About Mads Juul
Elodie (TVPaint): "The Apple and the Worm" is one of the feature-length animated films realized with the TVPaint Technology. We are really grateful you have accepted the invitation to participate in this interview, Mads Juul.
Can you first quickly introduce yourself and tell us what was your role for "The Apple and the Worm" ?
Mads Juul (Copenhagen Bombay): All Right! (cough ,cough ). Hello, my name is Mads. I am 34 years old. I have worked professionally with animation for around 10 years. I have mainly done 2D animation that is drawn directly into the computer with a digitizer tablet. Currently I am employed as an animation director at the Copenhagen based film studio Copenhagen Bombay where I have recently completed working on the animated feature film 'The Apple and the Worm'. It is written and directed by Anders Morgenthaler and I have worked on the storyboard , the character designs and been co-directing.
Elodie: Please, can you tell me more about your career before your participation to "The apple and the worm" project ? I also would like to know which context leads you to work at Copenhagen Bombay !
Mads Juul: Throughout my childhood I loved to draw and was fascinated by cartoons and animated movies. No one in my family had experience with drawing or animation (my father was a dentist), so I did not really know how to get into the business and if I was able to make a living from animation. I suddenly realize that making money and being able to support myself has been the main driving force in my career, Now when I have proved to myself it´s possible I hope making art and simply the love and fun of drawing can be the drive instead...well...
After school and high-school I wanted to become an animator but how ? I moved to Copenhagen and tried to seek jobs in different Film studios in Copenhagen, but I couldn't get hired because of my lack of experience. I got the advice though, to enter the Animation Workshop in Viborg. Today you can get a 3-year bachelor in character animation -among others. Its really fantastic what the Workshop has developed into! At the time I attended it was a 1-year course in classical character animation where you have to pay yourself. I was so lucky that my parents supported me financially, so it could be done. It was an intensive year making traditional animation on paper and suddenly having teachers who worked in the business. Very inspiring! Part of the course was working as animators at The National Film School of Denmark in Copenhagen where they have an 4 ½ year animation director education, and we helped on their graduation films. There I met Anders Morgenthaler who had just started the Animation Director education course.
He liked the work I had done on the graduation movie I was working on and I was hired in his newly started company called Gonzoft (Later it became TV Animation). So around 1998 I moved back to Copenhagen, excited and happy to get a job as an animator. I started working on CD-Roms and an Animated Interactive TV Show called "Nelly Nut." We had worked on paper at the workshop in Viborg but at Gonzoft they worked completely digital. Which meant the animation was drawn directly onto the computer using digitizer tablets. No Scanning! Instant line testing! WHOA! My footage rate increased by 3 times and the quality of the animation got even better! It opened my eyes for how big a help computers are. Especially for getting rid of tedious tasks. I have been working together with Anders Morgenthaler on and off until now . Interrupted a few times among others I have made music video with the now acclaimed Martin De Thurah and spent one year in Munich animating on a Pilot for an animated feature that never got financed... I think.
The projects Anders and I made together slowly became larger and larger. From TV breakers to Music Videos to short films to feature films. The first feature was called 'Princess' and was completed in 2006. I think it's the first 2D animation feature in the world to be made entirely digital, please let me know if I'm wrong. I am really proud that we were capable of making an animated feature with 15 people and a budget around 1.2 euros both logistically and technically. We have just finished the next feature, it's called 'the Apple and the Worm' and it's around twice the budget . So the productions are getting bigger and bigger. The storyboard, animation, cleanup and coloring of 'the Apple and the Worm' is made in TV Paint. It takes a long time to learn how to create and manage an animated feature film, but after 10 years, I think that I am beginning to know something about it.