News from Protoplanet 2D Animation Studio

July 2024 — We are allowed to design and create an animation film on the topic of “climate change and migration” for the Cologne Refugee Council. We are looking forward to an exciting production for a young target group.

April 2024 — We are delighted to support director Tom Reimer in his project to conceive, design, animate and produce the animated film “ZAU”. The film uses no language at all and addresses the question of the importance of individuality and humanitarian values. The lively-emotional is contrasted with the technically rational. How do the two worlds fit together?

February 2024 — Our latest independent production “Forever SEVEN” will have its world premiere in competition at the New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF) in early March. The German premiere will then take place at the end of April in the “Tricks for Kids” competition of the ITFS (Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film). We are very happy about both! And of course also about the “Particularly Valuable” rating recently awarded by the FBW Film Ratings Office.

January 2024 — The Hakawy International Arts Festival for Children invited us to Cairo at the beginning of February with the kind support of the Goethe-Institut. The occasion was the screening of a program of films curated by the partner festival Schlingel in Chemnitz, among which we were represented twice: META and CAT LAKE CITY. Together with Ibrahim Saad, the head of the Egyptian Jesuit Animation School, there was then a detailed question and answer session with both children and young animators.

November 2023 — Images of coffee plantations tend to look green and picturesque. What these don’t show is that they are actually green deserts, because coffee plants don’t provide food or home for many animals and, of course, pesticides don’t help as well. However, when native trees are grown alongside coffee plants and agrotoxins are no longer used, small ecosystems can emerge. For Curu, a sustainable coffee brand, we are currently developing animations that illustrate the characteristics and benefits of an agroforestry in a coffee plantation.

Oct/Nov 2023 — The first animation we created for Saida International last year is followed up by a three-part explainer series on the topic of “Female Genital Mutilation” (FGM). While the first video provides a basic overview of the topic and where to get help, with the other videos we will go into more depth thematically. The explainer videos will include medical and other useful information for doctors and specialists. We also create various sharepics for online marketing.

October 2023 — We are super happy that Gigi Chan and Myles Berrington will be supporting us in animation, design and development over the next few months.

October 2023 — Sound recordings for our latest independent production “Forever SEVEN” with Joh Weißgerber from Schaltgeräte Studios in Werder and Foley artist Peter Sandmann. It was once again a pure joy to witness this work, which adds so much life to our animations. 🙂 Thank you for the lovely recording session and the wonderful afternoon with you!!

September 2023 — Our festival runner and multiple award-winning animated film “PAWO”can now finally be seen online! It already has over 40,000 views on the KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg channel. 🙂

August 2023 — It´s a pleasure for us to contribute concept art, design and animation to an animadoc film by director Chris Seegel. The documentary is about Christy, a 27-year-old girl living in the party city of Berlin far away from her hometown of Wrexham Wales. After committing suicide she gets a second chance in life. She´s surviving an overdose and finds that there is indeed life after death, yet what kind of life will this be? We are animating the dream she had in her one year long coma.

July 2023 — For arte TV we´re creating a 3 minute long animation about the german traffic light man, who has had a very interesting history. As animation technique we decided for a combination of cutout and drawn 2D animation. In autumn 2023, the animated explainer will be broadcast on TV and available online in the media library.

June 2023 — In addition to animations, we also repeatedly design print products – in addition to a 5-part animated film series, we have also produced comics as accompanying material for the AETAS Foundation. For SAIDA we designed a flyer and social media content matching the explainer film.

June 2023 — Amongst other projects, we´re busy completing a 9 minute animated short for children based on the book “Für immer SIEBEN” by SaBine Büchner and her very distinct characters. As creating drawn frame by frame animation is a very time consuming procedure, it´s crucial to have a talented team with passion for it´s craft. We´re lucky to have had some amazing young 2D animators with us who’ve helped shaping us this project considerably – big thanks to all of you!!

May 2023 — Develop ideas, brainstorm, plan, compose, design, animate, animate, animate, clean, colour, fine-tune, soundtrack, rejoice 🙂 In a few weeks, the anniversary trailer of this year’s 30th Kinolino Dresden Film Festival for young audiences will be coming to the world and the cinemas, we are very happy!

February 2023 — As always, we look forward to great inquiries and new projects this year. We are currently in the final sprint of two series projects and a short film and are starting with a festival trailer. A wonderful new project that will start in mid-2023 and that we are already looking forward to is a book adaptation of a work by the well-known illustrator Nadia Budde. We’re big fans and we’re really looking forward to it.

