Dear friend,

After the island Sagishima I went to Hiroshima for a few days.

The brother of one of my best friends got married there. It was a real traditional Japanese wedding and I had never experienced something like that before. (I won’t show photos of it. That’s private.)

We went to a lot of great restaurants.
But I always like the ones with plastic chairs and plastic tables where mostly locals go. And we found one of those which was famous for ramen and only had three dishes on the menu:

1. Ramen

2. One portion of rice

3. Two portions of rice

We also went to the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima.

Before the trip I watched the movie Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosawa, which is also about the memory of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki.

We saw a lot of original objects and listened to the stories of the victims. Atomic bombs, man. That really cannot happen again, never.

The park with all the statues was also really impressive. There was one I stayed in front of for quite a while: Statue of a Prayer for Peace

The sculptor Katsuzo Entsuba described the meaning of it with this poem:

“From parent to child, not yesterday but tomorrow, the crescent moon will become a full moon. I want to sound the trumpet for peace in the search of a new future.”

Now I’m back on the island for the next 8 days.
Real monk mode. I got my food. I go for runs every day…

Creatively I didn’t do that much. But that’s ok, I think.

Thank you for reading! 🙏

Much love,
Marius

Dear friend,

I am on an island in Japan.

I am doing a small holiday here before we start building the filmset in Bangkok.

Now I am on Sagishima. Its a small island between Osaka and Hiroshima. I came here from Osaka with the Shinkansen (the super fast train).

Everything here works so well here. I am totally amazed by Japan.

I live in the only guesthouse on the island. A really old-school Japanese house, like from the old movies of Yasujirō Ozu. Sliding walls, tatami and all that stuff.

I think I have never seen such a peaceful, beautiful and well-kept place. It’s like paradise (sounds cheesy, I know). Only a few people live here, the ferry comes twice a day and I just rode around the whole island on a bicycle.

This morning there was a festival. The people from the village, together with a group of students, carried a shrine with a god inside through the village.

I just wanted to go out for a walk, and then I was in the middle of the ceremony.

I was allowed to walk along with them and take photos. That was pretty special.

If it wasn’t so far away, I could imagine living here. Ok, it’s only the first day. And there is not much to do here. But it’s so relaxed and peaceful…

In four days I’ll go on to Hiroshima. After that I have one more week before Tokyo. Maybe I’ll just come back here.

I hope you are relaxed too. I’ll ride my bicycle around the island a bit more…

Thank you for reading! 🙏

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friend,

Last week I signed the contract for the Ghosthouse in Bangkok!

In this house I will build the set for Ghostbirth 2. And live there with my crew.

The house is in the center of Bangkok. And it’s next to a mall with six floors full of camera equipment shops. So that’s good when you make a movie…

The area feels very cosy too. Nice coffee shops and restaurants. And I am already friends with one of the coffee shop owners around the corner.

The house itself is an old Bangkok shophouse with five floors.

At first I was not convinced because the staircase was not connected to the lobby area downstairs. But when the owners heard that this is important for the movie, they built an extra connection door.

Now you can reach the staircase directly from the lobby.

The house is really massive. More than 300 square meters. When you stand inside you think: Wow. It’s really massive.

There is beautiful light, and everything has a nice patina. It doesn’t feel sterile and therefore perfect for a haunted massage studio.

Next week I’m going to Japan for three weeks. I will visit the wedding of a friend and enjoy some nature. When I come back, I will move directly into our new house.

Aneta Vaškelytė, our production assistant, will come from Berlin and help me set up the house. It’s completely empty, so we need to organize basically everything on the lowest budget possible.

And then on I will send regular updates. Because this is when the production of Ghostbirth 2 officially starts.

On another note, I’m doing a lot of storyboarding with Midjourney. I’m trying to recreate some shots that help us find our visual language.

I will share more of these soon. But here is already a little preview of the tone and mood of the movie.

Let me know if you are around Japan or Bangkok. Or if you know people who would like to join the Ghostbirth 2 production.

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friend,

A few days ago I went to the cinema in Bangkok with my good friend Rattawich. The film was so terrible that I ranted about it for 2 hours.

So I thought, maybe I share a bit of film criticism from time to time.
I watch a lot of films anyway...

Camp Miasma, 2026

That was the film we watched. A big disappointment. It sells itself as a horror slasher, because it’s Halloween season here. But in the end it is a film about finding yourself and your own sexuality and all that…

They wanted too much in this film. Retrospective, old school film style, slasher, the identity conflict of the women, a love story. And on top of that references to all kinds of classic horror movies.

