About me

Martin Backhaus is a Producer, Project Manager and Digital Artist for Audiovisual Productions like Animation, Visual Effects, Virtual Reality/360°, Post-Production and Exhibitions. Currently, he is based in Berlin, Germany.

Martin has a diverse, multi-disciplinary background in fiction and documentary film & media production – from idea, story and design to final delivery. He combines this with a deep technological knowledge, as he regularly works as a Postproduction Supervisor, Online Editor and VFX Compositing & Matchmove Artist.

Together with companies like TAMSCHICK MEDIA+SPACE, Recom Film, Congaz visual media, OMSTUDIOS, studioNICE, Bastei Media or FFL Ludwigsburg Martin worked for well-known Clients and Brands which include Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, Lavazza, Porsche, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Bayer - and also Feature Film and TV Series Productions.

Recently Martin did the project management for the Hyundai Motorstudio Goyang Design Exhibition for TAMSCHICK MEDIA+SPACE and Atelier Brückner. A kinetic sculpture with 1441 aluminium rods and a 360° 56 hd screen installation express the design philosophy of Hyundai.

He worked with The Foundry's Nuke + Cara VR Toolset on 360° short films for broadcaster WDR, Mercedes Benz Bank, Opel and Mitsubishi as a VR/360 Supervisor and/or Compositing Artist.

Martin likes to explore and research new workflows and to collaborate with inter-disciplinary teams, in fields like Virtual & Augmented Reality, Virtual Production, Games and Exhibitions / Events. He currently learns and improves his skills in, among others: 3D Previs, Pipeline Technical Directing and Python software development.

Until 2013 he studied film-production at the renowned Baden-Württemberg Film Academy in Ludwigsburg with a specialization in Animation & VFX Producing at the Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction.
In 2011 he participated in the MEDIA training programme Animation Sans Frontières. He graduated with the VFX feature film project 5 JAHRE LEBEN / FIVE YEARS.

Born 1985 in Bonn, Martin had his first experience in filmmaking in 2004 with the feature film ROLLTREPPE ABWÄRTS, directed by Dustin Loose, which made it to German Cinemas in 2006.
He collaborated with Simon J. Paetau on many projects, inluding the semi-documental shortfilm OURY JALLOH, which won the German Human Rights Film Prize in 2008.

The hybrid-documentary DIE MENSCHENLIEBE, presented at Visions du Réel 2014 was awarded with the First Steps Award 2014. In 2014 he again collaborated with director Dustin Loose on the short film THE LAST WILL which won a Student Oscar in 2015.

LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/martinbackhaus

Recent Freelance Work

Projects & Filmography

Publications & Talks

2014 Co-Author of the SIGGRAPH 2014 Talk "Dark Matter - A Tale of Virtual Production"

Workshops & Masterclasses

June 2014 High Value for your Budget - The Creative Use of Virtual Production
EFA Masterclass 2014 with Marc Weigert
Oct 2010 - Mar 2011 Animation Sans Frontières - The Animation Production Workshop
www.animationsansfrontieres.eu

University & Schools

Oct 2008 - Apr 2013 Baden-Württemberg Film Academy, Ludwigsburg
Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction
since 2008, 2 years: Film Production
since 2010, 2 years: Animation & VFX Producing
Graduation (Diploma): April 2013
www.filmakademie.de / www.animationsinstitut.de
Aug 1996 - Jun 2005 Grammar School / Secondary School: Hardtberg-Gymnasium Bonn
Degree: Abitur (German A-Levels / German Baccalauréat)

Specific Skills & Software Experience

  • Producing / Project Management / Coordination
    • including Story Development, Project Breakdowns, Biddings, Scheduling, Budgeting, Financing and Monitoring/Controlling of several Fiction, Documentary, Commercial, Animation, VFX, Post-Production, Virtual-Production and Virtual-Reality projects since 2004
  • Post Production
    • Postproduction-Supervision, including VR 360°, Stereoscopic 3D,
      Virtual Production; Arri Alexa, Blackmagic, RED, Sony Cameras       from Preproduction to Delivery since 2004
    • Multi screen / projection and very high resolution media installations (one installation with 56x HD screens and 107.520 x 1.080 px resolution)
    • (Online-) Editing, Conforming and Finishing with DaVinci Resolve, Assimilate Scratch, DVS Clipster, Nuke Studio, Premiere Pro, Avid (Symphony), Final Cut Pro
    • DCP Mastering with DVS Clipster, easyDCP+ and OpenDCP
    • TV Broadcast, Bluray, DVD, H.264 Mastering / Encodings, including FFmpeg, x264
    • Data & Storage Management
    • Sound Editing/Mixing Basics with ProTools (Stereo Sound Mixes for several projects)
  • Visual Effects & Animation
    • VFX and VR/360° On-Set Supervision for several projects (commercials and short films)
    • Shotgun, ftrack & TACTIC Asset / Shot / Project-management
    • Advanced Spreadsheet Calculations (Excel, LibreOffice, Google Sheets)
    • Compositing with Nuke (including CARA VR) and After Effects
    • Timeline/Shot Management & Review with Nuke Studio, Hiero, RV, Pdplayer
    • Matchmoving (Intermediate) with Syntheyes
    • 3D Basics with Modo: Spatial 3D Previsualisation, Lighting & Rendering
    • Renderfarms: Thinkbox Deadline, Royalrender
  • Software Development & IT Operations
    • Basic to Intermediate Python 2 & 3:
      Several practical CLI applications written with the help of JetBrains PyCharm, but no long-term experience / hours logged. Python modules at least once used in production: sys, os, os.path, shutil, datetime, re, subprocess, scandir, clique, Deadline.DeadlineConnect, yaml, json, logging, pytest.
    • Version Control with Git, GitLab
    • Elementary Studio SysAdmin knowledge (Windows, macOS, Linux)
    • Webdesign, Site-Building Basics (XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, Wordpress & Drupal)
    • Linux Ubuntu User since 2007
  • Misc
    • Languages: German (native), English (fluent), French (Basics)
    • Production Sound Mixer / Recordist for many short films and documentaries (Sounddevices 788T/744T)

Internships

Oct-Dec 2005 &
July/Aug 2007		 Two Internships at Brainpool TV GmbH, Cologne:
- TV Show "Elton vs. Simon" (Production Staff, Assistant Editor)
- TV Series "Pastewka" (Location / AD Dept.)