Authentic and fun play with archival material!
Dežo Hoffmann – Photographer of the Beatles is a 2022 Slovak documentary directed by Patrik Lančarič, that focuses on the life and work of the renowned Slovak photographer Dežo Hoffmann. I was using only scanned materials provided by the production and Adobe After Effects to make them alive! Feel free to take a peak into my tiny part on the project and if you're interested to watch the full movie, you can buy it here: watch the full documentary on dafilms!
"I think working with archival material in this traditional way will never be replaced with AI generated footage, because the value of the material lies in its authenticity"
I had an amazing chance to work with studio Ekran, under the supervision of Peter Košťál and Pavol Ďurák on this documentary, there is a huge load of amazing postproduction work, but here I'm only sharing a tiny part where I had a great creative freedom and responsibility! My task was to present old newspaper articles and historical photographs in a simple and visually engaging way.
Dežo Hoffmann – Photographer of the Beatles is a 2022 Slovak documentary directed by Patrik Lančarič, that focuses on the life and work of the renowned Slovak photographer Dežo Hoffmann. I was using only scanned materials provided by the production and Adobe After Effects to make them alive! Feel free to take a peak into my tiny part on the project and if you're interested to watch the full movie, you can buy it here: watch the full documentary on dafilms!
"I think working with archival material in this traditional way will never be replaced with AI generated footage, because the value of the material lies in its authenticity"
I had an amazing chance to work with studio Ekran, under the supervision of Peter Košťál and Pavol Ďurák on this documentary, there is a huge load of amazing postproduction work, but here I'm only sharing a tiny part where I had a great creative freedom and responsibility! My task was to present old newspaper articles and historical photographs in a simple and visually engaging way.
Most of the documentary consists of interviews with his contemporaries—people sharing their memories of Dezo, including Sir Paul McCartney. A large part of the film is made up of Hoffmann’s original photographs and archival newspaper clippings that accompany and illustrate the narration.
I was given only scanned documents from the archive. Using After Effects, I composed these elements as if they were laid out on fabrics with retro patterns, often inspired by the aesthetics found in the photographs themselves. I imitated a shallow depth of field to give the images an authentic archival feeling.
I had an idea to enhance the retro feeling and bring back some of the colorful vibe of 60s and 70s through vibrant colours and patterns on which the newspapers are composited. I added some shadows and retouched some newspaper pages into scans that were just partial to keep the consistency through the whole project.
My second task was to bring the photographs to life with a parallax effect. I love this approach in documentaries because it relies on the original photos, so you can still see the natural wear and tear of time while also creating a sense of depth. It’s a gentle way to animate an image that supports what the interviewees are saying. To achieve this effect, the original is edited into multiple layers very precisely and then animated.
Working on Dežo Hoffmann – Photographer of the Beatles was a perfect mix of history, music, and creative play. Breathing motion into those time-worn photos and clippings felt a bit like sneaking into the past with a camera of my own—only this time, the Beatles were already in the frame!