Animation

My work in field of animation started 1971 and lasted until 2003. Before and during my years in art-school I was interested in animation, but there was no possibility to get any education and not much possible to see animated films, we only got TV in Iceland 1968. I however bought a book about animation with a school friend. When I was home from the academy in Holland and was working in an advertising agency in Reykjavik one client, a life insurance company wanted an animated commercial. My bosses asked if I could do it, and I said yes.(During my life I have many times noticed that if I say yes to a question something happens, but if I say no usually nothing, I said yes and that´s why I live in Estonia now :-) Anyway I called my school friend (he had the book) and said I needed the book as I had to make an animated film! I read the book during the night and and started next morning to make the first Icelandic commercial cell animation. After this work I did several more commercials, but in 1975 I got a half year state grant and started the first Icelandic animated film, "Þrymskviða" The film was 15 min. and was finished 1979. I did several more commercials but in 1987-8 I did three films called "It takes all kinds" in Iceland and Sweden, based on ideas from my exhibition 1983 with the same name. 1989 I did two short films in Hungary. In 1991 I finished my 5 min. film "Our Christmas tree" which was made in Iceland, Finland and Hungary. This was the last film I animated myself, but started to work with professional animation studios and animators abroad. Beside total lack of animation facilities and any help (animator and painters etc) there was very little money to get so I had to find cheap professional help abroad, which took me to the Baltic's so my next film "Auðunn and the polar bear" was made 1992 in Vilnius, Lithuania. There I started to work with more or less the same crew as I did until my last film 2003. I still painted the backgrounds, designed the film and characters, wrote the story and did the storyboard as well a directing and producing. After this film I did three "It takes all kinds" films 1993. By this time I had more or less moved to Estonia and 1994 I made "Christmas on the way to earth" 2 hour puppet animation for Icelandic TV, again the first Icelandic puppet animation. This was very popular, was shown in some countries abroad and several times in Iceland. 1995-6 I did another puppet animation, half an hour "Hreiðar the stupid" During these years I had continued developing "It takes all kinds" ideas and in 1998 I was back in Vilnius making new films. I created the character "Dindi" and 2001 we had made 30 new films: "It takes all kinds DINDI" I had already started work on my last films around this time. It was "Leif the lucky and how he found America" This film is 14 min. and was finished 2003. Around this time I was working on a storyboard for a new and longer film "Dindi in Egypt" but I got in conflict with our new film fund and it´s bourocratic director I was not satisfied how they handled my applications for funds...so I quit my work in animation and turned to simpler work, cartoons and painting.