2020 was a complicated year to shoot films, but it was a great year to shoot a stop motion piece. We had a little more time on hand than usual. As I do have a background in animation (the amateur-ish kind), I was always interested to shoot a proper stop motion film. In late 2019 a short film was written by director Marleen Valien and my Co-DoP Max Rauer for a 12 minute stop-motion short, about the last three animals on a world destroyed by humans. 12 minutes turned out to be quite a ambitious plan, so for now we decided to only shoot three “testimonial”-spots featuring the characters of the (not yet shot) short “The End”, and found the brand Oatly to be a great match to the plot of the short. We shot for four weeks with the sets at the same time. Max Rauer and I worked as a DoP-Duo, which worked great, as we always had plenty of time so set-up shots, program the motion control and try out different ways to light each shot, before animators came in the next day to start rehearsing their shot. After which we had even more time to fix any problems. While they animated I spent time in the same studio to make sure they didn’t move any lamps and used the time to composite the shots they did. Max and I really enjoyed the experience and will do another stop-motion film in 2021.

Behind the Scenes