Professor Franz Kraus to head Cinematography study program / The veteran ARRI tech executive is a recipient of such Hollywood honors as the Academy Award of Merit Oscar© statuette / Siegfried Fößel takes the helm of the Technology study program / Fößel is a recipient of such awards as the Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize
Munich, 17th September 2018 – This October, at the start of the 2018/2019 winter semester, two new appointments will head departments at the University of Television and Film (HFF) Munich.
Prof. Franz Kraus switches to the head of the Cinematography study program. Prof. Kraus will serve nonexecutive as joint head of the HFF Munich Cinematography department, together with department Chair Prof. Tom Fährmann.
Prof. Franz Kraus: “I have been actively involved at HFF Munich since 2004, serving as the head of the Technology study program. I am thus aware of how special and frequently, delightfully new it is to be directly involved with a film school and its young talent is. As the head of the Cinematography study program, I will be able to support that creativity even better, a role I am very much looking forward to. At the same time, I have the assurance of placing my current departmental duties into the excellent hands of my successor, Siegfried Fößel, whom I know from various collaborations.”
Prof. Tom Fährmann: “Our Cinematography department can consider itself very fortunate to have recruited Prof. Franz Kraus, whose highly competent personality in the field of cinematography will augment our departmental team. During my long working relationship with the company ARRI, I have had frequent occasion to admire Franz Kraus’s incredibly visionary power and comprehensive technical competence. We are therefore delighted to have him, as the head of our department, at our and our students’ side!”
Siegfried Fößel has been named the new head of the Technology study program. Alongside his industry duties, he joins the department Chair Prof. Peter C. Slansky in advancing current developments in this HFF department.
Siegfried Fößel: “During my almost 20-year involvement in the technical field of digital cinema and media technology, my collaboration with partners from the creative side has always been a special source of fascination and inspiration. This adds to the pleasure with which I look forward to the opportunity, as a departmental head at HFF Munich, to link technology with creativity!”
Prof. Peter C. Slansky: “Siegfried Fößel from the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (Erlangen) brings to our department his experience as an internationally distinguished researcher in the field of motion picture technologies, with a specialization in film and cinema, as well as with a special focus on applications ranging from immersive media to virtual reality. This association is a great asset, both to our instruction and our technical management, while also opening up, to interested HFF students, totally new opportunities of involvement in research projects in the above-mentioned fields.
At the same time, it was of absolute importance to me, after fourteen years of excellent collaboration with Franz Kraus as co-head of our department, to retain him at HFF, as the new head of the Cinematography study program, to whose founding he made a significant contribution. This “position switch”, initiated by our university President, is an excellent chess move for the future of HFF Munich.”
Like all nonexecutive heads of department at HFF Munich, Prof. Franz Kraus and Siegfried Fößel are active in the industry, thus serving as a vital interface between HFF Munich and business practice – an essential asset not only to our instruction, but also to students’ later industry careers.
Prof. Franz Kraus – Veteran head of technology development and current Supervisory Board member at ARRI, Oscar© recipient, and camera pioneer
After studying telecommunications technology, Franz Kraus began his career as a developmnt engineer for measuring instruments at Rohde & Schwarz, in Munich, then joined the research staff and assumed project management duties at the Fraunhofer Heinrich Herz Institute (HHI). in Berlin, prior to a stint as a visiting researcher at Bell Laboratories, in the US. In 1983, Kraus left HHI and returned to Munich to lead technical development at ARRI. In 2001, after serving in a number of top managerial positions, Kraus was appointed to the executive board, in charge of the internationally operating ARRI group’s research and development activities. On 1 September 2018, Kraus stepped down from his office as managing director for technology to join ARRI’s Supervisory Board. During his tenure, ARRI was presented with a total of nine awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its outstanding technical achievements, including the development of the ARRILASER film recorder, as well as the ALEXA digital camera system. In 2011, Kraus received his own personal Academy Award of Merit, an Oscar© statuette – the highest recognition in the film industry. Franz Kraus was also designated curator at both the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) and the HHI, as well being admitted to the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and granted honorary membership of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. Since 2004, he has also served as head of the Technology study program at HFF Munich – a position he has now turned over to Siegfried Fößel, while himself switching to the head of the Cinematography department.
Siegfried Fößel – Mediating between creativity and technology in motion picture science
After studying electrical engineering, Fößel completed his doctorate at Erlangen‘s Friedrich Alexander University. He simultaneously served as the head of automation and industrial sensor systems in the electronic systems department of Fraunhofer IIS (Erlangen). In 2002, still at IIS, Fößel was appointed group manager for digital cinema within their electronic imaging department – making a significant contribution to the introduction of digital cinema through his involvement in such diverse organizations as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), the German Federal Film Board (FFA), and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). Since 2010, he serves as head of IIS’s motion picture technologies department, in charge of strategic technology and innovation planning, among other duties. Fößel holds around ten patent families and other patents pending, and has authored more than 60 publications. Alongside his professional work, he is active in numerous networks, serving as the speaker of the Fraunhofer Digital Media Alliance, as a regular guest of both the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), as the chairman of the Fernseh- and Kinotechnische Gesellschaft e.V. (FKTG/German Association of Television and Film Technology), as well as as a board member and regional governor of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers SMPTE. For his outstanding work with digital image technology, as well as his innovative solutions for the media industry, Fößel was honored with the 2014 Joseph-von-Fraunhofer Award; and, in 2015, was named an SMPTE Fellow.