January 2023 — It was a pleasure working with the talented intern Adéle Pinchot. She was supporting us in creating animated maps, title animation and transitions for the pilote of an animated series.

December 2022 — Our animated film META has already been selected by over 40 international film festivals –including New York International Children’s Film Festival, Filmfest Dresden, Filmfest Brooklyn, Animafest Zagreb, LIAF London, Reykjavik International Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, Oaxaca Filmfest etc.. META was also awarded the title “Particularly Valuable” by the FBW Film Assessment Office in Wiesbaden. We are very pleased! 🙂

November 2022 — We were allowed to produce an animated explainer film for Saida International e.V. about a very important and sensitive topic. SAIDA is committed to women’s and children’s rights. The main focus is on girls’ education, protection against genital mutilation and child marriage. In this animated film, professionals are educated about the topic of genital mutilation and shown ways to help the affected women and girls.

October 2022 — In the summer of 2022, we had 12-year-old Liron from Hamburg as a guest in our studio – accompanied by a team from KiKA Timster. Liron is very interested in character animation and would like to become an animator himself in the future. We showed him the first steps in how to develop and animate a character from a sketch. You can watch the post here – around minute 10:30 🙂

September 2022 — We are very happy that we were able to design and animate the pilot for a new series of a well-known brand. From the character design of the animal protagonists, the creation of background designs to the animation. We were also responsible for the title design and its animation, transitions and other animated graphics.

August 2022 — We were allowed to produce the intro, outro and four animated clips for the series “Spatzenfilme im Nest” for the Spatzenkino Berlin. The aim was to produce interim clips for the Spatzenfilme program that are fun, convey the mood of the season or encourage physical activity.

June 2022 – We are happy to show you this year’s Kinolino trailer, which we were able to animate and design. The motto and focus of this year’s Dresden Film Festival Kinolino is “wild by nature”. The animated adventure of the festival trailer was correspondingly wild and fast-paced. But see for yourself…

March 2022 — We have the great honor of being able to animate the book “Forever SEVEN” by SaBine Büchner. “Forever SEVEN” tells a wonderful story about imagination, friendship and the treasure of treasures in poetic images. We look forward to seven likeable characters and a mysterious box.

March 2022 — Our latest independent production “META” will have its world premiere in competition at the 25th New York International Children’s Film Festival in March 2022. We are celebrating the German premiere of META at the 34th International Filmfest Dresden in the National Competition… 🙂

February 2022 — We’re excited to create an animated film for the “On Your Marks! Citizen Science in Your City” call for competition. Making Citizen Science visible as a forward-looking approach in urban society – that is the major goal of the new city competition of the “Museum für Naturkunde Berlin” and of “Wissenschaft im Dialog”.

September 2021 — After months of working from home, we can finally work in the studio again – vaccinated and coiffed;). And we also have a new colleague on the protoplanet team – Eileen Eilert actively supports us in our current projects.

August 2021 — We had the honor of conceptualize, designing and animating this year’s trailer for the 28th KINOLINO Film Festival for young audiences.

July 2021 — We are allowed to create several animated films for the AETAS Children’s Foundation in Munich. The foundation has set itself the goal of looking after children and adolescents after a drastic traumatic event in order to prevent later mental illness.

June 2021 — The project “12 impulses for teachers” of the Akademie für Lerncoaching Zurich consists of a series of 12 films in the “masterclass style”. We create several animated sequences for each episode.

November 2020 — Right now, we are working on several animations for the label KittyFriends.

October 2020 — META is an animated short we are producing and animating right now. It will have several characters that are linked together.

March/April 2020 — We´re doing home office now, but, of course, we remain available for any kind of commissioned work. We are currently designing and animating an image film for the NGO “Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights”.

February 2020 — Due to the high interest in our animations, techniques and workflow, we want to offer a two-hour “introduction to 2D drawing animation in Adobe Animate” course in the near future. We are working with Adobe Animate for our frame by frame animations as well as After Effects for compositing. In the workshop, we want to show you the basics of the program, go into animation principles and our workflows. But we can also offer individual sessions with specific projects or questions. If you are interested, please email us: info@protoplanet-studio.de

September 2019 — After a short summer break we´re back on track and started eagerly working on a new image film we were asked to create. Our new talented intern Shenja Tatschke supports us for the time being.

