Inspiration From Behind the Camera Lens, Seven quick questions with up and coming film director, Kristian Håskjold.

Original article: Roskilde University, Papaya Magazine Jan 2012 Issue: www.thepapayamag.com 

It’s a dark, dank, decadent December day. I find myself staggering around the streets in Pisserenden, clinging onto my jacket for dear life and wondering why the heck i’m battling the elements to catch up with Kristian Håskjold in Riccos for a chit-chat about his latest project and his work in general. A few minutes later i’m sat face to face with Kristian, a warm cup of cocoa and cheap plastic pen-in hand.

Kristian Håskjold is one of Denmark’s up and coming movie producers who recently founded Flying Films, a company that’s slowly getting into gear and coming up with rather intriguing short films, adverts and other work, including the Gaffa video of the year music video nominee, Sebastien Lind’s “Never Let Go”

So Kristian… Flying films What are you guys all about ?

We’re a film company. I started the company in February this year, that’s when I turned it into a real company, got a CVR number, got registered. I own the company and I have some people attached to it freelancing -an art director, a producer and a composer and an animator.

“We do lots of different things.” “The way to best describe what we do is, well…we do storytelling, this is what’s most important for us.” “It doesn’t really matter that much if we do a commercial or fiction or even animation.” “For us there needs to be a beginning and a development and so on; we don’t just show a product “ Look at this cool shoe and buy it !, no We just want to be creative in the way we do it, that’s important for us.

So we’ve done some work for an insurance company called Codan and for a guy called Sebastien Lind…

Yeah, that’s right for which you’ve been nominated for The Gaffa video of the year prize. How was it working with Sebastien Lind ?

It was awesome, he’s a great kid, very down to earth ! It was lots of fun, we started with a pre-video to the actual music video which got incorporated into the final video. We started filming in a dark appartment where we shot various sequences that were going to be included in the video, lots of shadow a bit of animation, lots of different things and then we went about combing them so they seemed alike.

I read that Sebastien Lind’s “Never Let Go Video” was made with no budget whatsoever. How did you guys stay motivated during the creative process ?

Well it was kind of tough and before making the video I’d decided not to do free work anymore. I’d reached a point where I needed to take a leap-take my work to the next level. A guy called Jonas Woof, Sebastien’s manager sent me the song and I was amazed. I felt that this was the best work Sebastien had ever done

Did you know Sebastien before all this ?

Yeah, I worked on a small music production with him 8 months ago and other small projects including a clothing project with Marianne Gerda about half a year or so ago.

Nice one. I saw this video on your webpage of a guy getting chased through the streets of New York by a pink umbrella which I thought was quite cool. What’s the story or the metaphor if you like, behind it all ?

There are two stories involved here. Writing the script for it, I wanted to convey the idea that everyone has some sort of “umbrella” which we all have to accept at a certain point. When we accept them, the result is a sort of synergy effect, access to another level of life through self-acceptance. The second story is the more down-to-earth one. I had an experience similar to that of the guy in the video when living in London and working as a fundraiser on the streets. One of the conditions of having this job was that we had to bring our umbrellas with us to work, in case it started to rain. So I picked out this really ugly pink umbrella from the pile and used it out on the streets and hated it quite a lot. So one day this French Canadian girl and I swopped umbrellas; she got my ugly pink one and I got her blue one and when we came back to the office someone had stolen all the other umbrellas. They were replaced the next day though, with a new bunch of pink ones !
That’s an interesting story ! Lots of artists struggle to stay motivated in the creative process. How do you maintain your inspiration?

Hmmm…That’s a good question, I guess i’ve always been very ambitious with my work and at some point, well the simple thought of moving forward, the feeling of building something up keeps me going. I’d really like Flying Films to become something big and i’d like a lot more people to get involved with it. This is the more entrepreneurial side of things.

Which is important too, a lot of artists forget this

Yeah, so true. The more creative side of keeping my inspiration comes from my love of being part of creative projects and being around interesting people. I enjoy this a lot.

Are there any particular movie directors you look up to for inspiration ?

Yeah there’s a guy called Steven Sotherberg; there are some of his films I really love. He did a film called the informant, with Matt Damon. It’s a really quirky film about a stupid man who tries to become a detective. I’d say the film is underplayed and very…. European in some way. I like the way he makes a commercial movie to get people’s attention so that the next movie he makes can be all about his own thing, where he does whatever he wants to. It’s quite similar to the way I see the world as I feel there needs to be balance in movie making, as we talked about before; the need for entrepreneurship and creativity at the same time. Some artists are purely artists and there’s no entrepreneurship, so most of the time they never get anywhere because they don’t get into their work and then there are the entrepreneurs who create lots of things but it’s purely about the money. So there needs to be a balance and Steven Sotherberg seems to have this.

And what are you up to at the moment ?

I’m writing a script for a film called “Reception” and i’ve just applied for funding for it through the Danish Film Institute. We’ll know in late December if we get the funding. One other project i’m working on is a documentary film about a guy called Troy Davis, who was falsely accussed of murdering a policeman in Georgia 20 years ago. So we’ll be going to the states to shoot next year if we get the funding in February.