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Gold Duel

A golden apple lying on a rock sparks a tense atmosphere between a blue and a red cowboy.

  • Benjamín Haverla
    Director
  • Benjamín Haverla
    Writer
  • Benjamín Haverla
    Producer
  • Magdaléna Laciková
    Lead Character & Background Designer
  • Benjamín Haverla
    Character Rigging & Character Animation
  • Magdaléna Laciková
    Traditional & FX Animation
  • Magdaléna Laciková
    Assistant Compositor
  • Benjamín Haverla
    Edited by
  • Magdaléna Laciková
    Color Grading by
  • Benjamín Haverla
    Lead Compositor
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Zlatý duel
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Student
  • Genres:
    Western, Comedy, Animation
  • Runtime:
    1 minute 44 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 14, 2026
  • Production Budget:
    0 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Slovakia
  • Country of Filming:
    Slovakia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Prague School of Creative Communication (VŠKK)
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Benjamín Haverla

Benjamín Haverla is a Slovak filmmaker originally from Martin. After studying Information and Digital Technologies at the Private Secondary Technical School in Poprad, he completed his bachelor's degree at the University of Creative Communication (VŠKK) in Prague, earning a degree in Animation and Visual Effects. His passion for film emerged in childhood when he started creating his first projects on an iPad with his friends. Later, he began successfully participating in various film competitions in Slovakia, winning several awards for both live-action and animated works. A desire to continuously improve led him to pursue a master's degree at the FAMO film school in Písek, focusing on VFX and classical animation. His main goal is to bring his own original visions to the screen and to keep growing professionally.

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Director Statement

Gold Duel started as a simple, spontaneous 3-day challenge. I wanted to see exactly how much we could brainstorm, design, and animate from scratch in just 72 hours. I worked on this project with my girlfriend, Magdaléna Laciková, who handled the digital drawing. It was great to see how quickly she was able to design all the necessary assets under such a tight deadline, which really kept our momentum going.
What began as a fun experiment resulted in a really nice short animation. To make it happen within the time limit, we had to be practical and split the workflow across four different programs. The main animation of the cowboy balls was done in Moho, while we used Krita for the frame-by-frame hand-drawn elements—such as the hands grabbing the guns, the gunshot, the red cowboy's FX saliva, and the bird in the final scene.
Once the raw animation was finished, all the individual drawings and elements were brought into Adobe After Effects for compositing to blend everything together. Finally, Premiere Pro was used for the final edit and post-production. Ultimately, this was just a great exercise in time management, technical problem-solving, and teamwork that turned into a project we really enjoyed making.