Is Digital Intermediate evolving from a post-production facilitator into a creative force of its own? Janet Hetherington chats with industry experts about how DI is transforming the industry.
Thorbjorn Christoffersen, one of the creator/directors of Terkel in Trouble represented the film at CICDAF and talked to AWN about the main character and his impressions of the festival.
Jen-Shen Gur: As it seems to me, the film reflects but exaggerates (as the animation should do), the problem of mans environmental violence family, school, television etc No one cares. And no one is perfect. At the end of the film, the narrator doesnt reveal to us what the moral of the film is. Can you tell me, what the film is about and what its moral is, if it has one?
Thorbjorn Christoffersen: Terkel was never meant to be a film that came up with a good moral in the end. And if I have to be honest, I really cant see how it would fit in there anyway. The characters portrayed in the film were very exaggerated, as you said yourself, but they are quite close to the way kids in Denmark behave and talk, and that was the actual purpose of the film: to portray, or to parody the everyday way of life of school kids in Denmark in a funny way, using all the things that kids struggle with: like bullying of children, misunderstanding of adults etc. Basically, if I have to come up with a moral, I guess it would be take care of friendship or something like that.
JSG: Terkel seems to be an antihero. Its very hard to care for him (to identify oneself with him) most of the time. Who is Terkel? How did you work on the character?
TC: Strangely I find it extremely easy to identify myself with Terkel. Actually he is the only one in the story that behaves morally, the way most real people do (though exaggerated). Havent we all tried to be influenced by peer pressure or felt as if no one understood our problems when we were at that age? You may not like the Terkels decisions, but I think that you can definitely relate to them! Or at least kids can.
JSG: Did you observe real children at schools before making the film?
TC: Not really. mostly because we didnt have time but we used memories from our own childhood! For instance, the school is pretty much a copy of the one I went to when I was a kid the same goes for much of the character designs. So you could say that we used real life observations as a reference for the film we just did them when we were 12 years old.
JSG: Did you use childrens voices when you recorded the sound for the heroes?
TC: Anders Matthesen did all the voices himself in the original film. It may sound weird, but this guy is an amazing standup comedian, and he does some fantastic voices he did the same in the original radio play, so we thought it would be nice to keep that idea in the movie as well. The only kids that were used were for backup vocals for one of the songs nothing to mention, really.
JSG: Tell about your experiences during the festival.
TC: Ive been to a lot of festivals all over the world, but CICDAF is one of the most extraordinary events I have experienced. Mostly because of the huge cultural differences to other festival (before this, Ive only been to festivals in the west; U.S., Canada, Europe etc.). At CICDAF we had parades and pop concerts and huge openings with speeches. The booths at the market were pretty exciting too. But the most memorable experience at CICDAF was definitely the opening day of the festival all the parades and dinners and concerts and stuff... I will never forget that!
