Posts in Category: News
World premiere of SPECTATOR RECORDS tonight
Even that the real premiere with DJ set by famous Danish rapper / vinyl afficionado Ras Money is on Sunday, the actual world premiere of SPECTATOR RECORDS – Up in Smoke is tonight.
As always the lovely Tina Schembecker has put together a great poster for the film. We cant wait to show it to the world!
SPECTATOR RECORDS gets support
Documentary about the infamous record studio SPECTATOR RECORDS has been funded by The Danish FilmWorkshop Copenhagen, and will premiere on a festival in spring 2017
Minna & The Cartoon Experience
In the beginning of March, Kim Hagen and I went to Cartoon Movie to pitch. The hype was good, the pitch went great and we got a lot of good positive attention for the film.
We were even interviewed for animation week, (here) and we are now looking for international partners to work with on the film.
Hopefully we will go into production in spring 2017.
Ready for Cartoon Movie
Director Kim Hagen and I are so ready to go to Cartoon Movie. We will present our brand new teaser trailer, we will pitch the film, show our awesome concepts and generally spread the happy word.
Yes we are open for funding so support us – you won’t regret it.
Ditte & Louise wins Robert
Ditte & Louise season 1, won “best short tv-series” at the Danish Academy Awards last night.
I am currently producing season 2 for DR, so naturally I am proud and thrilled to become a part of this
great series.
GROWING PAINS on Ekko Shorlist
After a fantastic screening at Fantastic Fest last week, Growing Pains is moving to a screen closer to home.
You can now vote for Growing Pains on Ekko Shortlist here.
OVERCOOKED
Last week of shooting. Its been 5 weeks of fast paced fun with an amazing cast and crew. Next week we are on to the editing and the series premieres in Decmber on Danish DR2. Who says it takes years to make a series 🙂
I will build up the website more up to the premiere, but you can read the synopsis here http://firstladyfilm.dk/overcooked-mens-vi-presser-citronen/
and follow our intstagram feed. Feel free to join in with you own perfect pictures of your perfect life. Its what we all want right?
Double Up! At NFI Barn & Dok seminar
Today I am speaking about two og my favorite things: the lives of shared children – and the financing of films and transmedia projects.
Im in the work in progress section with Double up!
I hope the Norwegian film industry will be inspired to do more for the children, as I believe that now more than ever they need the mirror that film provides, to understand the world around them.
NINE ROCKS premiere date announced
We are so proud that NINE ROCKS – the film about Tors survival of the accident at the Pearl Jam concert at the Roskilde Festival 2000 – will actually premiere on the day that marks the 15th year of the accident.
on the RISING scene, on June 30th at 17:45.
We already have massive interest from the Danish press, Newspapers, Radio, Talk shows, and we of course urge anyone going to Roskilde to come and see the film.
Please contact me for further information.
Super16 – the best independent film school in the world!
Super16 the film school that I proudly founded with 15 of my friends back in 1999 is now on the list of Variety’s
best independent film educations. Why is that you may ask? Because we founded the school on the principle that
the producer and the director are the only ones that follow the film from start to long tail, and that relationship
means more than the film itself. And in contrary to ordinary film schools, Super16, focuses on meeting the
audience from the very first film, all the way to graduation. Oh, and of course it is democratically run by the
students and you cant bribe your way in, you have to have talent.
NINE ROCKS AT ROSKILDE FESTIVAL
I dare not say it out loud. But its seems like its true. It is true. Really. Its just hard to believe. A dream come true.
NINE ROCKS – the film about how Tor NygĂĄr Kolding survived the tragedy at the Pearl Jam koncert 15 years ago
will premiere as a mark of remeberence and perhaps closure – on the day it happened : 30 june 2015.
We will transform the RISING scene of the festival to a cinema. We will commemorate those that passed, we will celebrate life.
This was Jonas T Bech’s dream. Sadly he chose to leave us before he could see it come true. I am so happy and proud that
I have been able to lift this – to do this. To create this little rock of rememberance in the world. We die, we live. We miss you.
To the Nine. To Jonas.
why trust is the most important factor of film making
We are in the final days of our new edit of NINE ROCKS. People are waiting to see it. Many people.
Sales agents, tv-stations – postproduction people, musicians – everyone who will be a vital part of the finishing the film
are waiting to see the new cut.
The editors are working. I know this. They must be finished by next week if we are to make the deadline.
I trust them.
They showed me nothing, except a list of the scenes. And a promise: “We have the whole film here”.
Then they showed me the list.
On a brown paper bag, hastily written while they were sitting in a cafe across the street.
But I trust them. I know they will make the deadline, and I know it will be great.
A producer’s job is never dull, because you never know what you will be presented with. But work with people you trust and all
will be great at the end, right?
DOUBLE UP! selected for Cross Video Days
We are so proud to announce that DOUBLE UP! the new vlog sharing platform and calendar app for shared children is selected for Cross Video Days in Paris. We hope to secure financing so we can get this important and wonderfull project online soon!
Double up! wins pitchprize
During the Financing Forum I was pitching the fabulous co-production project LETS PLAY A STORY and on the same day I was attending the Real Young workshop with my project for Shared Children: Double up!
And I won the pitch prize. So now Double Up! will be pitched at an online session with six handpicked financiers, that the great people of EDN are hosting later this year. I will be ready!
