Posts in Category: Work

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

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.

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?

 

 

 

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.

 

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 Nygår 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! 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.

2015-02-04 15.57.04

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.

2015-02-05 13.27.33 HDR

There was also the day when Snorre Krogh and Jamie Holmes had decided to coordinate their hipster outfits. Its a thing they do.

2015-02-04 15.55.03

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

 
2015-02-03 09.53.01 HDR

 

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:

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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:

kgl teater lager

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.

Growing Pains: BEST DANISH SHORT FILM

Late Friday, I got at call from Director Tor Fruergaard, from The Odense International Film Festival.

Growing Pains WON:

 

BEST DANISH SHORT FILM (Academy Award qualifying)

and

SPECIAL MENTION (Animation competition)

 

see for yourself here: http://www.filmfestival.dk/en/winners/

 

That is just fantastic. And I am actually really thrilled that it did not just win the animation competition, but the best SHORT FILM – out of all films, both live action and animation.

oh, and the Academy Award qualifyer isn’t too bad either.

Now we are looking forward to Toronto and the International premiere.

Also we are working on a premiere for the cast and crew and friends in Copenhagen, where we will also display some of the fabulous stop-motion sets – for an invite, contact me.

VOKSEVÆRK / GROWING PAINS to TIFF

Finally it is official. Vokseværk is selected for the Short Cuts International at Toronto International Film Festival.

This is the best possible start for the film. And hopefully tha beginning of a long life in the festival circuit.

Tor Fruergaard, Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen, Kristian Eidnes and myself will be going to Toronto to meet the audience and the industry and

to see if we can create a good vibe around the film.

And hopefully I will meet some possible future collaboration partners for Minna & The Dreambuilders. A producer’s work is never done.

But it’s always a lot of fun.

I am so proud of Vokseværk. And of everyone working on the film. YAY!

 

read more on www.growingpains.dk

We <3 Creative Europe

Wow. To be 1 out of just 14 animation projects to receive development funding from Creative Europe. That makes us just so darn proud.

This means that MINNA & THE DREAMBUILDERS can hold a completely awesome pixar inspired workshop where immensly talented people will pour all their great ideas

into the film and we can just paddle around in a pool of creative bliss, picking and choosing to our liking. And the best part: We will pay people to be part of our development.

Believe it or not, that is not too common these days. But now we have that possibility, and I promise you that we will take the money and do our absolute best

to get as much of it into the film, so we can make a kick-ass film that will awe the shizzle out of everyone and really cement that Danish animation is great…

So, no pressure 🙂 Just hard work.

 

Giant shout out to Producers Lise Saxtrup and Nina Lyng for letting me see (read: borrow from) their previous applications. I could not have done it without them. Or the invaluable help from Danish Creative Europe desk, Ene Katrine Rasmussen. You ladies ROCK!

 

 

My first Reeboot: PALLE ALENE I VERDEN

This is a great day for First lady Film. I’ve just signed the transfer of rights to the popular danish children’s book PALLE ALENE I VERDEN (Palle alone in the world). The book is about a 5 year old boy who wakes up and finds himself completely alone in Copenhagen and does what all children do. Explore the city, the toy store, the sweet shop, even take all the money he wants in the bank. everything is his for the taking. But how great is it to have everything you ever dreamed of, if you have no one to share it with?

The author, Jens Sigsgaard wrote the book in 1942, during the war. He was a children’s psychologist and the book is based on interviews he made with children about what they wanted most of all in the world (to have everything) and what they were most afraid of in the world (that they would be completely alone) – and that is why the book resonates with us even today.

There is a film. Brilliant Danish director Astrid Henning-Jensen filmed the book in 1949. We have big shoes to fill with this reboot. The film is on the Danish national cultural canon for kids.

Astrid’s film has been cherished for 65 years. We want to make a film that is as timeless and important so it can last for the next 65 years.

It will be live action with spectacular special effects. Directed by Esben Tønnesen and written by Susan Stølsvig Skovmand

PALLE ALONE IN THE WORLD. TODAY.

OMG I gave a speech

Last week in Cannes I gave a speech as the opening of the NORDIC FACTORY co-producers Happy Hour on the Director’s Fortnight beach.

It was short and sweet and basically encouraged people to meet the wonderful people behind the facility houses that have been really generous in their investment in the Nordic Factory films.

And of course to come and co-produce more films in Copenhagen. In the picture I am standing in front of some of the films that sound studio Mainstream has done in the recent years, and frankly it is quite a line-up.

The Happy Hour was a success and I know that all the facility houses are ready to do it again. So if you missed us this year, we will most probably be back in some form next year. YAY!

 

GROWING PAINS selected for OFF main competition

What a great email to finish off a week in Cannes: GROWING PAINS is selected for the main competition at the Odense Film Festval. Yes, its the nr 1 Danish short film festival, that will send the winner directly to the Oscar short film short list. Can you feel the breeze of the red carpet, because we sure can ! Everybody shout AUUUUUUUUUUUUU !

WATCH OUR TEASER HERE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQFwJeXyZ2M

Growing Pains on Buster Film Festival

If you thought that the Buster Film Festival was only for small kids, then think again.

We are happy to announce that Danish Audiences will have the chance to see some erotic wolf action on this years edition.

Lock up your daughter, or she may cry wolf!

 

 

Growing Pains in DFI festival distribution

We are so happy that The Danish Film Institute has chosen to take Growing Pains into their festival distribution. We hope that this can open some A-festival doors for our film – so that we can show the world how Danish animation kicks ass.