Showreel for Nordisk Film

Story:

This was the crux of years of making showreel/image spots for Nordisk Film and Egmont. This one was particularly interesting because it marked the end of Nordisk Film´s autonomy in a way. Søren E. Jakobsen (the big E) was to be substituted with the new golden boy (now head of Danmark´s Radio) from distribution, Mr. Kenneth Plummer. At any rate, I was called up by the big E´s right-hand man Thomas Saks, who couldn’t tell us why at the time, but who wanted a small film showing the good friendship between Nordisk Film production and distribution, the various departments, the polar bear etc etc….Faced with this ordeal, I called up Ditte Ross, still the best partner I could ever find considering the way in which I like to produce and so we visited the different departments, ran around with a DVC-pro camera and a 16 mm Bolex and shot everything in sight. Good fun. But hard as always. We had exactly one week to finish off the whole thing after which it was to be shown to all NF-employees accompanied by the, then formally, appointed head, Kenneth Plummer.

It was all about the corporate value chain, and I think we managed to give them something that had more heart than is custom in this kind of world. After 60 hours of solid editing, the big E entered the editing room. Filterless cigarette in his mouth, red-faced from stress, watched it once and said: “As good as I would expect, except you need to cut down the stuff with I/O Interactive and Hitman. After their huge success, they seem to speak less to us now, you know…”. Then, looking through it again on fast forward, he said: “No listen, it’s just fine…”.

On the day of the showing in Nordisk Film’s Palladium (where I also worked as a projectionist at the time) I remember feeling pretty fucking good about having planned, shot & edited the reel in just under a week and then to bring the 35 mm print, thread it, start up the projector, and finally receiving an all-over ovation...