From flip cinema to the 3D universe

WhenTabaluga will fly across the big screen from 6 December, hardly any of the young and old viewers will know that this is an international co-production with animation artists from three different countries. In Germany, the animation studio Studio Rakete from Hamburg was involved in the project: "Our task was to create the storyboard. This is the process by which the existing script is translated into images. Each scene is drawn, its length determined and combined with preliminary voice recordings," reveals CEO Jana Bohl. A total of 16 people worked on Tabaluga at Studio Rakete for six months. The finished storyboard is a greatly simplified version of the film in black and white images, a kind of flip book - but already in full length. This allows the film team to see very clearly whether there is still room for improvement and whether, for example, elements of suspense or slapstick are missing. "This then forms the basis for all further processes," says Bohl.

During the work on the film, there was a constant exchange with Directors Sven Unterwaldt, where all the threads came together. With his ideas, the script and the finished designs for the characters and locations, the team led by storyboard supervisor Toby Genkel got to work. But how creative can you actually be with a well-known brand like Tabaluga? "The behaviour and character traits of the main characters were of course already known, but the visual structure of the scenes was in our hands: editing sequences, action scenes, built-in jokes, situation comedy and other visual details could be creatively invented by us. The timing, i.e. the speed at which we tell the story, is also defined in the storyboard," says Jana Bohl.

The team attached great importance to addressing different target groups right from the storyboard stage. Both children and adults will find themselves in the story. And all the Tabaluga fans out there should of course quickly feel at home in the animated world: "Transforming the little dragon from Helme Heine's ink world and the stage world of Maffay's shows to the big screen without losing the magic of the original was a challenge in terms of content," says Executive Producer Solveig Fina from Tempest Film. And so the old Tabaluga world was carefully adapted to the viewing habits of the younger generations. A process in which one person could not be left out, of course: "Peter Maffay was an essential part of the entire production as the forefather of the character. It was important for us to involve Peter in the individual steps. This began with the visual and content development of the characters and ended with the score," says Solveig Fina.

And so Tabaluga is sure to attract many "old" fans to the cinema from 6 December, as well as many new ones. With this in mind: Fly little dragon!