The Crew

Huan Vu’s parents came to Germany in the ’70s as guest students from Vietnam and stayed after the Fall of Saigon and the end of the war. Originating from a torn nation and growing up in another divided country, borders and limits have always been something in Vu’s mind that had to be probed, pushed and contested. This ultimately led him to become a film maker, striving to create genre movies with a distinctive style and vision.

Quite a rare breed, especially in Good ol’ Germany.

From 2003 to 2007 Vu worked as producer, writer and director of DAMNATUS, an ambitious non-profit fan film set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Unfortunately the finished film was not allowed to be released due to copyright concerns from Games Workshop, the owner of the Warhammer 40,000 game universe. The film somehow got into filesharing networks, though, and enjoys cult status among fans.

Immediately after this setback Vu produced a project trailer for a historical drama about the failed German Revolution of 1848/49. Not receiving enough interest from producers and TV channels for such a distant but nonetheless important political event in German history Vu focused on genre movies again.

During his studies at the University of Media in Stuttgart-Vaihingen Vu began to work on DIE FARBE. A film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” that takes place in Germany before and after WW2. It was first planned as a graduation film, but soon the project grew too large for the scope of the thesis. Therefor he and co-producer Jan Roth decided to make the film with their own resources after graduation.

DIE FARBE was finally completed in late 2010 after two years of post-production on home computers. It has since been published via self-distribution and through retailers in Sweden, Finland and the USA. Despite its small budget the film was praised as “one of the best and most ambitious Lovecraft adaptations ever made” (Twitch) and received very positive reviews by Lovecraft fans and festival audiences alike.

And so far, fortunately, without any copyright disputes.

Together with his team, Vu is now looking forward to another great challenge: The epic journey to THE DREAMLANDS that will tie up Lovecraft’s universe with the story of an orphaned young man struggling in Germany in the years prior World War I.

Jan Roth was introduced to the genre of fantasy early in his life when, through a wise move by his mother, he received a copy of Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” to read, and a year later „The Lord of the Rings”. He also grew up loving the films of Ray Harryhausen such as “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”. In other words, films that were full of fantastic sceneries and strange creatures. And it was when he first saw “Jurassic Park“ in theaters that he knew he wanted to do visual effects some day.

His wish came true, when Jan met Huan Vu while studying audiovisual media at the University of Media in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, and he was able to work as a 3D artist for Huan’s first feature length film project, the Warhammer 40K fan film “DAMNATUS”. After graduation Jan Roth then worked for award-winning Stuttgart based VFX company “unexpected GmbH”, and became a successful freelance 3D artist working on computer games, commercials and feature films.

Jan learned of the world of H.P. Lovecraft first through one of the more popular film adaptations: “Necronomicon”. Though not entirely true to Lovecraft’s vision, the film offered a strange atmosphere unlike usual horror films, and Jan had to buy a copy of Lovecraft’s tales at once. He quickly became a fan of the author, and eventually introduced Huan to his works as well.
Deeply fascinated by “The Color Out of Space”, one of Lovecraft’s most celebrated tales, both had found what they were looking for and “Die Farbe” became the first feature film they produced together.

Their new project “The Dreamlands” will be on a much bigger scale and it will be a challenge on all levels. But it will also be a film that is full of fantastic sceneries and strange creatures like the films of his childhood days.
Sometimes dreams do come true.

www.janroth.net

Sinister and dark images have always held a magical attraction for Martin Vincent Kolbert. It never bothered him in the least that some films were not meant for children or adolescents.
Inappropriate ratings on video cassette boxes would simply be relabeled when he was young. With such leanings, it was only logical that he would conclude his cinematography degree at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg with the Lovecraft film adaption “Die Farbe” as his final exam project. Based out of London and Vienna, Martin has since worked as an independent Cinematographer and Director for image-, short films and music videos.

On a personal level, music is Martin’s greatest source of inspiration. He also draws inspirations from such artists such as Caravaggio, Gottfried Helnwein and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

www.martinkolbert.com

Christian Späth was born in Tübingen, Germany and was only three years old when he began recording himself singing children songs on his father’s tape recorder. The next stage of his creative development was when he used his own tape recorder to tape dialog from various television shows and re-editing the recordings into humorous nonsense collages.

