We offer a tantalizing trio of trailers from dutch animation genius, Mascha Halberstad. The first, “Munya in Me”, is a tale of a daughter with a rich inner world, who gets picked on, yet continually delivers her beautiful gifts to an unresponsive, unappreciative world. The second, “Trailer,” centers around an action movie hero who has bad luck with an american style trailer voice-over. It will be screening as an opening to the new Hunger Games movie in the Netherlands. The third, “Steal” is about a boy playing soccer (or football depending on your latitude/longitude) who gets challenged by a UFO. It is part of a series, ‘Short Plays‘, inspired by the World Cup, a call to arms for film makers to portray real everyday characters in their home country and their experiences with soccer. Perhaps it’s then best to wear tin foil hats if you are traveling to the Netherlands anytime soon. One thing is certain, this director had us at ‘hello’. Besides direct firing on the heart, these teasers each treat us to exquisite gestural work, inventive and subtle storytelling, great art direction and pitch perfect lighting. Read on to hear from director Mascha Halberstad as she shares with us the inspirations and the nitty gritty of hand behind this three card Royal Flush and, of course, to also watch the other teasers!


Director Mascha Halberstad:

“Trailer” is made as an Ultra Short which is an initiative from the Dutch Filmfund and Pathe Cinema to promote animations for a larger audience, so this film will be shown before the The Hunger Games Mockingjay – Part 1 in every Pathe cinema in the Netherlands, releasing November 19th.
I got the idea while working on Munya in me. Elmer Kaan, the animator, told me, “Mascha the next film should have a lot of explosions!” He thought Munya was a real girl movie so he wanted to do some manly stuff, haha. So one night, I was almost asleep when the idea for this film struck me and it’s a shame I can’t tell a lot more about it because it will ruin the joke of the film. Anyhow, I of course, asked Elmer to animate it and we had the best time ever. All the explosions were made with cotton wool and bike led lights. I bought maybe 30 of them. The sets where mostly made out of cardboard and foam. Sebastian Doermann and I made them. I learned a lot working on Munya with using false perspective to create depth. Animation was done in 16 days and before another 20 days of building the puppets and sets.

I represented the Netherlands in the Short Plays series and I got the idea for “Steal” when my dog stood in a misty field. It suddenly occurred to me that it would be funny to have a boy play soccer in a field and then have his ball be stolen by a UFO. We had a really short production time- Elmer animated it in nine days after two weeks of set building and puppet making. I did camera, light and editing. Also I made the head of the boy and the main set and painted the sky.
Marije van Ouwerkerk did the boy’s clothes.
Animation by Elmer Kaan
Sebastian Doermann built the UFO
Lorenzo Adamson built the puppet.

Thank you, Mascha. We eagerly look forward to more of your visitations of inspiration. -Dragonframe

Blog written by Vera Long