Jakob Schuh Wiki: Director, Net Worth, 'The Gruffalo' & Facts To Know

Have you by any chance watched the animation movie “Revolting Rhymes?” Maybe you have and perhaps loved the 30-minute film. If you haven’t then it’s about time you should look for it because it is quite interesting. You can watch it with kids since it is Cinderella-like. Jakob Schuh directs the animation and it was nominated for an Oscar 2018. There is so much about the director, Schuh that you need to know. He is the director of over films like “The Gruffalo”, “Waltraut and Kuno”, and “Ernst im Herbst” and has made quite a net worth from doing so. The films are hash-tagged on Instagram. So, who is Jakob Schuh? Schuh was born in Munich in 1976. Shortly after graduating from high school, the director joined the department of dramaturgy at the LMU based in Munich. Schuh joined the Film Academy Baden-Wurttemberg in 1996 and was admitted to the direction/animation department. He graduated in 2003 before becoming a teacher in the same institution in 2004. Schuh was also one of the founding partners of Studio Soi, a German animation house. He has been active as a director and a designer making some award-winning animation films since 1995.Schuh also worked as a caricaturist and illustrator for Suddeutsche Zeitung. In 2009, he was the co-director of “The Gruffalo” which ended up being nominated for an Oscar’s Best Animated Short Film category in 2011.

The film is based on an extraordinary book authored by Roald Dahl. It mixes the classic fairy tales of “Snow White”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Jack & The Beanstalk”, “Cinderella”, and “The Three Little Pigs” serving them in a mischievous twist. ‘Revolting Rhymes” was produced in Cape Town by a Triggerfish production. It was created by magic Light’s Berlin Studio. When you watch the movie, you will be treated to surprising endings. Some of the voice cast hail from England, Germany and South Africa. Before being nominated for an Oscar 2018, the animation the film received the Cristal for best TV Production at the Annecy Festival. The movie has also been nominated at the European Animation Awards in three categories. The film has received several accolades and exposed the talent that Jakob Schuh has. It also put the South African studio on the map as far as film production is concerned.

Both Dahl and Schuh are from Germany. Schuh said that Dahl’s book had not been translated into German when he was growing up. To date, it has never been translated. When Martin Pope sent him the “Revolting Rhymes” he felt like it was the sweetest music to his ears from his favorite band. He felt that the animation film would revive the 'classic' book and it was a pleasure for him. Schuh added that just like the book had so much going for it, Dahl’ rhyming was wonderful. The worldview he put down was shockingly timely, and he themed the book with female empowerment, his take on materialism and tradition, and revolt. Schuh felt lucky to work with that kind of source material.

Schuh stated that there were three main challenges about character design. The first challenge was to find a visual adaptation of the iconic artwork for Quentin Blake. Schuh didn’t feel like it was a good idea to copy Quentin’s actual style but wanted to stay true to his characters of being expressive, loose, and fantastic personality. The second challenge he experiences was the sheer number of characters in the book that were really different. The characters looked entirely different each time with their illustrations becoming lovelier. Schuh and his artists had to agree on something and they decided to find a shape-language that would allow them to arrive at a coherent ensemble of designs and one of the characters that the made well was Blake. The third challenge that Schuh and his team faced was that there were three characters in the film that traveled from between the framing story and the fairytale world. The worlds had different set of rules in terms of design. The producer and his crew didn’t have the time to build two different model sets for each of the traveling characters.

Schuh learned that writing parallel and interconnected storylines created some interesting results, but it also made everything else from writing to the final edit harder. They were not aware that it would get so hard to bring the four independent stories together and make them look meaningful. It was fun for Schuh, but he stated that he vowed to work-wise next time. His second lesson was doubting himself. He had moments during production where he never thought if he could ever finish the project in time. The crew worked amid challenges, learned, made sacrifices, children were born and some lost members of their families as they were working but even though those months were tough, they completed the work and he liked what came of it.

According to Net Worth Post, Jakob Schuh has a net worth of $700,000. He has made his net worth from doing what he knows best, directing animation films like “Waltraut and Kuno,” “Ernst im Herbst” and many others.

Jakob Schuh has come a long way to make his career a success. Being recognized for his efforts is a great thing. We all hope that he will take the Oscar 2018 award home. The director is not on Instagram.