Die Patin - starting this sunday on RTL

don't miss our latest work for germany's biggest television network RTL and Teamworx. "Die Patin" by director Miguel Alexandre is the story of Katharina Almeda (Veronica Ferres), a loving mother and wife, who is sucked into a world of organized crime. rise provided visual effects for over 180 shots working closely together with DOP Jo Heim, matching his unique color scheme down to the last pixel. the first part of the mini series is aired this sunday.

part 1 sunday, 14th december, 20:15
part 2 monday, 15th december, 20:15
part 3 wednesday, 17th december, 20:15

a big thanks to our crew
supervisor jonathan weber, lead compositor sascha reinholz and compositors christoph benden, björn gottwald, christopher kollar, claudia lechen, rayk schroeder, jakub stejskal, philip strahl, robert tucker, holger wenzel and matte painter robert kriegel.

this is love - it's a wrap!

until just one week ago we were shooting "this is love" with badlands film, the latest work of director Matthias Glasner. thanks to everyone at badlands film we are able to show you some behind-the-scenes footage of one of the most complex visual effects shots in the movie. main character Chis is having a car accident - later, after we have done some of our digital magic, it will be actor Jens Albinus sitting behind the steering wheel. the shot was planed down to the smallest detail by our previz department, always refining the shot based on Matthias' ideas before we started principal photography.

Thank you so much Matthias, Jürgen and Lars for letting us be a part of it, Heike and Dennis for the awesome behind-the-scenes video and the entire film crew! U ROCK!

new eye candy - zero calories...

finally our projects page has been updated with our latest work. we are especially proud to show you our full cgi tiger from the television project "wer liebe verspricht" and a perfect example of state-of-the-art compositing from the movie "maerzmelodie". there is also a production design preview of "haecksen", a children's movie set in an online virtual world. check it out here

currently in production

rise is proud to announce that more and more production companies have discovered our unique skills to transform an impossible idea into its photo realistic, budget saving representation on the screen. with currently more than 20 artists working full time at rise creating visual effects for more than five feature films our capacities and capabilities grow by the day. if you consider yourself a compositor and you know that nuke is nothing to be afraid of go ahead and apply for one of our open freelance positions today.

currently in production:

The Three Investigators in The Secret of Terror Castle
directed by Florian Baxmeyer (Studio Hamburg International, Buena Vista)

Helen
written and directed by Sandra Nettelbeck
starring Ashley Judd

The Last Station
written and directed by Michael Hoffmann
starring James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer and Academy Award Winner Helen Mirren

Last Cowboy Standing (Juoni Filmi, NiKo Film)
directed by Zaida Bergroth

Die Patin (Teamworx, RTL)
directed by Miguel Alexandre
starring Veronica Ferres

Dutschke (Teamworx, ZDF)
directed by Stefan Krohmer
starring Christoph Bach

and more...

"king of nuke" frank rüter visiting rise

rise | visual effects berlin was the first feature film visual effects house in germany to rely entirely on the foundry's "nuke" package as primary compositing application. of course it was quite a risk to take - but since then nobody at rise ever looked back. "nuke" is rock solid and packed with more features than a swiss army knife, certainly more than any other software we have ever worked with. our pipeline and "nuke" integration is one of a kind, making rise | visual effects berlin the first, most cost efficient choice for next-generation visual effects production.

having the latest in software technology is one thing - having the artists who know how to take advantage of it is something else. last month Frank Rüter visited rise, an old friend and someone "many consider to be the worldwide king of nuke tools and customization" (fxphd.com). Frank was not only answering questions but also showing tweaks and tricks he learned while working on the "Lord of the Rings"-Trilogy, "King Kong", "I Robot" and "Speed Racer" as 2D lead technical director.

we invited a couple of artists from all over germany, good friends and everyone interested in seeing the next big thing in effects production. thank you so much Frank for stopping by! hope to see you again soon!

recruiting at fmx'08

rise is recruiting again at the fmx 2008 conference in stuttgart. if you are a talented freelance cgi or/and compositing artist looking for new challenges feel free to visit our recruiting panel on tuesday may 6th at 12 o'clock in room "reutlingen". if you can't make it to our panel presentation but would still like to apply for one of our open positions please write an email to recruiting@risefx.com to arrange a meeting. our team will be running around the conference for the whole week.

please see the official website for details

florian

Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film "The Counterfeiters" (Die Faelscher)

although probably nobody really cares - we have also prepared an acceptance speech:

we would like to thank the Academy and it's members for the greatest honor on earth a film maker and film enthusiast can be awarded with. we would like to thank Stefan Ruzowitzky for his passion to create real and believable characters, to celebrate story telling at its best. we would like to thank the entire crew for executing all of our annoying technical remarks - resulting in better visual effects, bringing Stefan's vision to life at tvt. postproduction frankfurt. also thank you DoP Benedict Neuenfels for letting us contribute to your unique visual style and, of course, thank you Magnolia and Aichholzer Filmproduction for your trust and support.

congratulations Stefan, congratulations to everyone involved!

florian

Academy Award Nomination for "The Counterfeiters"

everyone at rise | visual effects berlin would like to congratulate director Stefan Ruzowitzky and his entire crew on the academy award nomination for "The Counterfeiters". the true and very emotional story about the production of fake foreign currencies inside the german concentration camp sachsenhausen during world war two had critics raving around the globe during the last year. our job for tvt. postproduction frankfurt was to create invisible digital set extensions in a way they would not distract audiences from the cold and relentless reality of the prisoner's lives.

we will keep our fingers crossed for the academy awards on 24. february.

florian