August 2019 — At the end of her 3-month internship at Protoplanet Studio Clàudia Villagrasa Pallarès made a wonderful jingle for us (to be revealed later this year).

January 2018 — It´s done! Our new animated short film CAT LAKE CITY is finally finished! We are now entering the film festival and distribution circuit and hope that Percy Cat will rock the world! 🙂 Here you can have some more infos and you can watch the trailer.

March 2018 – CAT LAKE CITY has just been finished and selected already for these cool festivals: ITFS Stuttgart Int´l Festival of Animated Film, IndieLisboa Int´l Film Festival, Flatpack Film Festival, Filmfest Dresden, Kristiansand Int´l Children´s Film Festival, Int´l Children’s Film Festival Bangladesh, Seoul Guro Int´l Kids Film Festival. We are looking forward to it

January 2018 — It´s done! Our new animated short film CAT LAKE CITY is finally finished! We are now entering the film festival and distribution circuit and hope that Percy Cat will rock the world! 🙂 Here you can have some more infos and you can watch the trailer.

October 2018 — We, hereby, welcome Lea Reichert to the Protoplanet Team! Lea studies Communication Design at the HTW Berlin and does an internship for the next three month. We are looking forward to a creative and imaginative time and are more than happy to have her onboard.

März 2018 — Our festival trailer for this year’s Filmfest Dresden celebrated its premiere on 13th March 2018 in the state representation of the Free State of Saxony in Berlin. Johanna and Alex joined the venue for a small interview. The trailer will be released shortly thereafter in various Saxon cinemas and of course during the festival week in April. Later, it will also appear on the website and in the social channels of the Filmfest Dresden.

Juli 2017 — The Protoplanets are happy to be part of the “Smile for a While« charity coloring book and exhibition to support the St. Christopher’s Hospice in SE London and the LOROS Hospice in Leicester. The book and exhibition, that features 35 artists, is the brainchild of the lovely Sarah Klan and we hope you will support this project to raise some money for the hospices so they can continue to help people during the most difficult times. You could also visit the exhibition at The Peckham Pelican 3-23 July if you are in the London area or please share the event with your London friends: klanimation.com.

Juni 2017 — Two Protoplanets had the honour to present our newest production „Trial & Error“ in the Grand Competition as well as in the Children´s Competition at the Animafest Zagreb 2017. If you like to know more about it, you can read it hier.

Juni 2017 — Whooohooo! „Trial & Error“ hat den backup.award gewonnen – den Hauptpreis des diesjährigen 19.backup_festival Weimar! Die Jury habe sich begeistert gezeigt von der “hintersinnigen, humorvollen Geschichte mit überraschenden Pointen und unerwarteten Wendungen”, heißt es von der Weimarer Festivalleitung.

Mai 2017 — Nachdem wir bereits 2015 das Vergnügen hatten “Pawo” in Wrocław (Poland) vorzustellen, freuen wir uns umso mehr darüber, dass die WRO Media Art Biennale uns in diesem Jahr darum gebeten hat, ihr Sunday Matinee-Programm für Kinder zu kuratieren! Alexander wird anwesend sein und zusammen mit unserer Eigenproduktion “Trial & Error” sieben weitere ausgesuchte Animationskurzfilme unter dem Motto “Solving Problems can be fun” vorstellen.

Februar 2017 — Das Protoplanet Studio freut sich sehr, für das Eggplant Collective Stickermag eine Doppelseite mit vielen coolen Stickern zu gestalten. Das Eggplant Collective wurde in Berlin im Rahmen der ersten Pictoplasma Academy in einer Explosion der Kreativität geboren. Die Illustratoren, Animatoren, Zeichner und Designer, die ihre gemeinsame Liebe zum Character Design zusammengebracht hat, präsentierten bereits in der Academy All Stars Show beim 10-jährigen Pictoplasma Jubiläumsfestival in Berlin sowie der 2016er ‘Memory’ Ausstellung in Bern (CH) ihr Können.

Januar 2017 — Wow, wir sind begeistert! – Das New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF) hat PAWO nicht nur gerne im Trailer. Das NYICFF-Designteam war desweiteren der Meinung, dass PAWO “das mit Abstand stärkste Design besitzt, um das 20jährige Festivaljubiläum zu repräsentieren”. Uuuund – das ist noch nicht alles. Ein paar PAWO-Charaktere haben es auch auf das diesjährige Festival-T-Shirt geschafft!! Wir sind schon ziemlich gespannt, wie das in echt kommt. Cool oder cool?

