What is the film about?

Goalie is about a Foosball goalkeeper’s frustration of being unable to get involved in the action. He feels he’s not so important to his team anymore. His pole breaks and tries to show that he is meant for more than ‘just’ a goalkeeper.

What influenced it?

At the time of starting my short film Goalie, I had seen all these incredible football related animated advertisements – Nike Football: The Last Game and Gatorade: Heart of a Lio – and wanted to create something similar with a specific style to it. I wanted to create a concept that you cannot film in live action. DreamWorks movies (where I currently work coincidentally) do this very well, like Kung Fu Panda, Trolls, Shrek, How to Train your Dragon, etc. More similarly to my movie, something like Toy Story, of toys coming to life.

Image: Maarten Lemmens

This concept brainstorm made me explore a foosball table, where my passion for football combines with a world where toys would come alive to play the game we love. I found other stunning football related movies including The Keeper, a 2018 film that follows a German football goalkeeper not fitting in with his British football team due to war events. This gave me the idea of exploring the idea of a goalkeeper, despite his incredible ability, maybe not feeling so important anymore, and seeking out motivation.

For the main character I was inspired by Manuel Neuer (German goalkeeper for FC Bayern Munich) and Ederson (Brazilian goalkeeper for Manchester City FC). Both these goalkeepers love coming out of the ‘normal’ goalkeeper role and providing support to other positions of the field. They provide a crucial attacking element in the buildup of football games (such as accurate long passes, great footwork and composure) whilst still claiming their defensive roles as goalkeepers.

Image: Maarten Lemmens

A little background information...

First of all, I love watching and playing football and foosball myself. Both my old football clubs had foosball tables in their cafeterias, ready to be played when practice was over. Due to this love for football and having to work on this movie for a year and a half, non-stop, I desperately wanted to incorporate that topic into my film. I believed it was crucial to find a theme I loved and in which I wouldn’t lose faith in or motivation for.

My intention was not to say “do not go and try different things or explore different positions”, it was specifically to show the importance behind every role and every person’s unique skillset and ability. Everyone has a unique importance in this world.

How was the film made?

Goalie was made as a thesis film during my final year of studying Computer Animation at Ringling College of Art and Design. I only had about 3 months of writing, storyboarding, creating characters and their personalities and designs, and the set environment. This was followed by about 7 months of modelling characters, rigging them with joints, layout, animation, texturing, lighting, rendering, compositing, and promoting my film. Due to this tight time constraint for a one-person film, I decided to brainstorm ideas to maximize my efficiency. This included making every character be variants of the same model, such as hair and facial hair changes, manipulating body or face sizes and eye and skin colors. This extended to creating an extremely simple environment outside of the foosball box and blur it entirely seeing just slivers of light; this would save me a lot of time and also make my programs faster.

Image: Maarten Lemmens

I am very thankful to my family for their support during this film, and especially for letting me travel across the world to pursue my dreams in becoming an animator. The faculty of my school, and Audiobrew, the company that produced the music and audio for my film, I was only the solo creator of everything visual in my film. I’m especially thankful to my friends that supported me throughout, even when covid hit and the film had to shift entirely to our bedrooms in a 10 by 10 foot college dorm room. Despite it being a rollercoaster of an experience, it was a highlight in my career and life to produce something to call my own.

Software: Autodesk Maya, Nuke, Zbrush, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Substance Painter.