International Autumn Academy Oerlinghausen

This time I have to write this weblog article in English because I think that some people from the academy may find this text through google and because of that it wouldn’t be a good idea to exclude these people just by sticking to german language.

Fabio Magnifico and me in position of his assistant went for one week to the »Internationale Herbstakademie 2005«. It took place in the St. Hedwigshaus in Oerlinghausen/Germany which is being organized by Prof. Dr. Klaus-Ove Kahrmann from the »Kunst und Musik«-department of the University in Bielefeld. Many students from the university of bielefeld, all around germany and poland came there to work together in the workshops.

The task of fabio and me was to give an introduction into producing a digital short movie on a dvd with the correct positioning of light, use of stylistic elements and camera angles and perspectives using dv cameras and the whole adobe suite with Premiere, After Effects, Encore and Photoshop.

But this workshop was only one of many that took place in that week as there were also a ›wood engraving‹, a ›photography‹ and ›experimental sound‹ group. Each group had really interesting and inspiring results. For me this was a completely new application of creative power and especially the experimental sound was something I had never experienced in the past.

Beside the really hard work which was necessary to keep track of the time limit of one week it was a wonderfull time I will sure miss. Due to the fact that nearly everyone at the »Kunst und Musik«-department is able to play an instrument like piano or guitar and is able to sing much better than myself we had always some music in the evening. I normally don’t get in touch with live music and so it was marvelous to hear songs like Alan Silvestri’s »Forrest Gump – Feather Theme« which was also used for the Du bist Deutschland-Campaign, »Hit The Road Jack« and many other songs performed by people who are extremely talented singers.

Even the movie we made was entirely produced without using commercial music. All vocals and melodies has been sung by the students and played on a midi-keyboard. That was amazing and totally new way for me to listen to music. And I liked the funny games we played. Special greetings fly out to Don Juan. =)

Apart from party in the evening and at night after the job was done I really enjoyed the time there. At first I was a bit afraid because of the language barrier and how different we will try to solve the problems together.

I expected a totally different way of thinking – and it was true. But in my opinion it worked like a charm and we can be proud of what we have produced together. I enjoyed every minute of this great time we spend together and I would do it again anytime as soon as possible.

Perhaps we all meet again next time of Mr. Kahrmann and in the end Fabio let me help. I hope to meet you in February in the Ringlokschuppen when the film will shown to a wide audience. Perhaps we have a chance to… Anyway, as I promised I uploaded all the pictures I took to flickr. I someone does not want to appear here please let me know. Till next time. Hope to see you soon.

And last but not least I would like to thank Christian that he brought along the beer, vine and berentzen with a preparation time of only one hour. We had fun until 4 o’clock in the morning.