Pascal Floerks Brings A Bear Into His Family

Using still images to tell a cinematic story may not be an entirely novel exercise. However, having the ability to move an audience through such means is rarely achieved with such poignancy as freelance filmmaker Pascal Floerks achieves in his beautiful film, “Bär” (‘bear’ in German).

Using the nostalgia inherent in photography and combining it with brilliant touches of seamless CG, he recreates the true and emotional story of his grandfather, a German paratrooper in the Second World War. With a digitally crafted bear used to represent his grandfather, Floerks evokes a universal sense of reminiscence, loss and familial affection.

Despite being a graduate film from the Animation department of the prestigious Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Germany, the director resisted the temptation to tell the story entirely though animation and we’re delighted with his decision. After receiving numerous nominations and wins at countless festivals we finally got our chance to feature the director on our Scout section and chat about adopting a bear into his family!   

* Note: subtitles available in English by clicking the 'cc' at the bottom of the video.

What made you want to tell this story for your graduation movie? 

After working on a lot of projects from more of a technical point of view, I wanted to change things up for my final thesis and make a film where I could put my main focus on story telling. Deciding on telling the personal story of my grandfather took a little while, but I started to like the idea as it really motivated me because I saw a clear reason for this film to exist. It made me focus even more on the story side.

Why did you decide to represent your grandfather as a bear and is this all true?  

The story I tell is all true and based on the stories he and my family told me about his past. Although I wanted to tell a story about my grandfather, I never wanted to really show him as a person, because I felt that it might be hard for people to really connect to him on a more emotional level, when they just see the person. I wanted to keep the story more open, have people reflect their image of a person onto the bear. For some it could just be an old man, for others, it could be their grandfather.

Was your grandfather actually in most of these images with the bear simply placed over him, or did you find archive footage to match the story, or both?

It’s both. All the war photos are from a German library, the “Bundesarchiv”. I could search the library online and find photos that would match the situation of the film. It was important for me to use photos that showed paratroopers from World War 2 so it all stays more or less true to history. Luckily the archive is really comprehensive, so I was successful in finding the right photos. The rest of the film is filled with actual family album photos of my grandfather, so on a lot of them I really replaced him with the bear.

Did you use only old images or did you go back and recreate/retake any for this film? 

Most of the photos are old photos from my family but for a few of the last photos in the film I actually had to re-create and process them so they would fit into the look of the rest of the photos. Mainly the hospital and some of the apartment photos were re-created.

Was it hard to control the suspense and emotion in a short film using still footage only? 

For me it was, it was hard to restrict myself to only using still images. I knew that those images had to be interesting to look at and I knew the bear really had to work. I was afraid that if the bear would fail from a technical point of view, people would not look at the images anymore but think about the bear too much. I also realised quite early that to build suspense the music and the voice had to be right and fit the mood and atmosphere that I wanted to create. I think the music helps tremendously to have people hang on to the narrative.

Were you ever tempted to animate it? 

There was a moment at the beginning of the production where I was thinking about telling the story with an animated piece, but being restricted in time, I started to think about how to strip it down to just the bare minimum, always trying to remind myself that it’s all about the story. This had to be the best learning experience of my time at Filmakademie, that less can sometimes really be more.

Did you create the CG image of the bear using a 3D modelling technique, or is it made entirely in 2D? 

I tried different techniques, starting with 2D images of bears, but soon realized that this won’t work as every bear looks different and it was hard to find the right poses to really make it look convincing. Also fitting the lighting to the photos was really crucial in making it work. So very soon in the production I realized that 2D won’t do it, so I decided to create a CG bear and go all the way.

The lighting and texture is very beautiful and perfectly matched to each photo. Did you have a special way of recreating the lighting from the photos or was it a case of adjusting it every time?

There really was no magic to it. I had to adjust every photo by itself, starting with a pose that I liked and that transported the emotion I wanted to display and then really studying the source photos, looking at the intesity and color of the lights and shadows, placing lights in 3D and combing the fur to have it all come together. I never studied photos that intensly before.

Was it tricky making the CG bear blend in with the background?

All the Black and White photos were actually quite easy as I mainly had to match light intensities but not color. Matching the lights in general was very tricky sometimes and would make the photo break immediately if it wasn’t correct. Posing the bear and making the fur look good was the easier and more fun part of it.

What was the hardest part of making this film?

Definitely the decisions I had to go through in how to tell the story, what to tell when and what words to choose to tell it. As I was emotionally attached to the story I felt that that was harder than I expected. The bear was also very challenging but that came down to putting the hours into creating it and making him look nice.

Is there anything you would have changed or added if you could?

I always see and hear things that I think I could have done better, but I’m really happy with the film now. I was lucky enough to have been on screenings of the film and sometimes seeing the audience going from laughter at the beginning of the film to sometimes dead silence in between and a little bit of weeping at the end really gives me the feeling that it just works the way it is.

Finally, what next for you now that you’ve graduated? Any more films on the horizon? 

I’m currently working in the animation/vfx industry in Germany, helping other people create their films on a more technical level again, but I’m constantly thinking about new material for me to tell and I’m confident that I will one day start working on my second film, hopefully sooner than later!