their shoulder.

The Project

The spots were directed by Marleen Valien, and Arne served as animation supervisor across all three films. On top of that supervisory role, he animated every single shot in the Jean spot personally, plus additional shots across the other two. It’s the kind of dual responsibility that requires both a big-picture eye and an extremely patient pair of hands. Ideally at the same time.

But the Made for Hoomans project was more than just a great piece of work for Arne — it was also something of a scouting mission. As animation supervisor, he was keeping a close eye on who else at the Filmakademie could really animate. Ferdinand Ehrhardt, Oscar Jacobson and Ilya Barrett passed that test with flying colors. All three went on to become animators on The Last Bar — the diploma film that would eventually launch Firlefanz Films.

Credits

  • Director: Marleen Valien
  • Script: Marleen Valien & Max Rauer
  • Cinematography: Max Rauer & Sebastian Ganschow
  • Executive Producer: Daniel Kottirsch & Ben Turlach
  • Editor: Vreni Sarnes
  • Animators: Arne Hain, Ferdinand Ehrhardt, Oscar Jacobson & Ilya Barrett
  • Production Design: Nora Balmer
  • Character Design: Julia Skala & Oscar Jacobson
  • Puppet Maker: Beatrice Bader & Arne Wachtmann
  • Production Design Assistants: Gwenola Heck, Lea Zipf, Antonia Sailer, Felix Laskowski, Ann-Kathrin Eberhard & Malte Hartleb
  • Music Composer: Jonas Vogler
  • Sound Design: Paul Powaljaew
  • Mixing: Johann Meis
  • VFX Compositing: Sebastian Ganschow
  • Color Grading: Mike Bothe (S.EC)
  • Cast: Matthew Williamson, Marilyn Bush, Hans-Peter Deppe & Sydney LaFaire
  • Production Company: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg GmbH

A space to learn and improve

Spec work done at this level is genuinely rare. Three fully produced stop-motion spots, complete with original character design, handbuilt puppets, live action cast, original music and sound design — all made because the team believed in it enough to just go ahead and make it. And as it turned out, it also became the moment Arne found his people. Not a bad outcome for a project that didn’t even have a client.