Dear
Animation Workshop, my name is Leon Fechner, I was born on the 26th of October
in 1992 in Berlin, Germany. With this letter and portfolio I would like to
present to you my eager wish to become part of the CG Bachelor line. This is my
fourth application (2013, 2014, 2015).
Where I’ve been so far
Where I’ve been so far
After
leaving school at the age of 17 I started my first job in the movie industry, becoming
an intern in the Art Department of “The Three Musketeers 3D” in Studio
Babelsberg. Originally I just wanted to use this time to figure out what I
wanted to do, but then realized that for the first time in my life - not like
in school - I felt challenged and appreciated. I not only learned to be a team player and how
to handle stress and spontaneous changes of plan but also how to interact with
an international community. Projects like “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, “Cloud Atlas”
and “The Hunger Games” were filled with people from all over the world and it
is amazing to see how people approach and solve problems in so many different
ways. I always stayed with the art department working once as a junior
Illustrator and once as an assistant graphic artist (from which grew my love of
vectors) but still feel that my biggest advantage with regard to skills - even
art wise - is what I learned while coordinating people and schedules, doing
budgets & legal clearance. Every one of these tasks has its own problems
and gave me a lot of new perspective. In an industry that keeps changing, I see
this flexibility and broad range of professional influence as a must. However, I
realized that I needed to take some time off to improve my art skills and in
Spring 2015 I attended the Drawing Academy with Artem as my teacher. It was
certainly a stressful and mind-bending experience but also one that I will
never regret as it helped me to improve and introduced me to people that I would
not want to have missed in my life.
The World that influences me
I have a
great interest in sacred, religious and mythological topics. The tales of the brothers Grimm, Greek mythology
and the Divine Comedy are absolutely magical to me. Gustave Dorés illustrations
first introduced me to the latter. I am almost haunted by his images, which
show the pure terror of the two poets traveling. The grotesque and beauty
combined. Someone who combines the old and the new is concept artist Jeff
Simpson who overpaints his oil creations in Photoshop and with this is able to
keep a classical look to his rather non-classical portraits. This together with
his choice of color never fails to amaze me. When it comes to classical master paintings
I love the works of Jean-Leon-Gerome, a man who loved the old Orient and created
his paintings in such a smooth and elegant way that I cannot withstand the
magic. His piece “Pollice Verso” - a gladiator in an arena waiting for the
Emperor's judgement - is my most favorite painting.
With every
visual image comes a story and some of the best storytelling happens for me in
David Fincher's movie “Se7en”. The pace & composition perfectly morph
around the grim tale that is told. A shaky cam on the man without control, a
steady cam on the man in control? Brilliant! A more fun movie is “Good Bye
Lenin!” by Wolfgang Becker. The way comedy and drama go hand in hand here is
astonishing. A movie where I'm crying with laughter, it also showed me that I
don’t need fancy sets to tell a great story.
Gamewise I
definitely have to point to The Witcher 3, which was able to transport real
emotions to me. The characters - even side characters - have been written in a
way that made them people rather than just a bunch of pixels, not to mention
the enormous scale of story and experiences it brought with it. Personally, I feel
all of the three mentioned have one thing in common, an appropriate atmosphere.
This is a big challenge that not everybody meets. The Hunger Games movies sadly
fail completely to achieve this along with side stories that just disappear in
bad writing and acting, not to mention the terrible holes in the plot. I
appreciate a different approach to storytelling but find it disturbing to
create something different only for the sake of being different. David Lynch's
“Mulholland Drive” is the essence of this problem for me. It has some genius
scenes but destroys itself with trying to make every scene way different and
more special than anything ever filmed. When it comes to characters - even
though I haven’t read all the comics - the one superhero that I have to
criticize is the classical “Superman”. Even though the idea of having his
costume being Clark Kent and not the other way around is great I feel like he’s
a character that just destroys a lot of great plot because of his godlike powers
and easy world view.
Today & the Future
Today & the Future
While
waiting for a response, I will further develop [RK1]my story “BLACK ABSINTH” about a woman
who flees Nazi Germany and becomes a femme fatale gangster lord in the 1950s US,
seeking redemption for the death of her son. “How close is the average human to
being a “monster”?” is a question that I mainly try to answer. I was first confronted
with it after visiting the concentration camp “Auschwitz”. I saw what was left
of the terror and horror that once took place there. How could the men who did this still go home to
their wives, kids and pets and hug them smiling? But they did and they were
able to find joy in the company of loved ones, as do we. This is a complicated topic that will not
leave me too soon.
In general I feel that my travels opened my eyes to larger
topics like this. The differences between people, the stories of the past and
how different the cultures are and how they changed is more than fascinating. I
took trips to the far west of France where they have a second native language
next to French - the Breton. I took a trip to Tunisia where a Muslim told me the
secret why camels always smile (as well as the experience that it is very
painful to ride them..) and of course I took a trip to Denmark where I have
been now for almost a full year. This year has changed me a lot in the best
possible way and introduced me to some of the greatest people I’ve ever met. I
not only learned a lot here, but of course also brought a bit of myself with me
to share.
When I’m not drawing or painting I love to cook (a good meal is one
of the few things that might surpass good art), play drums to balance myself
out or play pen and paper to challenge my creativity in the most sociable way I
know. Next to that I have a great passion for good movies, their science as
well as astrophysics and good books.
My greater
goal is to visualize stories from myself and also others. For this I have to
improve, learn and change a lot and there is nothing I’m looking forward to more.
I feel like the Animation Workshop is a great first big step into this
direction.
I’m very
used to Photoshop and illustrator while still being on my first steps with
regard to 3D, though I have done experiments with Maya as well as ZBrush. With
my last words I want to give out a big thanks to the Open Workshop and their
great help and support. This includes the amazing staff as well as the people
who shared their hard work with me. Thanks! I hope you enjoy the little journey
through this portfolio.
I’m able to
fund the education with the help of a German student loan.
Best
regards and hopefully see you soon,
Leon
Leon
imdb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4400666/
e-mail: Fechnerberlin@live.de
e-mail: Fechnerberlin@live.de
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