Woodblock expands animation work from Las Vegas’ Sphere to new series

Woodblock, a fast-growing Berlin-based animation studio that has evolved from producing critically acclaimed short films to visually stunning shows at Sphere in Las Vegas, now aims to wow new audiences with a series of ambitious science fiction and horror-fantasy series that showcase the company’s unique style.

The studio was founded in 2013 by six friends who studied at the German Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg in Ludwigsburg, home of the internationally renowned Institute for Animation. The now fifty-strong studio, which has collaborated with Greenpeace, Disney, Netflix, Apple, Nike and Adidas, among others, now also has teams in Ludwigsburg and Los Angeles.

Woodblock, one of the few independent European studios to have created content for the Sphere’s 360-degree screens, created 80 minutes of sci-fi-inspired visuals for electronic music artist Anyma’s show ‘The End of Genesys’ at the venue in 2024. It is also gearing up for its second Sphere project, animated visuals for electronic dance music star Illenium’s immersive concert series ‘Odyssey’ set in will start in 2024. March.

While the Woodblock team enjoys the experience of working in the immersive space, they are also eager to explore more traditional and original animated stories on the big and small screens, say CEO Ilija Brunck and CCO and director Fabian Pit Pross. Variety.

The company is teaming up with Berlin-based production and distribution group DCM on one of its latest projects, “Dark World,” a globe-trotting fantasy horror series from Moritz Mohr, the German writer-director behind the blood-soaked, Sam Raimi-produced 2023 Bill Skarsgård actioner “Boy Kills World.”

The series follows a teenage boy who forms an unlikely alliance with the Fairy Queen of Celtic lore to seek out evil mythical creatures from around the world, including the Yeti, Baba Yaga and Lady Dracula – not to destroy them, but to save them from impending doom.

The idea for “Dark World” originated at DCM and once Woodblock started working on the project, the team developed the storyline and main characters together with Mohr and writers Jan Cronauer and Benjamin Karalic.

Woodblock plans to collaborate with leading animation studios from around the world to animate episodes featuring creatures from different countries and regions. For example, a Polish studio will animate the episode focusing on the Slavic forest witch Baba Yaga, while an American studio will animate Lady Dracula, who in this story lives in the United States.

“We have an incredible lineup of the best animation studios in the world to animate the episodes,” says Brunck. “We have France on board, then Denmark; Baba Yaga is Poland; we have a South African being, a Japanese being. That’s the basic concept.”

Adds says DCM partner Christoph Daniel: “The idea for ‘Dark World’ had been around for a while, but it wasn’t until we found Woodblock that we had the right partner and the right momentum to make it a reality. Exploring the world of animation – especially the emerging field of adult animation – is incredibly inspiring, as it is the perfect medium for this project and offers virtually unlimited creative possibilities. It’s a promising project and, thanks to the collaboration with Woodblock, also a lot of fun.”

The show is an original property and uses public domain IP, which makes it particularly interesting, Brunck says. “It comes with a built-in audience, because people love these creatures. There’s clearly a lot of potential for building IP.” That aspect, especially for a high-end production, could make the show particularly attractive to buyers, he notes.

Woodblock’s upcoming new shows also include ‘Blue Marble’ and ‘Space Probe Force’.

Set in a future, depopulated Earth, ‘Blue Marble’ follows a girl and her robot companion who discover an old cookbook and develop a passion for cooking after living solely on food blocks. Together they travel the world in search of hard-to-find ingredients for new recipes. It’s an adventure show, says Brunck: for example, they have to climb a volcano in search of black lava salt, or dive into the ocean to look for kelp.

Created by Woodblock creative director Helen Hyung Choi, “Blue Marble” is a family-friendly show that “centers on food,” Brunck adds, underscoring its great transmedia potential. “We are thinking of cookbooks, cooking programs on YouTube, combined with the animated series.”

A more satirical approach is offered by ‘Space Probe Force’, created by Woodblock creative director Tom Weber. It follows a crew of human space explorers as they travel the galaxy in search of planets to conquer and colonize, but from the perspective of the planets’ alien inhabitants.

The new series follows last year’s critically acclaimed animated short film “Bye Bear,” about a robot who dreams of being a bear, written and directed by Woodblock co-founder Jan Bitzer.

For Brunck, series and film are “the main medium” and it is where Woodblock makes progress and develops original projects, he says.

Woodblock will be attending this year’s European Film Market at Berlinale, hosting the new EFM Animation Days showcase and the EFM Beyond initiative, focused on cross-media storytelling for independent IP, bridging film, animation, gaming and extended reality.

Brunck is one of two speakers at the EFM Beyond workshop How to Game Engine on February 14 at the EFM Producers Hub at the Gropius Bau in Berlin, where he will discuss the increasingly important role that game engines play in the animation sector.