''Dissonance'' is a 2015 German

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

by German

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

and

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...

and

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

Till Nowak. It is a hybrid film that combines

live action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games o ...

with

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

Background

The film's animations were created mainly using

3ds Max Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capab ...

and

After Effects Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc.; it is used for animation and in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among oth ...

. Nowak personally created all images and the fantasy world, with assistance from CG artist, Malte Lauinger, who created the final character models and rigs, and animated about half of the character motion." The live action shooting took two months of work and, after five years of developing and designing the processes, two years were spent with animation. All animation was hand done and used no

motion-capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for val ...

, thus designed to be the "soul" of the film and containing "most of the innovation and finesse". The live action segments were set to act as the film's counterpart, leading viewers from animation to reality and back. Nowak grants that creating his protagonist's hair "was one of our most difficult tasks", and done using 3ds Max’s “Hair & Fur” tool. Some of the hair treatment was performed by CG artist Gunter Freese using

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

and HairFx. Rendering took a full year with five computers running around the clock, but as rendering was subsequent to animation, Nowak would begin animating his next shot during rendering of the previous.

Plot

In a surreal, floating animated world, a genius musician (Roland Schupp) lives a lonely life, and every day plays a tube-shaped piano in a huge and empty concert hall. As it spins, his fingers tickle the keys filling the air with beautiful music. One strange day his animated world begins to collapse and reality breaks out. During the transformation from an animation into live action, the musician has but one singular wish: to play for his daughter (Hannah Heine). In the reality, the daughter spies her father in the street below and the Mother (

Nina Petri Nina Petri (born 16 July 1963) is a German actress. She has appeared in more than one hundred films since 1983. Partial filmography Television appearances Awards * Bavarian Film Award (best actress) (1994) * Deutscher Filmpreis (best suppor ...

) warns her away from the window. The daughter expresses worry that the police might return, and the mother cautions that her father is not as might be wished. In the streets, the musician tries to encourage interest in his works, but is continually rebuffed. He views traditional pianos in a music shop window and in looking over his reality is saddened and faints. Being examined in the hospital, the Doctor (Klaus Zehrfeld) explains that he is suffering from a common delusional fantasy called "Spherical Dissonance", and that he should escape it and embrace reality. Leaving the hospital, the musician sees the dissonance trying to re-emerge. While the Mother speaks on the phone about how a restraining order is proving useless, the daughter leaves the home and approaches her musician father as he sits on the sidewalk outside. She sneaks him into the home and he begins to play for her on the home's traditional piano. The mother hears and confronts the musician. He nails a

music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces Musical note, musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder (geometry), cylinder or disc to pluck ...

to the piano and leaves the home. Outside, he momentarily re-embraces his spherical dissonance before stepping sadly into reality.

Cast

* Roland Schupp as Pianist *

as Mother * Hannah Heine as Daughter * Klaus Zehrfeld as Doctor * Ralf Gogolin as Policeman * Ottokar Reimann as Piano Salesman * Leslie Barany as Narrator (English) * Mirko Thiele as Narrator (German)

Recognition

Scott Thill of ''

Cartoon Brew Cartoon Brew is an animation news website created by Amid Amidi and animation historian Jerry Beck that was launched on 15 March 2004. Cartoon Dump It also created '' Cartoon Dump'', a weekly podcast showing poorly made TV cartoons featuring ' ...

'' called the film "stunning", writing that it was "a brilliantly speculative but also quite personal exercise" and that the film is "Evocative of

Christopher Nolan Sir Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British and American filmmaker. Known for his Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Blockbuster (entertainment), blockbusters with complex storytelling, he is considered a leading filmma ...

’s surreal ''

Inception ''Inception'' is a 2010 science fiction action heist film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who also produced it with Emma Thomas, his wife. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by inf ...

'', as well as

Michel Gondry Michel Gondry (; born 8 May 1963) is a French filmmaker and producer noted for his inventive visual style and distinctive manipulation of mise en scène. Along with Charlie Kaufman, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one o ...

’s sci-fi standout, ''

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' is a 2004 American surrealist science fiction romantic drama film directed by Michel Gondry and written by Charlie Kaufman from a story by Gondry, Kaufman, and Pierre Bismuth. Starring Jim Carrey a ...

''. Cameron Meier of ''

Orlando Weekly ''Orlando Weekly'' is a liberal progressive alternative newsweekly distributed in the Greater Orlando area of Florida. Every Thursday, 40,000 issues of the paper are distributed to more than 1,100 locations across Orange, Osceola and Semino ...

'' called it "the best short film I've ever seen" and "a jaw-dropping blend of animation and live action that is pure cinematic genius."

Partial awards and nominations

* 2015, Won 'Jury Award' Grand Prix at Anima Mundi Animation Festival * 2015, Won 'Best Original Music Award for a Short Film' at

Annecy International Animated Film Festival The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring ever ...

* 2015, Won Prix UIP Berlin at

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

for Till Nowak * 2015, Won Audience Award for 'Best Animated Short Film' at Fancine Festival de Cine Fantastico de la Universidad de Malaga * 2015, Won 'Best Animation' at Aspen Shortsfest International * 2015, Won Deutscher Filmmusikpreis (German Film Music Award) for 'Best Music in a Film' at German Film Score Awards * 2015, Won Don Quixote Award at Krakow Film Festival * 2015, Won Best International ShortWork Award for 'Best International Shortfilm' at

Whistler Film Festival The Whistler Film Festival (WFF) is an annual film festival held in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 2001, the festival is held the first weekend of December and includes juried competitive sections, the Borsos Awards, and the Pand ...

* 2015, Won VFX Award for 'Best Visual Effects' at

HollyShorts Film Festival The HollyShorts Film Festival is an annual Academy Awards-qualifying independent short film festival located in Hollywood, California. History Founded in 2005, the yearly festival programmes feature an eclectic mixture of short films of various ge ...

* 2015, nominated for

Golden Berlin Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...

for 'Best Short Film' by European Film Academy at Berlin International Film Festival * 2015, nominated for 'Best Short Film' by Animago Awards * 2015, nominated for 'Best Short Film' at

Edinburgh International Film Festival The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), established in 1947, is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films (all titles are World, international, European or UK Premieres), in al ...

* 2015, nominated for

European Film Award The European Film Awards (or European Film Academy Awards) have been presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy to recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements. The awards are given in 19 categories, of which the most ...

for 'European Short Film' at

European Film Awards The European Film Awards (or European Film Academy Awards) have been presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy to recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements. The awards are given in 19 categories, of which the mos ...

* 2016, Won SAE Qantm Award for 'Best Use of Digital Technology in a Short Film' at Flickerfest International Short Film Festival * 2016, nominated for 'Best Animated Short Subject' at

Annie Awards The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in American cinema and television. Origi ...

References

External links

* *
''Dissonance'' official Facebook page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dissonance (film) 2015 computer-animated films 2015 3D films 2010s adventure films 2015 animated short films 2010s fantasy adventure films 2015 independent films 2015 science fiction films Computer-animated short films D-Box motion-enhanced films 2010s dark fantasy films German fantasy adventure films German 3D films German animated fantasy films German animated science fiction films German animated short films German independent films Films about parallel universes Animated post-apocalyptic films Science fantasy films Viral videos 3D short films 2010s English-language films 2010s German films English-language science fiction films English-language short films English-language independent films English-language fantasy adventure films