Refugium is a Audiovisual Journey combining the Art of Skateboarding with Animation and Visual Effects.

Skateboarding as an escape from everyday life, stress and fear into a “urban Neverland” – a surrealist world where you can still be a child.

Director Johannes Kammerer tells us a little more on his process:

Tell us about your vision process of putting this together, did you have a visual storyboard or did you freestyle?

I knew what I wanted the film to feel like and I tried to put it in something like a Script or a Storyboard but then I realized that filming a Skatevideo is more like filming a documentary – you can´t really plan everything ahead of time and just have to go with the flow. So while going out and just filming as much skateboarding as possible I experimented a lot with different Visuals, 3D Animation and Visual Effects. When verything finally came together in the Edit I was super relieved because before that I just didn´t know if it will work at all. Shoutout to my Editor Victor Haselmayer who helped me so much with getting this ideas out of my brain and into the film.

Besides making a really cool video, did you have any other intentions with the film?

Skateboarding always was a big part of my life, so I always wanted to direct my own Skatevideo. On the other hand I wanted to tell a little story about the struggles of everyday life, stress and fear. I struggled with anxiety for a while and skateboarding was always an escape for me – a place where I could just play and still have fun like a little kid.

How many skateboards were broken during the making of this video?

Hahaha, I guess about eight while filming the Skateboarding. Then I broke about 20 of my old boards and another 80 CGI Boards in C4D for the Boardexplosion VFX Shot.