November 2016 — In Südkorea hat unser neuester animierter Kurzfilm TRIAL & ERROR den AISFF ROCK AWARD im Internationalen Wettbewerb des renommierten 14. Asiana Film Festival in Seoul, Südkorea gewonnen!!! Wir sind super glücklich und fühlen uns sehr geehrt. »Der Preis wird vergeben an den Film mit dem herausragendsten Stil und Perspektive.«

November 2016 — »Trial & Error« hat den »Special Jury Award« des 8th ReAnimania Int´l Animation Film & Comic Art Festival of Yerevan in Armenien gewonnen.

November 2016 — Beim 6. Internationalen Animations Film Festival Gdansk in Polen hat »Trial & Error« den »Best Animation Short« – Preis erhalten.

November 2016 — »PAWO« hat eine »Lobende Erwähnung” für den besten 2D Animations-Kurzfilm beim 1. Internationalen Animations-Kurzfilm Festival AJAYU in Peru erhalten.

November 2016 — Yippie! In Schweden hat “Trial & Error” den iFestival Award beim 27. Stockholm International Film Festival gewonnen.

Oktober 2016 — Im Oktober haben wir einen Animationsworkshop für Kinder und Jugendliche zwischen 8-12 Jahren beim dfb e.V. Bergen auf Rügen geleitet. Es hat großen Spaß gemacht, die sehr interessierten und engagierten Nachwuchsanimatoren beim Entdecken der kreativen Möglichkeiten der Stopmotion Animation zu begleiten. Die Kids lernten etwas über die Geschichte der Animation, über Storytelling und wurden vertraut mit verschiedenen Animationstechniken und -prinzipien. Dann ging es zum kreativen Teil, in dem viele super tolle Trickfilme als Whiteboard-, Cut Out- oder Knetanimation entstanden. Am Ende des Workshops haben wir alle noch einen witzigen Pixilation Film produziert.

Oktober 2016 — “Trial & Error“ hat den ersten Preis des AKUT Amberger Kurzfilm Festivals gewonnen.

Oktober 2016 — Trial & Error wurde geehrt mit dem Preis für den Besten Animationsfilm beim 67. Montecatini Int´l Film Festival, eines der ältesten und renomiertesten Festivals in Europe in Italien

Oktober 2016 — Trial & Error hat den zweiten Kurzfilm-Preis Kurzfilm beim 12. KurzFilmFestival in Diessen am Ammersee erhalten.

Oktober 2016 — Trial & Error wurde als bester Animationskurzfilm beim 13th BendFilm Festival 2016 ausgezeichnet.

September 2016 — Trial & Error hat den 3. Jury Preis beim 13. Konstanzer kurz.film.spiele Festival gewonnen.

September 2016 — PAWO hat den Publikumspreis beim 10. Sunnyside Short Film Festival in NY gewonnen.

September 2016 — Trial & Error hat in der Kategorie “Best Animation Award” beim 5. International Tour Film Festival in Italien gewonnen.

August 2016 — Trial & Error wurde mit dem Preis “Best Animation Winner” im August 2016 beim “Short to the point” Int’l Film Festival in Rumänien ausgezeichnet.

August 2016 — PAWO wurde beim Little Big Shots – Australia´s Int´l Film Festival for Kids mit dem »Festival Director´s Pick« geehrt.

Juli 2016 — Trial & Error has won the 1st Audience Award at the 23rd edition of Open Eyes Film Fest Marburg | Germany

Juni 2016 — Trial & Error has been awarded as Best Short Film / Children’s Jury Award at Festiwal Kinolub 2016 in Poland

Mai 2016 — “Trial & Error” has won the “Best Children´s Film Award” at 16th Cine a la Calle Short Film Festival 2016 in Colombia

April 2016 — “Trial & Error” has received the “Platinum Remi Award” for Animation at 49th WorldFest Houston Int´l Film and Video Festival

April 2016 — Trial & Error was rated as “Highly Recommended” by FBW (German federal authority for evaluating and rating film)

März 2016 — We were kindly invited to join this year’s Mecal Film Festival to watch PAWO together with kids from Barcelona Spain.

Februar 2016 — PAWO has won the Award for the Best Animated Short Film at the 18th Annual BAMkids Film Festival Brooklyn NY

Januar 2016 — PAWO has won the Children´s Award at the 17th Bayreuther Short Film Festival “kontrast” 2016 Germany.