Minna Workshop Week 2
In the second week of the workshop we started sketching. Suddenly the whiteboard went from written notes to a giant beat board. All the while we discussed needs, wants, prtagonists, antagonists and everything in between.
We were also lucky to have Mette Heeno, famous Danish Scripwriter as our guinea pig for the story. So Kim Hagen pitched the story and she basically tore it apart. But in the most constructive way possible. We needed that.
There was also the day when Snorre Krogh and Jamie Holmes had decided to coordinate their hipster outfits. Its a thing they do.
NINE ROCKS in Thessaloniki
We are proud to announce that Nine Rocks has been selected for Docs In Thessaloniki 2015 – we are looking forward to developing the film and pitching it to the tv stations of Europe. YAY!
Minna Workshop – week 1
For the development of our animated feature film Minna & The Dreambuilders, Director Kim Hagen Jensen and I gathered the cream of Danish animation developers for a two week intesive workshop of jamming, sketching, disussions and much chocolate.
The developers were: Kim Hagen Jensen, Nynne Selin Eidnes, Søren Grinderslev Hansen (Scriptwriter), Thorbjørn Christoffersen (Director of Terkel In Trouble and Ronald the Barbarian), Jamie Holmes (Charcter Designer) and Sune Elskær (Illustrator/Storyboarder). We also had a guest developer: Snorre Krogh (illustrator) for 3 days. All in all an Awesome crew.
In the first week we put the film up on the whiteboard in text on post its. We discussed and jammed and fought (a little) but it was an amazingly free space where everyones ideas we taken seriously and nobody felt more ownership than anyone, so the ideas flowed and creativity was high
And while we talked and talked for hours, there was much coffee, much doodling and much chocolate.
We also took a trip to the oldest theatre in Copenhagen to get that backstage feeling:
Here is a video of Thorbjørn working an oldschool theatre windmachine
And we went to the warehouse of The National Royal Theatre to see how the props are organized:
It was a truly inspiring and great week.
Teaching at ASF
I was so lucky that Petter Lindblad had to go on a shoot and passed his teaching job at Animation Sans Frontiers in Viborg on to me.
For the first time ever at Viborg I held a practial 2 day Budgeting, Planning and Financing Animation – workshop. It was so much fun. Even that most of the participants were directors I (hope) made them realize that:
A) Directors have to be a part of the financing
B) If you do things in the right order, the budget isn’t scary at all.
So first they set up the conditions for their films: how many characters, locations, backgrounds, minutes of animation etc.
Then we drew som pretty darn nifty pipelines. Then we made a timeline and a production plan, where we defined how long each step of the pipeline should take according to the conditions.
And first then did we start to put numbers down in the budget. And lo and behold. Suddenly the budget made sense, because behind every digit there was a conenction to the conditions, the pipeline and the timeline.
Not scary at all.
Growing Pains and Void nominated for Danish Academy Award
Today the nominations for the Danish Academy Award came and Growing Pains is nominated in the “Best Short fiction/animation” Category.
We are extremely proud and happy. It just so happens that VOID, one of the Nordic Factory films that I produced is also nominated in the same category.
So I will be competing against myself. The good thing is that I can congratulate myself either way. The bad thing is that Academy Award Winner HELIUM
is also nominated in the category, and the academy might want to follow up on that. They shouldn’t obviously. But they might. We are keeping our fingers crossed.
If you havent seen GROWING PAINS yet, you definitely should. Click Here.
…or Work Hard and Be Nice!
I was at the Animation Workshop in Viborg last week, giving a 3 hour lecture to new producers. We were meant to be talking about pre-production of films – oh just cover everything you know… Well. Where to start. So I wrote down 10 great pieces of advice that I have been working more or less subconsciously from, for the last 20 years give and take. I showed the list to my sister, editor Rikke Selin, and she scoffed: “oh its all the soft values”. Yeah, it’s the soft values, but hidden beneath them are some very concrete cases and some hard lessons learned!
So here they are. Feel free to give me feedback: contact me on twitter, fb or mail if you think I missed something
Other people’s success cannot harm yours. (Just because she is a great producer does not make you a bad one – she is just more better/lucky/more experienced)
Be Loyal. (If someone has worked for free for you and you have promised him or her a spot on your next paid gig. Give it to them. Remember the people that helped you)
Give good credits. (credits are free and it is the only way to get ahead in the business. Give credit where credit is due, we don’t remember the film, we remember the IMDB list)
Don’t hold on to other people’s rights. (If you are not the core creator, and you can’t lift the film. The rights don’t belong to you.)
Pass the film forward. (A film that did not take off with you, can win prizes with another producer – even if you spent time and money on it. Let it go!)
Respect secretaries, assistants and runners. (They are the fastest promoted people in the business. Next time you meet them they are the bosses)
An Idea is not a film before it is realized. (Nobody can stop you from making a film first – but the Danish Film Institute does not support the same film twice. So move!)
Take the difficult conversation. (It’s your job and nobody can do it for you. You are responsible for the team, the budget and the film. Don’t kick trouble downwards)
The Contract is your friend. (So make them while you are still good friends)
Always pay your crew if there is money in the film. (A little is better than nothing, we all have rent to pay)
AND ONE MORE THING….
Everyone can make films – its is the people you work with that matter (protect the process, it will follow you for life).