Thomas Kutschera and Azadeh Shakourirad had a live discussion on CIFEJ Instagram page
Thanks to Mohsen Chiniforushan & Elham Shirvani.
The interview was held during quarantine between two children and youth cinema and animation activists from Germany and Iran.
Thomas Kutchera is head of CG Pixomondo Frankfurt. VFX of dragons in Game of Thrones is the most well-known work of him.
We gratefully thank Thomas for accepting our invitation for CIFEJ’s live on June 27, 2020.

What type of work do you like to do most?
It depends. Mostly I like to figure out things, so you have a shot or a sequence to realize and you can't do it out of the box. So finding a clue, developing a workflow, program tools that can solve the issue, that is mostly exciting.
E.g. for the German children's feature film "magical sisters" we had to visualize a speaking feather duster. That has been a challenge since you can't find ready to go feather plug-in. So you have to do a lot of RnD work upfront, how do feathers like and how can we render them. Next issue has been how you make the anima table, because you want to have hand animation, but the final behavior should be naturalistic and physically correct.

What has been your first effect?
Adventures of Pinocchio, a children´s tale by Carlo Collodi. After my graduation I started at bibo tv, they already did effects on Never ending story III by Michael Ende, another famous writer of children´s books. It was a lucky coincidence to make a leap from university to feature film.
One of my tasks was letting Pinocchio's nose grow. Again an example, they shot it for real in some and in others, the nose has been 3d.

What conditions make you decide to shoot something on set or to create it in the computer?
There are many conditions that make the decision: What kind of movie? that`s trivial. Can anything be shot for real? Dangerous or expensive? Do you have to be flexible? Some things you can't shoot for real, e.g. a spaceship or a creature like in Mandalorian.

Are there different approaches for effects?
First of all you decide what to do in 2d or with footage and what to do in 3d.
Mostly it´s a combination of these elements together with the plates of the shot. It´s always hard to create a full CG shot convincingly photo real. So you go for the mix.
During Pinocchio we had to show a waterfall in the hills, a bit farer away. Nowadays you could tend to go with a fluid or a particles sim, but not 1996.So they shot salt falling down from a stage against a black background and we used that footage to comp it in later.
Another method you often use is day for night. For that we had Pinocchio drifting on a small river staring at the sky and the trees. They shot it during the day and then we color corrected the shot that way, that it looked like night, keeping nice clouds in the sky but adding a moon and stars. In case of got we mostly had real shot elements in the shot.

Do you still draw by hand?
Rather rarely, at least not physically with a pen on paper. Of course I use a tablet, but since I´m not a storyboard artist or a matte painter, it´s more to paint maps or to do digital sculpting.
 
What festivals have you seen so far?
Vova's DYTIATKO in Ukraine, and of course where we met, Nelson Mandelas Children FilmFestival in Johannesburg. I have been of course at Jospes´s MICE in Valencia.
Last year has been a very special one, I went to Taiwan on ANIMEDU of my friend Ryan and did a workshop for young professionals about scripting and simulation.
Currently I´m jury at Guro International Film Fest in Korea. Due to Corona we did everything from our home office, but anyway it´s been great so far. As well as seeing all these films from all over the world.

What workshops did you do during film festivals?
Due to the software needed I did no hands on workshops except two. One has been more an event in SA with children but mainly having the dragons as an anchor for crafting and painting on paper.
The second was a master class with hands-on during AnimEdu with young professionals. That has been a fantastic experience even though I had to struggle with the different type of keyboard settings.
The point is you need to know English; you need to handle a computer before you can start doing something. In this regard stop motion is more convenient, because it´s much more concrete and you have an immediate result.

What is your experience with young people who start learning effects?
If I use my experiences from my teaching at the university I have to say it´s harder and easier at the same time for them.
Easier because it´s absolute easy to gain information, you have the internet and YouTube for all kinds of learning tutorials, you don't have to walk to a library, you get the content immediately at all time, at nearly every place. You can use online learning platforms like UDEMY skill share that allow low cost access to tons of information.
If you ever come to a point you're stuck you can ask in forums and get an answer from there.
Most soft wares have learning or even free versions, you are allowed to use.
When I was starting, I bought the software in a store, got a CD with the one and only version and that´s it.
Flips side of today is that you are overwhelmed by soft wares you can use or at least the possibilities they offer! What is the right one? What is the best approach?
Again when I started there have been only a few packages available and their features have been rather modest. Made it in some way easier.

You teach also at a university. What is your experience with the students?
It´s mostly what you make out of it.3D is not everyone´s taste, you have to invest quite some time to get into. But I´m absolute fine with that, if you study you are supposed to widen your mind and get to know different areas of animation.

How did you come in contact with CIFEJ?
I´ve been at the FUNN film festival in SHARDJHA presenting Pixomondos work on “game of thrones” and that´s where I made the acquaintance of Josep Arbiol from MICE. Later I met Vassilis Karamitsanis and Mahgan Farhang. That´s how things started rolling and it´s been a great experience so far.