Conference The State of VFX VFX for Features
ON SITE Meidinger-Saal Thursday, May 08, 10:00

HAGEN - VFX for Series and Feature

The story of "Hagen" is a reinterpretation of the ancient Nibelungen saga centering on Hagen von Tronje, a Viking who is torn between the loyalty to his king, his own past and his secret love for Krimhild.

The Project includes a cinematic feature film and a six episodes series, that have been produced at the same time. We have been manufacturing about 600 visual effect shots overall, featuring 3D-setextensions, CG crowd, digital mattepaintings, CG dragons, full CG sets and oceans. We will talk about the challenge of producing two formats at the same time and will present some making-of material together with our vendors RISE FX, BigHug FX and Celluloid VFX.  

"Hagen - Im Tal der Nibelungen" had its cinematic release in Germany in Fall 2024. The extended series is going deeper into the story and side characters and will be released in late 2025. 

Jan Stoltz, Visual Effects Supervisor

Jan Stoltz was born 1973 in Bremerhaven, Germany.

He began his cinematic education in 1994 at the Filmacademy Baden-Württemberg that he successfully finished in 1999 with specializing in animation and digital image creation. He directly started off his professional career as Visual Effects Supervisor and Animator for feature, television and commercial projects. After working one year in Los Angeles as Character Animator for "I, Robot" and Disney he returned back to Germany. Since then he is booked as Visual Effects Supervisor and Animation Director for big international and German features like "Fast and Furious 8", "Jim Button and the Wild 13" or "The Kangaroo Chronicles", which has been awarded with the German "Lola" for best Visual Effects and Animation. Besides that he did his first co-directing for the animated feature "Capt'n Sharky" in 2018.

Franzisca Puppe, VFX Producer

Franzisca Puppe is a VFX Producer that has been working in VFX for almost 20 years.

She began her journey in VFX on set of Speedracer and Ninja Assessin at Babelsberg Studios.

Since the beginning  Franzisca has been passionate about the art of VFX and the talented and diverse teams of people who create it.

Franzisca helped creating and building creative teams as well as managed and produced for projects such as Melancholia, Hugo, Star Trek: Into Darkness  for PIXOMONDO and Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thoir:Ragnarok, Black Panther, Black Widdow,  Jim Butto and the Wild 13 or The Kangaroo Chronicles for TRIXTER.

In 2021 she started working as a freelance VFX Producer and Consultant for Film Productions such as NDF, Constantin Film or Amusement Park Films.

Franzisca is currently working as VFX Producer on Cliffhanger and the Mini Series City of Blood.

Sebastian Lauer, VFX Supervisor, RISE | Visual Effects Studios

As a child of the 80s, Sebastian took his first steps towards a VFX career in Deluxe Paint III on an Amiga 500.

Since then, he has always followed his passion for creating beautiful images and worked his way up from Digital Media Designer retouching 2D images, to a CG Artist and CG Supervisor, developing a strong artistic and technical background in VFX.

Along the way, Sebastian worked on projects such as Game of Thrones, The Jungle Book, Batman vs Superman and The Amazing Spiderman, helping to bring iconic creatures and characters to life.

In 2018, he joined RISE | Visual Effects Studios to develop environments, photorealistic assets and magical effects for film and episodic productions such as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Loki, Ms. Marvel, The King's Men and Dark.

Walid Mouawad, VFX Supervisor, BigHugFX

He found his passion for creating beautiful imagery and visual effects in the late 1990s. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design(SCAD), he began his journey as a dedicated artist, later advancing to CG Supervisor. Driven by a deep passion for creating beautiful and compelling imagery, he has contributed to some of the industry’s most iconic projects and shows, including The Avengers, Transformers, Game of Thrones, and Stranger Things.

Michael Landgrebe, VFX Supervisor, Celluloid VFX

Infected by the computer graphic virus the late 1980ies by DKBTrace, a script based open source raytracer, Michael consistenly kept up to date with the latest developments in CGI technology. After deepening his knowledge by studying architecture at the technical university of Munich and Digital Image Design at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg from 1997, he worked as a freelancer VFX supervisor for numerous VFX houses in his professional career. Sticking to the „Bauhaus“ approach, that knowing your tools is the basis to create art, his passion to transform bits and bytes into stunning images found a fertile soil with Celluloid Visual Effects from 2008 until the present day.