The Ice Cream Man

The Ice Cream Man is a 2024 historical short drama, roughly 33 minutes long, written, directed, produced and edited by Robert Moniot. Noah Emmerich plays Ernst Cahn, the Jewish owner of an ice cream parlour in German-occupied Amsterdam who is arrested and interrogated by Klaus Barbie, played by Nik Pajic, with Gretchen Hall as Ursula Cahn and Derek de Lint as Father Jan. Drawn from the true events surrounding the February 1941 strike, it was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

Wartime period drama makes almost all of its visual effects invisible ones. A 1941 city has to be rebuilt around whatever a modern location gives you: matte painting and digital set extension for rooftops and streetscapes, patient removal of aerials, road markings, signage and parked vehicles, crowd augmentation when a square needs to fill, and atmospheric passes of smoke and haze. Rotoscoping and compositing hold the illusion together frame by frame. Terminal FX works in exactly those disciplines — matte painting, CG environments and set extensions, cleanup and compositing — and contributed visual effects and animation to The Ice Cream Man, one entry in a portfolio that runs from features to television and commercials.