There is no red thread. Nothing holds it together. You sit in the cinema and ask yourself: What the hell am I watching here? But not in a good way.
The script is bad. The dialogues are bad. The editing is bad. The music is bad.

It feels like the final project of a politically correct graduating class of psychology and film students. But shot with a good camera. The worst film I have seen in years. But I learned a lot from it. Basically everything you can do wrong.

Resident Evil, 2026

Then I watched the new Resident Evil, also in the cinema with my friend Rattawich. I really expected to walk out scared. But in the end it was a zombie film with a lot of video game humor. The jumpscares are really well done though.

But it wasn’t really creepy. It was very exaggerated, almost like fantasy. And yeah. Pretty funny. I think you just have to see it as an entertainment product, not as a real horror film.

Irma Vep, 1996

Then the French film Irma Vep. The actress Maggie Cheung is invited to Paris to play a role in the cult vampire film Irma Vep. She plays the vampire. Very beautiful shots. Especially Maggie Cheung of course.

It gives you a good look behind the scenes of the French film industry of that time.

But I found the film a bit irritating, because it doesn’t really have a red thread either. Suddenly you are inside a documentary about the film industry in Paris at that time, and that makes you fall out of the illusion of the actual movie. Also the storytelling it didn’t work for me. But it’s a good document of its time.

Brüno, 2009

Then Brüno by Sacha Baron Cohen, who also made Ali G and Borat. Brüno is the gay character who wants to become famous in America. Totally exaggerated film. But in a good way!

Almost all scenes were shot in situations where the other people didn’t know it was a parody. The reactions of the people are all real. And it is again a crazy example of how America thinks and how narrow-minded many people are.

Wild film. I like it!

What I learned

Don’t try to put everything into one film. Otherwise you lose the frame and the red thread. In the end you are telling a story.

If you just pour your mental vomit over the audience, nobody gets anything out of it.

Less is more. Focus on the film and on what it is actually about.

Many wishes,
Marius

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Dear friend,

Good news! Today I finished the script and storyboard of Ghostbirth 2.

Until last month, I had the rough structure of the film written down, and I thought that was enough to start shooting.

But then I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to mentally watch Ghostbirth 2.
And I realized that there were so many unclear moments.

For example I wrote that Elena (my main character) is in her room. But I never thought about what she is actually doing in her room.

So I spent the last month trying to really visually imagine the complete movie.

As mental notes, I drew little sketches. It turns out that this is called storyboarding. I hadn’t really thought about that before at all.

And that’s what I did. I bought a blue notebook and drew every shot I could imagine into it. One after the other…

And those who already know me won’t be surprised that I wanted to have things digital as well.

So I coded a small tool that helps me arrange my drawings and lets me write notes next to them. Because I love procrastination, the small tool grew into a full storyboard platform.

It is possible to add shots, rearrange them, switch between different views and have it read out loud to you.

There is even a small chat with Claude built in, which helps you talk through the story or talk with characters from your script.

I got a bit afraid that I was developing a tool instead of writing my script and drawing my storyboard. But now both are finished.

On Wednesday I’m finally viewing a location for the ghost-house.
Please wish me luck that it works out.

More soon!

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friend,

Looking for a house in Bangkok turned out a bit more complicated than expected.

My goal is to find a 4 floor house in which we can build the set for the shooting of Ghostbirth 2.

I made a small drawing so you have an idea:

Basically the complete film will be set in this building.

At the bottom we have the reception and lobby of the massage studio. Upstairs the actual massage rooms, then Elenas room and the flesh room. And on the top I will live with my film-crew.

There are two main websites where I found houses like this. But also to walk around the city at night works. They put a sign with the phone number on the door if the houses is for rent.

Rachel, who is helping me with the production calls them, because I do not speak any Thai.

And we found the perfect house and had an appointment set for Monday. But they cancelled yesterday because they don’t want to rent to a foreigner. That was a bit annoying…

So we are back to zero and continue calling the house owners.

In case you know someone in Bangkok who knows or might know a house like this to rent - let me know.

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friends,

second week in Bangkok and I got my favorite places for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So all is set.

Also I started taking lessons to learn Thai, found a group to train Capoeira and meet people from the movie-scene.

Video Exportify

To promote Ghostbirth 2 on social media, I prepared some posts in Figma. Some of them contain videos.

And I found out that it is not possible to export frames in Figma as videos but only still images (!)

So two weeks ago I wrote a plugin for Figma which lets you export your designs as videos directly.

If you are curious, have a look here:
https://videoexportify.com

Think:Act

As well I was invited to create illustrations for the for two connected issues of Think:Act.

Think:Act is an award-winning executive magazine by strategy consultancy Roland Berger, covering global business trends.

