Together with my fellow filmmakers Frerk Lintz, Mirko Kubein and Hendrik Löbbert I’ve launched the film collective FILMFOREST.
We felt that there is the necessity for a new aaproach to online video journalism. Online video has been around for about five years now but most of the productions lack originality, concept and visuality. We think, now it’s time to leave the quick&dirty paradigm behind and try out new ways. Online video needs to free itself from the close-minded production structures of tv networks and publishing houses, on the net there is a global and awake audience, bored by the ever-the-same tv formats which chop information into easy-to-swallow bits and pieces.
We think online video is the medium to create new formats. We want to do films, which last as long as the story needs to be told, which speak with a strong visual language to the voice of a subjective, combative author.
Because it is the right time.
FILMFOREST will start as a blog, we’ll have some talks and screenings soon, and hopefully will be doing out own productions soon.
I’m invited to speak at the cinema Lumière in Maastricht on May 15th. The event is called Digitally Unreel and presents filmmakers, who incorporate digital effects in their work. I will show my short film Palindrome and some other works in progress. I will speak about how technology influences my work, but will also present some more general ideas on the the interplay of technology and art.
About:
“Film lovers define key moments in their lives by the movies that have accompanied them, but what is often lost in the ether is the technology that punctuates their emotional effectiveness and makes them memorable. It is for that reason that we decided to highlight the technological side of film making in discussing the digitization of film, but steer clear from getting bogged down in technologically determined rhetoric, we simply wish to showcase great film making techniques and leave the repercussions, knowing now how the digital was involved in the process, up to you, the audience, to determine.”
I took part in an exhibition called 3 hours in 1 second, along with Constant Dullaart, Jodi ans lots of other great artists, curated by Sakrowski from Curating YouTube. Sakrowski programmed a front-end which gave the artists the oppurtunity to combine up to 16 YouTube-Videos into on big multi-channel installation.
I made two installations called Attention and Evolution of dance. I really enjoyed the opening venue at Basso Berlin on february 5th, 2010. There you could interact with the installations, play and pause videos, level the audio, it was almost like playing an audiovisual set. The exhibition was installed only for one day but you can still watch the artworks online here.
In the winter turn 09/10 at University Siegen I’m holding two seminars:
Musicvideoproduction
Supported by GrandHotel Pictures and in cooperation with SONY Music Enterainment we’ll realise a complete Music video production in this course.
Starting with some introductory sessions on the aesthetics and narratives of music videos, the students will later be teached how to develop ideas and write treatments. Thereby prepared for the business we’ll have a pitch for one of SONY’s bands - followed by the realization of one of the students’ ideas as a professional music video production.
Web Video - editorial and documentary formats
Video content is becoming more and more popular on the net lately. Publishing houses, networks and other media players use the more emotional and involving moving images to enhance their text based services.
Since the quick&dirty paradigm of the first years didn’t work there is more than ever the question which specific qualities web video can deliver.
The students will create their own online videos in this course, focusing on format development and strong narratives.
Musicvideo for the second single of Reisegruppe Fischer, shot on the Canon 5d Mk 2. Six locations in one day, we had some problems handling the focus but all in all it was a very fast and convenient workflow.
Label: Roadrunner Records
Production Company: GrandHotel Pictures
Director: Simon Ruschmeyer
Dop: Robert Staffl
Producer: Norbert Kneißl
Executive Producer: Birte Henning
Editor: Ulrike Mayer
MakeUp: Mel Willmann
MakeUp Assistant: Suna Kecis
Costumes: Steffi Millat
Gaffer: Martin König
Camera Assistant: Sören Lang
Assistant Producer: Dimitri Servatkovski
AD: Flo Haeger
Runner: Nathalia Haehle
Boombox: Helena Friebel
I directed a music video for the german band Reisegruppe Fischer. As their song “Hollywood” is questioning beauty stereotypes I appropriated the famous YouTube category of Photoshop Makeovers and shot a colorful pop video!
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The project was my first cooperation with the production company Grand Hotel Pictures, I hope I get the oppurtunity to work with them more often in the future!
Type: Music Video
Length: 02:55 min
Format: SONY EX3
Artist: Reisegruppe Fischer
Track: Hollywood
Production Company: Grand Hotel Pictures
Label: Roadrunner Records
Director: Simon Ruschmeyer
Producer: Norbert Kneißl
DoP: Robert Staffl
Gaffer: Martin König
Editor: Simon Ruschmeyer
Color Correction: Jakub Stejskal
Studio: Konsum Studio
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Together with Dop Robert Staffl and Uwe Steckhan from Filmyard Underwaterproductions, I shot an Test for a concept called “MEMBRAN”. We explored the idea of diaphanous worlds, where people from underwater interact in a seamless room with those from above the surface. I’d like to share some screenshots frome the project with you:
We shot the same set both underwater and in the studio and VFX-Wizard Ingo Mesche did an amazing job compositing the footage. Also big thanks to our Model Miriam from SportModels, to our Props team Daniel Ben Sorgen und Anne Grumbrecht, and to Sibylle Eichhorn, who did the costumes.
Right now we are searching for financial means for the project, if you are interested, please get in touch.
In the summer term 09 I offer a seminar on Visual Sampling as a cultural practice at the media science course at University of Siegen, Germany.
“Digital Media offer the discrete description of cultural products, every composition of images, sounds and words can be deconstructed into zeros and ones. The recontextulization of the small entities of meaning (sample/loop) to a new remix is mostly known from music, especially DJing. In this course the perspective on sampling will be expanded and focussed onto the visual aspects of the matter.
The medium Internet hasd changed the circumstances for remix works. Archives like YouTube provide an unlimted memory of forms, from which the remixer draws both his inspiration and his material. Besides this changes in production and distribution we will also discover the social processes of the web, because the dynamics of the remix culture are influenced by referencing onto each others works.”
Get more info about my work at the University on www.multimediale-systeme.de
Together with Mirko Kubein I produced a Popkomm webvideo special for Electronic Beats. Electronic Beats is a platform for electronic music and lifestyle which is run by T-Mobile. We did the whole package from concept and editorial supervision to production and post.
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I posted my most favourite clip featuring the extraordinary Zeigeist from Sweden here. Check the other clips at Electronic Beats.
Starting this semester I hold a seminar at University of Siegen on the subject “The Moving Web - New Forms of visual Net Aesthetics” together with my colleague and good friend Sascha Simons.
We’ll start the course with a formal analysis of principles of construction, visual language and cultural effects of a new audiovisual net aethetics (e.g. nonlinear, interactive logics of narration or the convergence with established form languages). Later on, the students will write concepts for new web video formats and realize them.
Some of the subjects will be:
Web Video: Case-Analysis – Forms, formats & genres.
From the Movies to Graphical User Interface and back.
Anne Friedberg „The virtual Window - From Alberti to Microsoft“.
How becomes video visible on the net? Platforms and logocs of presentation.
New forms of storytelling and aesthetics in editorial formats
Genuine Aesthetics? Non-Linearity and Self-Reflexivity
To learn more about my work at the chair for “Theorie und Praxis multimedialer Systeme” at the University of Siegen check www.multimediale-systeme.de.