In creating his work, which merges the worlds of illustration and animation, Steffen Kreft must have an unending amount of patience. As he showed me one of his new character illustrations, Steffen scrolled through a list of Illustrator layers that was longer than a Berlin winter. He must also have access to a good hand massage therapist.
Originally from Münster, Steffen is now based in Berlin during a year-long return trip to Germany after living for the last seven years in Wellington, New Zealand. He is currently focused on creating illustrations and animating new episodes for Lifeswap, a webseries developed in cooperation with the Goethe Institut that he co-created and produces with his Kiwi partner, writer and educator William Connor. Lifeswap is a humorous and engaging series that explores the differences between German and New Zealand cultures.
As well as working on Lifeswap, Steffen is co-founder of animation and video studio National Park, based in Wellington. There his list of job titles can barely be squeezed onto a business card (Director, Animator, Illustrator, Designer to name a few…).With illustration and animation work that is full of playful and charming ideas with a handmade aesthetic, I thought it would be fascinating to find out Steffen’s thoughts on the melding of the two disciplines in digital media.
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Judith Carnaby: What led you to illustration and animation? Have you always had an interest in moving image?
Steffen Kreft: I think originally I felt that it wasn’t enough to just draw, and have it sitting there. I realised that people engaged a lot more with things if they were moving. With my etchings and drawings I had a lot of exhibitions and invited all my friends, but noone ever said anything because they felt intimidated, that they didn’t know anything about art. Then I started turning illustrations into moving image and making films. Suddenly they could say something! That encouraged me, the feeling that moving image is more accessible to a lot of people.
Do you find that illustration plays an important role for you as as a basis for your animation work? Or does illustration also exist by itself as part of your practice?
I definitely do both. I haven’t done much commercial illustration but I always draw, whenever I have a moment. I have a current project that I started at the beginning of May, where I make one postcard a day, 280 by now! For that I do drawings and collage, which is a new found love of mine. I was really inspired by an exhibition here in Berlin at Gestalten Space, called the Art of Collage.
Illustration by Steffen Kreft, from One Postcard a Day
Do you have a particular area of research that really inspires you? Or do you base your work on the jobs that come up, and the problems that you need to solve or ideas you need to communicate?
I think my research is basically dependent on the job, at which point I think about what kind of style they need and then do research into that style. There are definitely animators and film-makers that I am really inspired by:Jan Švankmajer, a Czech surrealist animator who does mixed media and real life action mixed together; Michel Gondry, with his creative and fun approach; Felix Scheinberger is a friend who really inspires me in illustration, especially with some of the books that he has written.
Digital media, and in particular online media such as newspapers and magazines, has really expanded the possibilities for short animated illustrations and GIFs. How do you feel about that as a direction for illustration? Do you fell illustrators should be learning animation skills? I feel that as soon as you create a slight shift or movement in an image, it can bring an image to life in a way that you don’t expect.
In some ways I think it’s a shame. I think illustration should stand as something that people can engage with and is just beautiful as what it is. But then I think, especially in a commercial setting, if you want to engage people and to lure them in to something they might not otherwise notice, a little bit of movement is just more interesting. So yes, I think from a commercial point of view it is good for illustrators to know a little bit about animation, especially for digital media and for apps. Also, you don’t necessarily need to learn to do the animating yourself, if you have people you can collaborate with. If you’re not naturally drawn to animation or to learning about it, I think it would be better to just focus on what you like doing. For me, I never really liked the end of the animation process. I love making the sets and creating the figures, if they were drawn, or cut out of paper. And then as soon as it got to a computer, I just did it because I had to. I’m lucky to have my colleagues at National Park who are more at home with the digital part of the animation and post production.
National Park is an animation and video studio that you co-founded in Wellington, New Zealand. What are the different roles that people have in the studio and how much do you collaborate with others on your projects?
Paul Neason, my original business partner and I set up National park four years ago. At the beginning we didn’t have specific roles, we were both responsible for everything, which was great as it meant we learnt a lot. Now we have two more people on board, Toby and Melissa Donald, and the roles have become more separate, although of course there are also often co-operations and collaborations. I still do a mix of work including illustrating, animating and directing, but with some jobs I’ve focused on the illustration, handing over the graphic work to the animator, editor and sound designer. I think that when people focus on their favourite area, the final product really shows that each part was made by people who love what they’re doing.