Especially I am proud that my illustration also got selected for the magazine cover which glows in the dark!

Thank you Anna Bianchi, Jennifer David and Franziska Goppold

Thank you for reading and more from Ghostbirth 2 soon.

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friends,

its finally happening. I am in Bangkok and start producing Ghostbirth 2.

The rough plan is this:

August—October

• I need to find a location where we can build the set. Preferably a 4 story shophouse which I can transfer into a haunted massage-studio.

• Also I still need to find some actors. Last time I already learned that Facebook is still a thing in Thailand. There is an active community of actors which I can approach.

• Start spreading the adventure. We built a website for Ghostbirth 2 and will start posting on social media as well. So whoever who is interested or wants to help, knows what is going on.

November—December

• Building the set. Until then we found our location and can start decorating it. The plan is also to live there in the top floor.

• Testing shots and lights. Because we have the set, we can already start experimenting. It’s nice to test things without time pressure.

January—Februrary

• In those two months we will shoot.

• Because I planned two months for the shooting, we don’t need to rush things. I can adapt to the schedule of the actors, or shoot multiple variations of a scene.

Well, and then… we will have all the footage and can start the post-production. I want to reduce the amount of digital effects - we had enough of this when producing Spacebirth 2.

Here is the link to the official Ghostbirth 2 website:
www.ghostbirth2.com

If you are around in Bangkok between September and February – please let me know. Everybody is warmly welcome to join the project!

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friends,

before heading to Bangkok I visited my good old friends in Paris.

One of them is Hannah Kindler, an artist who works a lot with textiles. Currently she has a residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.

She uses old fabrics, takes them apart and sews them into costumes, masks and very big puppets.

She uses those for photos, videos and performances. A lot of her work is about motherhood and about the female figures we know from art history.

Also she co-founded a collective called M.A.R.S. which means Maternal Artistic Research Studio.

It was beautiful to spend some sunny days together at the Seine and eat croissants and self-made waffles.

Now my journey continues and I try to send share updates frequently.

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friends,

In a few days I will be out of Berlin and on the road with my small suitcase. First stop is Bangkok, where I will produce my next movie Ghostbirth 2.

There is this line from Bilbo which fits:
It’s a dangerous business, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

That is more or less the plan.
So here is what happened in my last four weeks:

Camera-man for Malak Haynes

One of my closest friends, Malak Haynes, is working on his second film called Transference Unveiled. Big up!

It’s a surreal movie about interfering with other people’s dreams and realities.

Because I bought a new camera and need practice, I happily did the camera work. We spent several days in the botanical garden of Berlin with a great crew and (most important) good food.

Stella Matutina

Paula and me got invited to a place in Switzerland called Stella Matutina. Together we are all building a new school in a monastery on a peninsula at Lake Lucerne.

The school is built around people who move between and beyond philosophy, art, science, business and technology.

I am grateful for this week with inspiring people from all over the world, the beautiful place, the amazing food, and enough time to connect and swim in the lake.

I will write about this properly another time.

Limn

We are still developing Limn. It is a tool for visual exploration. You use AI to explore images and directions you would not have thought of yourself.

Right now fashion designers at LVMH and at the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris are working with it.

That idea of exploration over speed is very close to how I work, so I am happy that I met Tobias Rees, who had the idea of turning this philosophy into a functional product.

Getting started with Ghostbirth 2

In Bangkok I will be hosted again by Ing and Manit from Cinema Oasis. They have taken me in countless times over the years, and it is a big part of why I have the courage to work on my second movie Ghostbirth 2.

I am excited and very thankful for all the people who support me on this.

So. Summer break is over. From Bangkok on I will keep you posted more regularly.

Thank you for reading!

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friends,

I keep this one short because of the heat. 😵‍💫

On the 5th of July we will do a small screening of Spacebirth 2 in Berlin.
Feel free to join and bring friends.

Location:
b-ware Ladenkino,
Gärtnerstraße 19,
10245 Berlin

Date & Time:
Sunday, 5th of July, 10pm

Reserve your spot here.

Stay hydrated! 🚰

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friends,

Before Ghostbirth 2, we did Spacebirth 2.

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Spacebirth 2 is a film about a lonely cosmonaut in a spaceship. Drifting through space. Getting more and more depressed. And then suddenly…

We call it a psychedelic science-fiction. Its a full feature film and we worked on it for roughly three years.

We is: Audrey Belaud, Richard Keith, Jamie Touche, Felix Karliczek and many many more. In total a crew of more than 200 people.

It was our first film ever, so we had absolutely no clue what we were doing. We built the complete set from cardboard in an industrial bakery in Berlin.

