Why did you choose a goat for spellmaker?
In short – because of a very early childhood memory involving a goat. The episode was absolutely insignificant and there is no reason why I should have retained that memory, except for the fact that it was a somewhat weird experience even for a child. In detail – there was no goat in the original script of the film. Moreover it should have been a 2D animation with a pretty straightforward story. But for various reasons there was quite a long time between pre-production and the start of production. During that time, I got terribly bored by the story and the whole concept. Animation requires tons of long-term motivation and it would have been a true torture to do all the work on a film I lost all the passion for even before starting the production. So, to “revive” the whole thing I literally broke the plot into pieces, made it all psychedelic and also radically switched the technique from 2D to 3D & Virtual Reality (I always wanted to play around with VR). During that rework a weird and amazing song about a goat brought back that childhood memory. At that point I thought it might be helpful to use an utterly negligible childhood episode with that goat as a central element in the film. The goat obviously did the magic then – I finished the film.

Which techniques did you use to animate A Goat’s Spell?
All in general it is 3D computer animation, but within that toolset I used a couple of very different techniques. All rooms and all characters are drawn in VR. For the child and the granny (black figure feeding the kid) I rigged the VR drawings the common way and used conventional 3D animation. The black bird is animated as frame-by-frame VR drawings. The goat, the bull, the doll and many other things are driven by 3D simulated physics while the numerous kids in the maze are a crowd simulation. Most fun was the teacher though, whom I rigged as sort of a “virtual puppet” and played it in VR a bit like you’d play a glove puppet. VR is still a very young working environment, and it is hard to find good animation tools for that. Therefore, I had to “hack” my VR set so I could use it for the teacher the way I wanted to. Same VR “hack” did the recording of all Point of View shots in the film. I imported the scenes in VR and tracked/recorded my head movements as a substitute for camera animation.

Did you or a team member compose the lullaby before the end of the film or did it pre-exist?
It was composed by Tobias Schneider and Anna Sumika Suzuki, the singer. Tobias, who composed all the music for the film, found that the kind of style I had in mind for this particular part of the film is hard to compose the common way. He suggested improvisation. So the day I was at his studio he invited Anna, a professional jazz singer, and they improvised together.

How much do you enjoy non-linear stories and do you plan to direct further films this way?
Indeed I do enjoy non-linear stories quite a lot, but non-linearity is not the most interesting point for me in storytelling. It is rather experimental narration, which often goes for non-linear patterns or gives up any kind of plot completely. I hope one day I will be brave enough to come up with such kinds of scenarios in my work. A Goat’s Spell isn’t non-linear in my view though. The plot is surely unconventional since strange things happen, but still they happen linearly around a protagonist following the very common pattern of a day. In further work I definitely want to continue experimenting with storytelling.

Is there any particular short film that made a special impression on you?
If I have to name one right away, then it would be Min Börda (The Burden) by Niki Lindroth von Bahr. Musicals never work for me, I have really hard times with that genre. Min Börda is the first film I’ve ever watched, in which the form of a musical feels all natural and is even an essential part of the film’s quality. Apart from that the film is excellent in many ways.

What’s your definition of a good film?
A film can be good in many very different ways. It is like food. A good film makes your mind feel well the same way a good meal makes you feel satisfied. Though sometimes it can happen that a film has at least one moment – a scene, a shot, a phrase – which picks explicitly you from all the audience addressing you directly and personally. Then it shows you something that can’t be put in words. A film providing such an experience is a very good film.

A Goat’s Spell is being shown as part of Lab Competition L2.