Vienna-based studio Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm completes animation and editing on the highly-acclaimed intro to director Tom Tykwer’s ‘A Hologram For The King,’ featuring an animated Tom Hanks singing the iconic Talking Heads song, ‘Once in a Lifetime.’
Vienna-based studio Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm recently completed work on the highly-acclaimed intro to director Tom Tykwer’s A Hologram For The King, which blends live-action footage and 2D animated sequences and features an animated Tom Hanks singing the iconic Talking Heads song, “Once in a Lifetime.”
The intro was created by Benjamin Swiczinsky, Santiago Lopez Jover, Hilde Renner, Guille Segui, Sascha Vernik, and 3D artist Lukas Kampichler. For early design, planning and storyboards, the NÖT team began with pen and paper before moving to Adobe Photoshop, with 2D animation completed using TVPaint and Adobe Flash.
Compositing and 3D elements, such as when the character dives down to the “sunken city,” were handled using Eyeon Fusion. The “realistic” pink explosion-clouds when Hanks first appears were completed by RiseFX, the primary VFX vendor for the film’s remaining effects, which consisted of extensive “invisible” VFX work.
Working from a rough cut of the intro that used placeholders for the animation sequences, Swiczinsky employed an Avid system to refine the edit, moving live-action sequences around as needed in order to best fit the rhythm of the animation.
The studio also has an ongoing animated web series, Birne, Schädel & Haupt, which is updated on the first each month:
Source: Neuer Österreichischer Trickfilm
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
