Germany: Wolf & Lamm

Berlin-based directing duo Wolf & Lamm have built a risqué reputation on NSFW music videos and saucy sex-toy commercials, but, as their recent award-winning spot for menswear retail brand Strellson proves, they’re more than just “two dirty German guys”, finds Selena Schleh

In a gaudy bar in former East Berlin, Kai Kurve and Joffrey Jans, aka Wolf & Lamm, are making a cup of tea. Elevator jazz trickles from the speakers; an enormous goggle-eyed bust of Albert Einstein surveys the room. It’s a whimsical setting, like a scene from one of the duo’s videos. All that’s missing is a naked woman being spanked on the buttocks with a lollipop.

It’s fair to say that Kurve and Jans have a well-earned reputation for the risqué. From pastel-hued naughtiness for adult retailer EIS.de, to a 70s soft-porn homage in Edeka’s Bart Strip and a bloodily erotic lesbian tussle in their promo for Lexy & K-Paul’s Killing Me, kink is a common thread running through their reel.

“People think we’re two dirty German guys, but we never try to be vulgar,” insists Kurve. “It’s not about sexuality, it’s about sexiness.” Another key ingredient in the Wolf & Lamm formula is their highly stylised aesthetic. “Everything has to be in the right place in every single frame. We never try to show reality, because we think that’s very ugly. [Reality] is too random, so we want to clear that up,” says Kurve. 

Making themselves unstoppable

Those exacting visual standards are down to a shared background in art and design: Jans is an alumnus of New York’s Parsons School of Design, while Kurve studied fine arts at Braunschweig University. The pair met when Jans interviewed for a job at Berlin post house PICTORION Das Werk, where Kurve was working as a motion-graphic designer, directing underground electronic music videos on the side. They got chatting and, though Jans didn’t take the job, stayed in touch over the years.

In 2011, Jans founded his own animation studio – which brings us to that intriguing moniker (as you might guess, it means Wolf & Lamb in English). “It was just me, sitting at my kitchen table in my boxer shorts,” Jans remembers, “and I was thinking, ‘Fuck, to get a big client, I need a name that’s grand and established, like a law firm.’” In 2012 Kurve quit his job to join Jans’ studio, and the pair began directing as a duo, while keeping up their motion-graphic day jobs.

Though the animation studio is no more, the name lives on because Kurve and Jans feel it expresses their “yin and yang” and, as the title of an Aesop fable, their passion for storytelling.

So who has teeth and who’s the cute fluffy one? With his impassive air and direct delivery, Kurve seems like the wolf to Jans’ mild-mannered and charming lamb, but Jans reckons “we’re both a bit of each. Whenever he’s wolf, I’m lamb, and vice versa. We complement each other well.”

This happy balance shows in the work. After successes with promos such as Wasted So Much Time for German electro act Wankelmut, a stunning frozen-moment film with shades of Dangerous Liaisons in its scenes of high-society debauchery, this year marked their breakthrough commercial Make Yourself Unstoppable, for menswear retailer Strellson. “It was an exceptional job,” says Jans of the four-minute flight of fantasy, which they also scripted. Set to a cover of Queen’s 'Don’t Stop Me Now', the branded music video follows a sharp-suited chap to the dry cleaners in a parallel universe peopled by anthropomorphised doughnuts. It’s a trip in every sense of the word – a collection of all the ideas they’ve had for music videos over the years. Incredibly, they turned the job down three times, eventually accepting on the proviso that the agency, Serviceplan, gave them complete carte blanche.

Being a duo helped them to cope with the film’s demands both in pre-production and on set, such as dealing with multiple locations and a large cast. “I could never have done the job by myself,” admits Jans. “One of us is always super-focussed on the acting and the other one sees the little hair that is sticking out or the dress that doesn’t quite fit. You need four eyes to pick up every detail.”

Keeping four eyes on the prizes

Having been showered with awards, including a silver Ciclope, the Strellson spot’s success has paved the way for more jobs, including some bold new work for Sky, set to air soon. Internationally, German directors might not be as in vogue as ‘les Frenchies’, but Jans is confident their high-end aesthetic will stay in demand.

Right now, according to Kurve, they’re “financially safe enough to breathe and look around and make the right decisions. We always say it’s not about the product – we’d do a shampoo commercial if the idea was cool.” They miss the tight-knit camaraderie of promo shoots, but not the lean budgets, such as on Okta Logue’s Pitch Black Dark shoot earlier this year. “We were staying in this shitty motel,” shivers Jans, “and unmentionable things [were] going on all night next door.” Seems there are some things that even Wolf & Lamm can’t put a sexy spin on.