Über dem Nebelmeer

David can visualize the worlds behind his paintings. However, the longer he looks at a painting in the museum, the more his own creativity begins to fade. An oppressive fog descends, and the voices of the visitors increasingly crowd his mind. The film explores whether he can escape this mental pressure and reconnect with his creative core.

In Über dem Nebelmeer, I took on the role of Technical Director and Motion Capture Supervisor, with full responsibility for the animation and character pipeline. The project was developed as part of my studies at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and had to be completed within a strict two-week timeframe defined by the academy.
My role combined strategic technical planning with hands-on execution, ensuring that motion capture data, character setup, and animation quality aligned with both the narrative and the production deadline.

We used the Rokoko suite for body motion capture, which required extensive cleanup and refinement to achieve believable movement and weight. I handled the complete mocap workflow, including data cleanup and noise reduction in MotionBuilder.
A critical part of my responsibility as Technical Director was ensuring that the captured performances remained readable and emotionally coherent, despite time pressure and hardware limitations.

The character was created using Character Creator and manually refined in Blender to better support our artistic style. In MotionBuilder, I remapped the Rokoko skeleton to our custom character rig, adapted proportions and joint behavior to preserve realism.

Early tests with Unreal Engine MetaHumans were deliberately discarded, as they did not meet the visual and technical requirements at the time. This decision was essential to maintaining control over the character pipeline and animation quality.

While Unreal Engine integration and scene assembly were primarily handled by co-director Julian Dünser, the project relied on Unreal Engine for real-time rendering, look development, lighting, and final cinematic output.

From a Technical Director perspective, my role was to ensure that the animation data and character assets were technically robust and engine-ready, enabling a smooth handoff into the real-time environment without costly iteration cycles.

The core production team consisted of four people: Viktor Presber, Cyril Fischer, Julian Dünser as co-director, and myself. Additional collaborators included sound designers and musicians. Despite the small team size, we maintained a highly organized workflow, dividing responsibilities clearly while staying closely connected to ensure creative and technical alignment. The compact structure allowed for rapid iteration, tight feedback loops, and immediate problem-solving, which was essential given the intensive two-week production schedule.

Alongside my technical responsibilities, I also co-directed the film, aligning performance direction with the technical constraints of motion capture and animation. This dual role allowed for faster decisions and tighter integration between creative intent and technical execution. This combination of technical oversight and creative direction ensured that both the film’s narrative and its visual execution maintained coherence, quality, and realism under extreme time pressure.

Über dem Nebelmeer was completed within the intensive two-week production schedule and presented at the ADC Creative Club 2022 in Stuttgart. The ADC (Art Directors Club) is a respected German association that celebrates creative work in film, motion design, and advertising. Seeing the film presented there was a rewarding moment for us, as it reflected all the effort we put into the project under such tight time constraints. For me personally, it was especially satisfying to see how the mocap data, character pipeline, and technical decisions I oversaw came together on screen, bringing the story and performances to life.