Film & Animation is taught in Nuremberg by Professor Jürgen Schopper and is a practice-oriented course. Special emphasis is placed on cinematic narration, both in the awareness of film history and in the context of digital image creation.

Workflow

Students undertake various projects in which they create short films, music videos, commercials, and motion graphics, as well as purely experimental or artificial products.

Each of these sub-genres requires its own specific treatment and design, which is explained with the help of examples and subsequently demanded of the young film-makers – starting with the concept and progressing through storyboards, animatics, filming, editing, colour and light determination, image processing, music, and sound mixing.

The course also covers the creation of a presentation and sales strategy, as well as project management during the production process.

The students have access to tools in the form of professional software and hardware such as HD cameras and accessories, lighting systems, Avid, 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, RenderMan, Dragon, TVPaint, Nuke, Shake, Adobe Creative Suite, and ProTools. We deliberately chose an international standard in this regard: the students should graduate with the ability to actually put their knowledge into practice.

Nuremberg Tech is considered an elite university when it comes to VFX and animation. “Digital Production”, the leading German-language trade magazine in the field of Digital Content Creation (DCC), has published an article about everyday life and the technology used at the Faculty of Design. You can read the article in full here.

Basics 

The theoretical content looks at historical, creative, and technical facets of film. In addition to an overview of film history, students also learn about the production process and about individual areas of responsibility and activities. Technical basics are discussed, as is the development of film production, right up to the age of digital image creation. Workshops and film evenings round off the course content.

Successes

The work coming out of Nuremberg stands out, even when pitted against international competition: in addition to numerous first prizes and festival appearances, it has even given some students a leg up into Hollywood or other sought-after film cities. A graduate, Florian Witzel, for example, was signed to the Psyop company in New York immediately after graduation and is now working for the renowned Lucasfilm Company Industrial Light & Magic.

ohmrolle 

The ohmrolle takes place off-campus once a semester. Under this title, budding film-makers present their work to the press and public at Nuremberg’s largest cinema.