How shiny should the nose be?

Without the animated film "Ooops! The Amazing Maurice the Cat" might not have existed at all. When "Ooops!" was finished, the Hamburg production company Ulysses Films invited people to a big team screening at the Savoy cinema in 2015. The invitation list included the agent of fantasy Script Writer Terry Pratchett, whose books have sold around 95 million copies worldwide. Would he turn up? A game of chance. But luck was on Ulysses' side: he came and "Ooops!" won him over immediately. After the screening, there was a lively exchange - and Ulysses was given the option on the rights to "Maurice". A project close to his heart that the team around Executive Producer Emely Christians was determined to realise. The novel is about the enterprising tomcat Maurice, who travels the Discworld with a troupe of clever rats and, together with a flute player, robs the townsfolk of their money. A story that Pratchett has modelled on the Pied Piper of Hamelin and which is set in the fictitious town of Bad Blintz in the Black Forest. But in typical Pratchett fashion, his cat adventure is very socially critical and peppered with bizarre ideas.

After the go-ahead from the UK, work on the script could begin. Prominent support was brought on board for the script: US American Terry Rossio, who also wrote the scripts for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Shrek". The Pratchett family and their production company Narrativia were immediately impressed by his script. "Our favourite candidate for Directors was Toby Genkel, with whom we had already realised "Ooops!" and later also "Überflieger". We knew that Toby's humour and timing would be just right. He stayed close to the original book, but still created something of his own," says Executive Producer Emely Christians. With development of the project already well underway in 2019, UK company Cantilever Media joined as co-producer - and production finally got underway in May 2020. Over the course of two years, more than 250 people in the UK and Germany worked on "Maurice". In Hamburg, Studio Rakete, which has been working with Ulysses since it was founded in 2005 and is based in the same office building, was responsible for the animation work. This is where the storyboards were created and the characters for the film were designed. "Our production and character designer Heiko Hentschel is a big Pratchett fan and knew exactly what would make sense in the finished film," says Christians. He also brought characters such as Death or a dragon statue from other Pratchett books into the story.

In the UK, the designed sets and characters were then built piece by piece on the computer using CGI (computer-generated imagery) before they were animated - in other words, the characters literally learnt to walk. This work was shared between the two animation studios in Hamburg and Sheffield. "It's often the case that the Directors, for example, give the animators tips on how a character should move so that it fits their character and the story," reveals Christians. As the production of "Maurice" coincided with the coronavirus pandemic, this exchange often had to take place via ZOOM - some team members were not even seen live during the entire production. "The ZOOM meetings were the highlight of the week for many. It was a great opportunity to clarify questions and get opinions in a large group - all the things that you actually clarify by visiting the neighbouring office," reveals Ulysses Segment Producer Denise Tie. How shiny should the cat's nose be? How much hair should the coat have? How many pine needles should there be on the forest floor to make it look realistic? All questions that were discussed in the rounds.

Most of the animators from Germany were already familiar from other projects. "However, we always try to bring newcomers on board and ensure a balanced ratio of men and women. However, this is anything but easy for some jobs in the more technical areas," says Christians. There is definitely a lack of young talent in the north.

In addition to the detailed animation work, great attention was also paid to the voices: In English, Emilia Clarke ("Game of Thrones"), Hugh Laurie from "Doctor House" and Himesh Patel ("Yesterday") lend their voices to the main characters. In the German version, Maurice is voiced by Bastian Pastewka, while the role of Keith (the flute player) has been taken on by Hamburg HMS graduate Jerry Hoffmann: "I first saw Jerry in the industry magazine Blickpunkt:Film and then listened to a few interviews with him on the internet. He was a perfect fit," says Denise Tie. Emely Christians adds: "For Emilia Clarke, we opted for her dubbing voice Gabrielle Pietermann. Emilia speaks very quickly in her role as Malizia - and Gabrielle is already perfectly familiar with Emilia's tonality and timing." Incidentally, the voices are recorded in a kind of radio play before there is even a single finished animation. The animation artists then use the audio files later to orientate themselves to the timing of the speakers.