Berlin Playground

Personal Project

Berlin Playground is a mini film inspired by my experience of moving to Berlin.

Everywhere I go, Berlin has pockets of what I would describe as "dystopian playgrounds", which are very DIY structured spaces for people to hang out. They are rough and edgy, yet very playful and inviting. With the city changing, I wonder how long these dystopian playgrounds will survive.

Most of the materials used to create the sets are trash found on the streets of Berlin. The only things I bought were glue, paper for backgrounds, and some scraps of wood which cost 10 cents (and I had some left over paint).

Making of

Inspiration

Upon moving to Berlin, I immediately fell in love with its dystopian playground structures and aesthetics as well as the everything goes spirit.

I wanted to make a film celebrating this edgy DIY free spirited corners of Berlin without fetishizing its struggles and history.

Concept

concept sketches

Material collection

I walked around the streets of Berlin, looking for the prettiest trash.

Set Build

Shooting

I animated the sets in stopmotion

2D cel animation

After compositing and timing the stopmotion footage in After Effects, I animated the characters in photoshop.

Compositing, Sound

I did some effects and editing in AE, then edited sound effects in Premier. All of the sounds are from freesound.org