Those years were completely rock’n roll and I learned how much you can achieve if you really believe in it.

Invitation

Early July (probably the 5th of July) we will host a small screening for friends in a cinema in Berlin. So if you are around - let me know - this is your invitation.

Until then - enjoy your summer!

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I am currently preparing the production of Ghostbirth 2.

Here I want to give you a look of how I am preparing the visuals and concept-art.

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Define the mood

Ghostbirth 2 will be a thai-giallo. That means Dario Argento, and especially his movie Suspiria, is a main reference.

I rewatched Suspiria and took screenshots of all the strong visual moments I want to have in my movie too. Then I put all of these images into a moodboard in Midjourney.

By putting a reference to this moodboard into my prompt, I was able to generate images in this specific mood. But it did not stop here.

Building the prompt

Just freestyling a prompt and making a reference to the moodboard is not enough to get the results I wanted. I wanted to be more in control.

So I created a new project in Claude and called it: Ghostbirth 2 – Visual Builder. I wrote an instruction prompt which applies to all the chats within this project.

(By the way, I used Claude to write me this instruction prompt and gave it some visual inspiration, so it understands the style I am looking for.)

I also uploaded the current version of the script and the synopsis to the Claude project. Like this the project knows which scenes I want to build.

Once this was done, I just had to tell Claude to generate me a prompt for a specific scene. For example the massage-lobby.

This long, structured and precise prompt I copy-pasted into Midjourney and added the moodboard reference from above.

The results were images which I could really see in my movie.

From there it was easy to explore different parts of my movie-sets and get visually inspired.

I even uploaded a floorplan of my set to the Claude project, so I can really control how the rooms are set up.

From the experience of my last movie Spacebirth 2 I learned that visual references are very important for me. Because I want to show my DOP (camera-man) what look I want to achieve.

It is a funky creative process which feels very playful and intuitive.

But AI only helps me prepare. The film itself I want to shoot for real. With practical effects and no AI.

Thanks a lot for reading!

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I’ve been mentioning selling my art prints for a while now.
And it is finally happening.

Visit the shop

We set up a small, simple online shop with a selection of my work. Each image exists in an edition of only 8, comes with a unique ID and a signed certificate.

We print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm.

Some of you might already know these images. I have been using them as cover photos for many of the articles here. So in a way, they have been part of this newsletter for years already.

Also thank you to Aneta Vaškelytė for setting up the shop with me. 🙏

You can find the shop here:
www.mariusjopen.art

Much love,
Marius

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Dear friends,

I’m back in Berlin. And I already miss the Portuguese mountains.
But before I get into all of that, I want to tell you about a book.

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Earlier this year I spent some weeks in Brazil and ended up at the Carnaval in Recife and Olinda. I’ve been to many Carnavals, but this one was totally another level.

It’s nothing like Rio. People celebrate in narrow streets, day and night, and the whole thing is one big loud Bagunça.

I had to keep my stuff and my friends close the entire time. Otherwise everything would be lost…

I brought my small Ricoh GR3 with me and shot ninja-style through all the chaos.

One of my best friends, Isadora Cirne, is a walking encyclopedia of Brazilian culture. She took me to places I would never have found alone. Tiny streets, special blocos, the real deal. (Cariri)

Now we are putting together a small book about Olinda. Her writing and my shaky photographs.

That’s that for now.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,
This is the last week in Foz da Cova, our small village in the Portuguese mountains.

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What we achieved:

• We (Paula Kühn and me) updated our THE ROBOTS website with a new design and case studies

• We learned to make fire in an oven (It’s not as easy as it sounds)

• We set up Attio CRM to manage our contacts (yeah!)

• We sweated in the sauna and jumped into the cold river

• Pancakes

• Time and peace to work on creative projects

• Carrying 4 cubic meters of wood through the whole village

• Watched great movies (Chunking Express, Fallen Angels, In the Mood for Love, Orfeu Negro, Central do Brasil)

What was challenging

• Open the door of the washing machine

• Switch on the coffee machine

• Defrosting the ice-box accidentally

Biggest takeaway

• It really is not necessary to be in a crowded city to get creative or digital work done. Actually the opposite.

• Even if you are a so called “creative-technologist”, washing- and coffee machines stay extremely complex systems

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

last week was pretty exciting. The YOYOYO project finally went live.

YOYOYO is a collaboration between Google DeepMind and the design studio Porto Rocha. The image side was built with Nano Banana Pro, Google’s new image model.

Paula Kühn, who is my partner in THE ROBOTS, contributed AI consulting and design support. She helped shape how the generative system was used across product, motion, and the visual identity.

