The Hunger Games:The Ballad of
Songbirds & Snakes
Graphic artist
Crew United credit
Videos and tablet animations with custom visual filters.
Studio & Experience
Where Art
Meets Technology.
Independent software development, creative technology and visual design since 2000.
With a background in fine arts and more than two decades of experience in international film and television production, I develop software and interfaces shaped by real-world demands.
About the studio
Creative judgement.
Technical responsibility.
One independent studio.
From the first idea to the working tool.
I’m Stefan Hollekamp, an independent developer, visual artist and musician. I studied fine arts at AKI Enschede in the 1990s, with a focus on photography and multimedia. That background still shapes how I see an image, build an interface and approach a technical problem.
Independent since 2000, I have worked in international film and television production since 2002. My work includes on-screen graphics, animation, computer interfaces and software programmed for the particular demands of a production.
The work continues on set. I support the applications and the actors who use them during filming, connecting what the camera needs with what the technology has to do. Film equipment, video, photography and music are all part of the same practice.
Read the studio storyFoundation
Fine arts & multimedia
Independent practice
Since 2000
International film & TV
Since 2002
Music
Since 1988
The Story Behind the Studio
Curiosity became a practice.
Computers, music, making things by hand and studying art were never separate interests for me. Each taught me something about the others. This is how they came together.
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Early 1980s · 1989
Early Curiosity
I worked in a swimming pool for about a year to buy my first computer: a Commodore VC20 with a Datasette. In 1989, an Atari 1040 ST followed, mainly for MIDI and music. Computers were becoming a way to connect sound, images and the things I wanted to make.
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A practical foundation
Learning by Building
After school, I trained as a gas and water installer. That work shaped an approach I still use: understand the whole problem, make a clear plan and follow it through. The shortest route is not always the most sensible one. Whether I’m building an interface or solving a technical problem, I try to keep the original goal in view.
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The 1990s · Enschede
Fine Arts & Multimedia
After returning to school for a further qualification, I studied multimedia and photography at AKI ArtEZ in Enschede, the Netherlands. I completed two courses of study and earned two bachelor’s degrees. I largely financed the studies myself, including trade work during the summer holidays.
Art gave me room to experiment. The practical work that supported it kept me attentive to how an idea becomes something you can actually use.
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Since 2000
Independent Since 2000
I wanted the freedom to move between photography, multimedia, video, interface design and software development. Independence mattered more to me than a conventional permanent position. Technical work and artistic freedom became parts of the same practice, rather than a choice between two careers.
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Teaching · 2000–2003
Teaching & Technology Journalism
I taught at the Multimedia Akademie in Mainz between 2000 and 2003 and contributed to Keyboards, Sound & Recording and Production Partner. Trade fairs and conversations with developers and technology companies, including Apple and Macromedia, broadened that work.
Director, Flash, Dreamweaver and DVD Studio Pro were among the applications I explored early on. Teaching and writing were ways to understand these technologies and share what I learned.
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Blueprint · Filming in summer 2002 · Premiere 2003
Film & Future Interfaces
For Blueprint, I designed futuristic on-screen graphics and interfaces depicting video communication, touch controls, fingerprint scanners and automated checkout systems. Some of the filming even took place in my own house.
Several of those ideas later became familiar in everyday life. Regular international film and television work followed from 2002, bringing visual design and custom software directly into the production environment.
A personal appearance. Stefan Hollekamp during his appearance in the German crime series Stralsund. -
From the working day to the working tool
Software Shaped by Real Work
Most Smart-App.Dev applications began with a specific problem in my working day. Functions were often developed during a production or shortly afterwards, then refined through continued use and feedback. The aim is not to build the largest possible application. It is to solve the actual task well.
Explore the tools
A way of working
Built with curiosity.
Refined through experience.
Art brings a different way of seeing. Hands-on work brings a plan and the care to carry it out. Music keeps me curious about interaction and timing. Together, they shape how I develop software: explore the idea, understand the need and keep improving the details that matter in use.
Blueprint · 2002
The house that started a film career.
What began as a way to pay for a heating system became the beginning of more than two decades of work in film production.
Filming · Summer 2002 Premiere · 2003
The Old Villa
In 1996, I moved into an old villa in Germany. It was in poor condition and had been earmarked for demolition. Together with a local arts association, I used the house for exhibitions and other artistic projects.
When the association dissolved around 2000, I continued renting the villa on my own. My training as a gas and water installer helped me carry out many of the repairs myself. A new heating system, however, was beyond my budget. I registered the house as a possible film location. A few months later, the production of Blueprint got in touch.
