Quest (excerpt)

In quest of water a sand puppet leaves the sand world in which it lives. It wanders through other worlds made of paper, stone and iron, following the sound of dripping water. In the end the sand puppet manages to reach the water ... in a very tragic way.


15 FRAMES PER DAY

This puppet animation film, supported by the government of Germany, was carried out by Thomas Stellmach (story, animation, production) and Tyron Montgomery (direction, direction of photography, screenplay) at the Animation Department at Kassel University. The film got the OSCAR® for Best Short Animation Film 1996, the CARTOON d'Or for Best European Animation Film 1996 and 37 national and international awards since March 1996.

It was shot frame by frame with an ARRI II BV and a self constructed single frame motor.
The position of the character, the flying paper, the falling stones and the rotating machines were manipulated and photographed 19.000 times controlled by the computer.
The 12 m² sets had to be rebuilt and altered 30 times, the 20 m² background was replaced five times by various air brush designs. It took 3/4 of a year to build the "metal" scenery.