Since completing his studies at The International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños in Havana Cuba and the University of Media in Stuttgart, Christian has been working as an independent Sound Engineer for film and television. Anyone can see that Christian’s love affair with Sound Design has progressed seamlessly his entire life, but it is now connected to a much larger framework. And when Christian is not involved in the sound design of well-known television shows or demanding film projects then he can be found touring Europe with his band “Belves” – which is named after the French Village that lies exactly between Christian in southern Germany and his band partner Pablo in northern Spain.

www.tonperson.de

Chris Reinfels has already been working in the field of Media Design for over 12 years. It all started with his time contributing to the school newspaper. For him it was the next logical step to go into Media Design. After his position as Art director for a small advertsing agency became too monotonous, it was clear that Chris needed seek out new challenges. To realize this goal he returned to school and studied Media Direction at Darmstadt University where he obtained his Master of Arts as Media Director.

He wasn’t even done earning his degree when began working for the VFX-Studio “Pixomondo“. This was where hecame into contact with matte paintings for the first time and he quickly realized that this was where all of his skills, knowledge and interests all came together.
He debuted as matte painter in the science fiction film “Nydenion“ and has since then worked on such prize winning projects as “Game of Thrones“, “Hugo“ and “Oblivion“.

www.paintsinner.de

Since her early childhood Hannah Deuss has been fascinated with unusual and historical clothing, textiles and the manufacture of their filaments. So over the years she autodidactically and experimentally occupied herself with unusual clothing pieces and the processes needed to produce them. And thus she was eventually able to create such unusual and interesting pieces herself. During the course of her studies (Archeology and the European Middle-Ages) she frequently came in contact with old hand working methods and historical clothing. This became a passion that due to increasing professionalism and accuracy, led to her first customer orders and an ever increasing store of knowledge and experience. After graduation Hannah went on to study tailoring and fashion Design so that she could turn her passion into her profession. It was during this second phase of her studies that she had her first experiences working on film projects.

Today, from her own studio, she works for film and television projects, theater and ballet, re-enactment societies and even private customers. This means that her assignments cover not just the research, planning and production of historical and fantastic garments but even bridal and evening fashion. Her favorite assignments are those that either require extremely accurate reproduction of clothing, for example, from portraits or the design and production of radically unusual garments. Non-Human forms awake a fascination in her which she sees as a challenge that she is more than happy to accept.

Juri Bryan (whose father is a Texan) has been working for more than a year as a Technical Director in the International Film Industry and is currently at work in Stockholm, Sweden.
He has known since he was 16 that his future lies in the fields of Film and Visual Effects. Decisive was the Pixar film “Finding Nemo”. He saw it three times in a row and asked himself how such a film was made and how was it all possible. Subsequently, through the Internet, he discovered the Freeware 3D program “Blender” and thus began his first steps in this field.

At 18, Juri broke off his studies and moved to Vancouver British Columbia in order to attend the “Vancouver Film School” and study 3D animation and Visual Effects. According to him: “the best decision of my life”.

After Graduating, Juri worked as a freelancer for the new Vietnamese studio “Sub-Zero Design” where he quickly rose to the position of Technical Director and was placed in the Studio’s R&D department.

Juri began his association with “The Dreamlands” when he caught Huan Vu’s attention after leaving Vietnam and returning to Germany in order to search for new challenges. Juri’s major task was the technically complex simulation of the collapse of the Wall of Sleep.

Juri’s personal dream is to work one day with Peter Jackson and his VFX company „Weta Digital“. But until the call from New Zealand comes he’s more than willing to continue building the Dreamlands.

Dave Snyder was born in Owensboro, Kentucky and from a young age had an interest in monsters, science fiction and movie illusions. Early inspiration came from the movie “Star Wars”, a film that set him on his current path. The works of Dick Smith and Rick Baker centered his interest on make-up. After moving to Los Angeles in 1992, he quickly secured work on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (the original movie), “Tales from the Crypt” for HBO, and soon worked on many low and medium budget horror and science fiction projects. More recently he has worked on bigger projects such as “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “No Country for Old Men”, and the last two “Star Trek” movies participating in applying the iconic Mr. Spock make-up on both Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy.

Dave is a tremendous Lovecraft fan and has worked on several projects with the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society including “The Whisperer in Darkness” movie, the Ogham Waite performance in Sweden and most recently a Keziah Mason make-up for the “Dreams in the Witch House” music video.

He looks forward to participating in “The Dreamlands”!

Dave Snyder on IMDb

Roland
Old Man
 
Director, Producer, Writer, Compositing
Producer, Lead 3d artist
Director of Photography
Camera operator
Gaffer
 
Sound designer
Boom operator
Score
Costume designer
Makeup
Production designer
 
 
Matte painter
VFX Technical director
3d artists
 
Compositing
 
Rotoscoping
 
Production assistant
 
 
Photographer
 
Illustrators
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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