Workshop participants shared a three-day journey into their imaginations, taking full advantage of their own personal cosmic supercomputers.

And into this wonderful melting pot of animation activity I brought my "Organic Approach to Visual Effects Animation."

This year, I went to Ludwigsburg in May, and after a long cold winter in Vancouver, and a miserably cold spring on top of it, I was delighted to find southern Germany hot and balmy, with imminent thunderstorms all around. It felt great, and although I was exhausted before I even left for Germany, I felt energized and excited to be there, and my jet lag seemed to evaporate into the warm, humid air.

Morning one of my workshop is always interesting, as a small group of brand new students I have never met before in my life gather slowly but surely in a neat classroom filled with computers, wondering who the hell I am, and what exactly it is I intend to "teach" them. First things first, I moved many of the computers out of the way and turned flat screens sideways, both so that we could all see each other clearly and to emphasize the fact that this is no computer class. Quite the contrary. The very first thing I proposed is that we have all become far too dependent on computers to fuel our imaginations. First thing on a Monday morning, and I assault these poor students with a barrage of touchy-feely, artsy-fartsy propositions, suggesting that we embark upon an adventure into our imaginations, far from the programmed digital lifeline to which we are attached every day, like dying patients to intravenous drugs.

More often than not, on the first morning of my workshop, I am met by steely eyes of skepticism and incredulity. Frequently, I am forced by clever questions asked with intense intelligence and sincerity to defend my position. Sometimes I have to clarify that, no, I am not opposed to computers in any way. I love/hate them as much as the next person and, yes, I do use Google and Wikipedia to research natural phenomena from time to time. It is a challenge sometimes to stay on message with my workshop, but I am very determined, and I stick to my guns. Computers are great, indeed. But the real supercomputer that is hardwired directly to the entire universe sits squarely on our shoulders. And the real world wide web stretches out around us in every direction, everywhere we go, no matter how far from or close to a computer we may be.

On this particular warm May morning though (and the air conditioning in the room was down), I was met by an engaging group of young people who were ready and willing to absorb what it was I proposed to them. There was a good energy in the room, and the workshop began to blossom into the workshop I had set out to put together years before. The time was right, and so was this unique and eclectic group of animation students.

Benjamin, Julia, Johannes, Thosten, Maryna, Daniel, Patrick, Moritz, Tonio, and Viola. Together we embarked on a three-day journey into our imaginations. We drew pictures, hatched schemes, took photographs, shared ideas and dreams, laughed and argued, and took full advantage of our own personal cosmic supercomputers.

There was a photo session that entailed smashing a cake into little pieces. There was a trip through downtown Ludwigsburg looking for sticky pieces of gum stuck on the sidewalk. There was a concerted effort (in vain) to borrow an industrial-strength pump from a local business establishment, to see what it might look like if an enormous alien with a huge trunk like an elephant was to suck a lake dry. There were surprisingly successful attempts to get footage of a match lighting, by taking Quicktime movies with an aged digital camera (that I always take with me everywhere I go). There were drawings produced by students who rarely draw at all that were surprising in their elegance. There were leaps and bounds made in everyone's drawing skills when, after long discussions about how energy works to create the natural special effects that we see all around us every day, they tried to draw energy on a page.

Day one, I begin by talking about visual effects in general, and I describe my career path in quite a bit of detail. I generally try just to get a feeling for the group, what they are interested in, and what each person might hope to get from such a workshop. I ask each student to tell me a bit about themselves, and in particular why they are attracted to animation. What style or medium do they love to work with, or aspire to work in? What is their ultimate goal? What is their dream job? Where do they see themselves going as far as their animation careers are concerned? And this was a really fun group to get to know.

On the afternoon of the first day, I laid out what it is I would like to see each student attempt to do in the next two days. First of all, identify a specific visual effect that you would like to learn as much about as you possibly can. This can be absolutely anything at all, and I presented them with a staggeringly long list of "things" that could be considered visual effects. We ended up with fires, smoke, sparks, water ripples, and more smoke. Waves, smashing cake, splattering whipped cream, sticking, stretching gum, and more waves. Crashing jetliners, and energy fields created by invisible flying objects (or was it invisible flying objects created by energy fields?).

Armed with these visual effects elements, I then ask the students to put as much effort as they possibly can into figuring out how the effect works and why, using whatever means are at their disposal, except for computers. I show them lots and lots of examples of how one might go about this. Write a list of things to consider. Gather any kind of reference you can find. Make a plan of attack, a story board, a sequence of drawings or diagrams.

Now here there is always the question, "Can we go online to look for reference?" And I generally will allow this to some degree, but only as a last resort. I definitely try to discourage it as much as possible, as that is one of the habits I am trying to break them of. But then again, the web is an absolutely phenomenal source of information, and it would be foolish not to take advantage of it. However, it has gotten to the point where the very first thing we do is Google anything we want to research. We do not even consider another initial approach. I really enjoy reminding students about libraries. When is the last time you even tried looking in a library? Imagine how different that is. The whole experience of going into this massive place filled with books and looking for something, it is a learning experience unto itself. And it frequently leads us places we never expected to go. It is almost impossible to browse through endless rows of interesting books without other topics jumping out at you, firing your imagination, pulling your imagination in different directions.