With "The Last Whale Singer", a real animation blockbuster "Made in Hamburg" awaits us next year. Reza Memari and Maite Woköck are behind the project with their company Telescope Animation, which was founded in 2018. What makes it special: In addition to the film, the team is also working on a series, two video games and an interactive picture book, which tell the story of the young humpback whale Vincent from different perspectives and times.
It looks rather grey and inconspicuous when you stand in front of the multi-storey office building in the middle of TÜV NORD and large industrial companies not far from the Diebsteich S-Bahn station in Hamburg. But if you go up to the 3rd floor, you'll soon find out otherwise. Huge screens, fluffy sea creatures and bustling, creative activity in every room: this is where Telescope Animation is creating "The Last Whale Singer", one of the most ambitious German animation projects of recent years. "We've been working on the project for around ten years since Reza's initial idea, who is also the Director. The film will finally see the light of day and be released in cinemas in early 2026," says Executive Producer Maite Woköck.
A real marathon of work is now coming to an end. Around 120 people in Germany, the Czech Republic and Canada have worked on the project. The core team, which took care of the designs and storyboards as well as the lighting, rendering and compositing, is based in Hamburg. The majority of the animation work, on the other hand, took place in the Czech Republic and Canada, as well as Baden-Württemberg. One particular technical detail should be emphasised: "For "The Last Whale Singer", we used the Unreal engine from Epic Games, which actually comes from the games sector. However, the engine had numerous advantages for us, even if of course not everything went as we had imagined at the beginning," says the Hamburg-based Executive Producer.
Real-time rendering was a major advantage. You change a scene on the computer and can see the result straight away - the rendering process for animated films normally takes several hours for short sequences. "This allows you to try out spontaneous ideas much more quickly, which helped us a lot in the creative process," says Woköck. As the technology in the animated film sector is uncharted territory, the team was repeatedly faced with challenges. The first problem was finding people who could work with the engine. "Our people had to familiarise themselves with the engine. Even though Epic Games supported us a lot in our work, we had to learn many things in the process. For example, we wanted to do the storyboards with the Unreal Engine at the beginning, but that just didn't work - we ended up losing a month of time," reveals Woköck. Telescope Animation also had to rethink details that tend to be of secondary importance in video games: In a video game, for example, it doesn't bother if water bubbles in an underwater world just somehow rise to the surface. However, when the main character is covered by such a bubble several times on a huge screen in a film, you have to think again.
The story of "The Last Whale Singer" is about a young humpback whale named Vincent who must overcome his fears and discover his magical song in order to save the oceans from destruction by a terrible monster. In the process, he has to go on many adventures and meets numerous exciting sea creatures. Enough material to fill more than just an animated film: In addition to the cinema film, there is the short game Lani's Call, and there will also be a series for ZDF, a console game and an interactive picture book for the little ones. Each medium will focus on a different part of the story: "In the short game, for example, we tell how Vincent's parents got to know each other. In the long game, we learn the monster's backstory from the film - so everything comes together piece by piece," says Maite Woköck. But why did the team at Telescope Animation decide to take this very labour-intensive step? "We looked very early on to see where we could best tell which story. And children love games and series as well as cinema films - so it makes sense to be present on several platforms. It also gives us the opportunity to create a brand. Because you are often asked where the brand is, especially in the financing phase, when you come up with an original story," says Woköck.
Not all formats will be released at the same time. The short game has already been published, the feature film and the interactive picture book will be finalised this year and will be launched on the market next year. The big game and the series, on the other hand, are still being financed.
So there's a lot going on at Telescope Animation. However, the team led by Maite Woköck and Reza Memari, which has offices in Hamburg, Berlin and Brandenburg for games development, is not only busy underwater: the series "Children of Gaea" is currently in development, which is about a group of young people who want to avert the final climate collapse with the help of their power animals. A cinema film and a game are also planned for this series, which will continue the story. Perhaps another "Made in Hamburg" brand.