National Park was involved in an animation for the Frankfurt Book Fair, where New Zealand was Guest of Honour in 2012. Could you explain a little bit about that film and the process used to create it?
National Park was approached by Rob Appierdo from Storybox in Wellington to collaborate on an animation that would introduce Frankfurt Book Fair visitors to New Zealand writers and literature, using excerpts of writing, poetry and quotes. The process for creating the animation is quite interesting and something we do often. Matt Gleeson created the illustrations. We printed out the digital illustrations, cut them out of paper, laid them out on a pane of glass which was lit from above, with a green screen on the floor underneath. When it was all set up we took step-by-step photos of each each element while animating them by hand; folding away or crumpling each piece of paper individually. Then we put each element together again digitally. We do that a lot with characters as well, where we animate the characters in front of the green screen, construct and photograph the sets separately, and put them together with the characters in After Effects. Toby Donald is really good at making them look natural in the environment, with the correct shadows and lighting. The Frankfurt Book Fair film was a big collaboration, with sound designers and actors and lots of other people involved. I must say I didn’t have so much to do with that film, I just made sure the German subtitles were correct and in the right place!
Frankfurt Book Fair Animation from National Park
Lifeswap explores the space and often the misunderstandings between people of German and New Zealand cultures. Your partner William Connor is writing the scripts and you are creating the illustrations and animating the series. How did this come about and did it stem form some of your experiences as an immigrant?
When we decided to come to Germany, we tried to find a way to fund our trip and we had always wanted to work together on our own project. We gained funding from the Goethe Institut for the first two episodes. It is quite perfect because they are an institute trying to bring German culture to NZ and to create some kind of cultural exchange, and we are a German/Kiwi couple who know first hand the challenges of communication! What we were wanting to communicate in the series came down to what we find the most important, or weird, about each other’s cultures. The stories are all based on real situations that we have experienced.
For me the illustration work in Lifeswap is particularly interesting. They characters have a really hand-drawn and organic feel to them, but I understand that they are all created digitally. Do the techniques you use in the Lifeswap animation reflect the way you approach illustration and animation generally. Do you prefer a hand-drawn approach?
Yes they are all digitally done, but they are also all drawn, just with a digital pen! I created and drew all the characters on paper first, and then traced them into Illustrator. I found a really organic looking tip for the pen so it still looks quite handmade. I’m actually lucky enough to have started using a huge Cintiq tablet, so I can draw directly onto the screen and it feels just like paper, which is so amazing! Now I feel like I’m drawing in my sketchbook and I feel so much more connected to the drawings. For the last two episodes I would take photos of movements of the hands and then trace them in Illustrator, but that felt distant somehow. I still take photos but I view them on a different screen and draw directly onto this new screen so it feels like I’m putting my creativity into the drawings: I’m translating what I see on the other screen and putting that into the drawing, rather than tracing. I’m much happier!
Lifeswap Episode 1: Complete Rubbish
Does having the end result of an animation in mind influence the way you approach the drawing in the first place?
Yes, absolutely. Before I draw them I think about how I am going to animate them, for example if I am going to use a particular perspective. The animation technique that I use is quite straightforward. I draw all the elements separately: the head is one layer, the hand, the arm and so on. Once I have drawn all the elements I animate them separately in After Effects. I can move them around just like puppets, using their joints. It gives me a lot of flexibility. Then I arrange all the elements, background, environment, characters, into a composition. It is important to think about the script and how that is going to be able to be animated. Often Will will write something in the script that is impossible to animate, so we have to change the script around a bit. It is my task to figure out how to animate it, how to communicate the script visually and make it the most engaging it can be.
What are you excited about in the future or what are your upcoming projects?
I’m excited to be continuing with Lifeswap for a while as we have just received funding from the Goethe Institut and the New Zealand Embassy here in Berlin to produce episodes three, four and five. We have just started episode three. Will has written the script and now I am putting together an animated storyboard which will lead on to completing the final animation, so that will be the next two months. We’ve been so lucky to work on a job like this, one that we’ve come up with ourselves— it’s our baby.
Illustration by Steffen Kreft, from One Postcard a Day