From location to collaboration
An Unexpected Opportunity
During preparations for the shoot, the director regularly visited my workspace. There he saw multimedia animations I had developed for AOK using Macromedia Flash. He asked whether I could also design the film’s futuristic computer interfaces.
The story called for a digital world around 2030–2035. I received the script and began developing the screen content directly at the filming location. The house had brought the production to me; the work in my studio opened up a different role within it.
A future the audience could understand
Imagining Tomorrow’s Interfaces
The task was to give the fictional technology clear, believable ways of working. The actors needed to understand the actions, and the audience needed to follow what was happening on screen.
Video communication with an animated connection sequence.
Touchscreen-based navigation and controls.
Automated supermarket checkouts.
Biometric identification through a thumb scanner.
Digital passport and information displays.
Many of these concepts became familiar in everyday life over the following decades. My work was the independent design of plausible future interfaces for a film shot in summer 2002.
The interface became part of the take
Built to Work on Camera
The production was shot on analogue film. Digital screen replacement would have added considerable cost and complexity, so the interfaces ran on the actual computers at the set.
I operated the applications during filming. Actors could interact with the real screen content, allowing many scenes to be recorded without replacing the displays afterwards. The design had to be understandable, but it also had to work during the take.
Further interfaces from the film
The beginning
A working approach that stayed.
Blueprint led to further work in German film and television, and later to international productions. It established an approach that still guides my work today.
Understand the problem.
Imagine a solution.
Build it. Make it work.
The emphasis on usable interfaces and direct on-set support continues in today’s software. Smart GreenScreen and StageDirector are shaped by the same practical approach: understand what the production needs, then make the tool work in that environment.
Selected Film & Television Credits
Interfaces inside
other people’s stories.
On-screen work.
Behind-the-scenes responsibility.
The Hunger Games:The Ballad of
Tár
Graphic artist
Crew United credit
Computer and mobile app programming and design.
Nine Perfect
Strangers
Graphic artist
Crew United credit
Computer and smartphone app programming and design.
Charlie’s
Angels
Computer / video playback supervisor · Graphic artist
Crew United credit
App remote programming and setup; green screen app.
The Billion
Dollar Code
Graphic artist
Crew United credit
Computer programming and design; background graphics and art films.
Stowaway
Graphic artist
Crew United credit
Computer and mobile app programming and design.
Flesh of the Gods
Motion graphics designer
Motion graphics, video playback supervision,
analogue video technology and recording.
Project year listed by Crew United. Release date not confirmed there.
Crew United creditBlueprint
Graphic artist
Read the story
Crew United credit Futuristic on-screen graphics and interfaces for video communication, touch interaction, fingerprint scanners and automated checkout systems.
Selected photography
Behind the Scenes —
Technology in Action
Selected photographs from my work.
Workstations, displays and the set around them.
Professional experience
Different environments.
The same hands-on approach.
Film, industry and the live stage.
Art and technology in practice.
International Film
& Television
On-screen graphics, custom applications, playback systems and direct on-set technical support. From developing the interface to supporting its use during the take.
Selected productions
Automotive
& Corporate
Mercedes-AMG image film productions, data wrangling, assistant directing and individually developed iPad applications. Production experience carried into the tools used around it.
Mercedes-AMG
Industrial
Documentation
Ten years of film and photography production for thyssenkrupp Steel, including a year-long time-lapse documentation of a blast furnace demolition. A practice of observing, recording and following a project through.
thyssenkrupp Steel
Music &
Interactive Technology
An active musician since 1988. MIDISynth and my own MIDI hardware solutions grow from the practical needs of making and performing music.
Explore MIDISynthAutomotive production
On location with Mercedes-AMG.
A Mercedes-Benz V12 Biturbo fitted with a professional camera rig during an AMG film production. An example of the automotive production work behind the studio’s practical approach.
Development philosophy
Built out of necessity.
Refined through experience.
Many of my applications began with a concrete problem during a professional production. The first version solved a particular need. Continued use, feedback and years of refinement shaped what came next.
StageDirector
Keep playback and display control together. A production tool refined through years of use on real sets.
Explore the system
Smart GreenScreen
A practical screen for the shot: controllable backgrounds, tracking markers and overlays that can be adjusted to the setup.
Explore the app
DriveBar
See connected drives and negotiated connection speeds, then eject safely. A small tool for a recurring part of media work.
Explore the appNot built to impress. Built to perform.
Everything I do is art.
Life’s what you make it.
— Stefan Hollekamp
A conversation starts here
Let’s make
something useful.
A production question, a software idea or a new collaboration?
I’m directly involved in the work and the applications behind it. Get in touch, explore the portfolio or take a closer look at licensing and partnerships.
Contact Stefan