I think it’s interesting that AI is not just sitting at the end of the pipeline, spitting out images. It actually becomes part of the design process itself. You make a decision, the system shows you something, and that impacts the next decision.

Since the launch our inbox is burning. So many great people writing in. We feel super grateful for opportunities like this.

Next week Paula will come to Foz da Cova, our small village in the Portuguese mountains.

Then we can deep dive into computers and nature.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

Two days ago I arrived in our small village in Portugal.

Foz Da Cova is deep in the Portuguese mountains. Surrounded by nature.

We have a sauna, crystal clear water, three houses that we renovate step by step, barbecues, WiFi, and a lot of time.

For us this place is more than just an escape from the busy reality. It’s a place which we can really shape ourselves. We come together as a group of friends, invite artists and musicians, and anyone who wants to bring in their ideas and good energies.

Technology & Nature

I used to think I needed a city to get things done. But actually, technology and nature go really well together.

I sit on my laptop for a bit, then step outside into the sun for a break. Fresh air is better than city smog. I can hear birds chirping…

Art Prints

Also I was working on a platform where people can buy my art-prints. Many of you have asked me over the years where to get my work. Now it’s finally coming together.

Every print will be in a limited edition of ten. Framed or unframed. Each artwork comes with a unique identification number and a signed certificate.

More about that very soon.

Now I will go for a walk.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I had the luxury to focus some days only on my movie Ghostbirth 2.

The packaging is coming together: Director's statement, fact sheet, loglines, biography and the synopsis are basically done. All that stuff…

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For the story development, I found a method that works really well for me. Instead of writing the script linearly from beginning to end, I built a big digital canvas in Obsidian.

There I was laying out scenes visually, adding text and images to each one. Like Figma, but local, simple and free.

Once I started working this way, the whole film unfolded in front of me.

When I hit a wall, I switched tools. I started dictating everything about the film into Whisper Memos. So I was walking around my apartment for hours, talking through every scene, every detail, every character decision. Up to 90 minutes per session and automatically transcribed.

Then I fed those transcripts into an AI to get a structured version back. This turned out to be a powerful combination: Dictation get the raw creative energy, AI organizes it. The ideas are still mine. And AI is good at turning a messy monologue into something I can work with.

When I actually asked it to write scenes on its own, the results were flat every time. The brain is still the best computer for storytelling.

Also I ran an experiment with NotebookLM. I uploaded all my funding documents and the current version of the script, then had it generate a podcast-style critique of the project.
Does the story deliver on its premise? Where does the narrative lose momentum? Is the package ready for the co-production market? All that stuff…

Essentially a stress test. That forced some useful adjustments I wouldn't have caught on my own.

The story is in its final stretch now. I can't wait to put everything together into a proper package and start reaching out for funding and collaborators.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

so I am already one week in with OpenClaw and Claude Code.
And it's kind of insane.

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Here are my learnings from last week.

Claude Code

This is the new standard for vibe-coding. Or call it agentic-coding. You need a Claude account, ideally with the 90$/month subscription. Install it on your computer, and off you go.

You run it in the terminal, connect whatever project you want to work on, type claude and start. You can improve existing projects, make them more stable, add new features. Or you start from scratch.

For years I wanted to make a small website for a poster project I did a long time ago. Never found the time. Now, within one hour, Claude just built it for me: www.the-poster-times.xyz

If you are a designer, a digital creative, or a developer, you really should check this out. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, offers free courses to get started. I think that's pretty cool.

OpenClaw

A lot of people have been asking me what OpenClaw actually is. It's basically a tool that lets AI control your computer. You can use it to manage notebooks, automate research, code websites, control 3D software, anything you can possibly imagine. You send your computer a voice message via Telegram, and it starts doing what you want. It feels like magic.

But there is a but.

You need to nerd yourself into it. And you should NOT install it on the machine you use for everyday stuff. Because it could access your passwords, send emails, delete your hard drive, let in hackers. All of that.

So you need a separate machine, and you need to make that machine secure. That's pretty nerdy and will take some time. If you are already comfortable with Linux, Terminal, and a bit of coding it should no be a problem.

If you have no clue about any of that, maybe don't touch it. Unless you have time to go down the rabbit hole, use AI to help you, and spend the next nights in front of your screen like a full nerd. That works too. Actually it's encouraged!

As a small experiment, I asked OpenClaw to use Claude Code to build me a website that generates a new rabbit made from cheese every hour with Stable Diffusion and uploads it online. Here it is: rabbit-made-from-cheese.pages.dev

By the way, I still write these newsletters by hand. ✋

Much love,
Marius