Welcome to my portfolio!
Jesper Andkjær Poulsgærd
Address: Nyvej 1, 4440 Mørkøv
e-mail: and.jesper@gmail.com
Phone: +45 26 36 16 27
Letter of Intention
Dear The Animation Workshop,
My name is Jesper Andkjær, I am 21 years old and I am applying for Character Animation. I also applied for the program in 2015 and 2016.
I have always enjoyed all kinds of visual art, and animation in particular has always been one of my favorite media because it can tell fantastic stories with great credibility and relatable characters.
For as long as I can remember it has been my dream to draw for a living, and my biggest interest has always been animation.
I am applying for this specific program because I want to be part of the world of animation, to study and work with artists and storytellers and to tell amazing stories like the ones I grew up watching.
My ambition for the future is to become a skilled animator, to be part of creative teams, and possibly start my own business in the field of animation. I have a lot of ideas for future projects and I want to make a difference through my art by addressing issues I find important, like education, human equality and our digital identities.
What I really love about animated movies is that they keep surprising and amazing me.
Animation is still a young form of communication, and the industry keeps expanding and spreading to more genres. I feel like the world is increasingly appreciating animation as a way of telling stories for adults, and as animated movies are taken more seriously, it is possible to tell important, relevant stories that can move people.
For the future I think that the animation industry will continue to expand and explore new exciting ways to tell stories, and I want more than anything to be a part of that journey and influence it as much as I can.
I also believe that animation should play an important role in making information accessible and easy to understand. In other words it can help popularize knowledge about our world or convey the classics of literature and philosophy in a language that you don’t have to be an academic to understand.
For some years I have been working as a freelance illustrator, making drawings for various small magazines and bigger companies such as Egmont.
This has led me to many types of graphic work for many different companies, which has increased my technical knowledge and expanded my ambitions.
Through my work I have occasionally been part of creative teams. It has been fun and challenging and has surely benefitted my teamwork and leading abilities.
The past years I have spent a lot of time animating short films. There is plenty of room for improvement to say the least, but I just love the process of creating an interesting story and making it real. Below this letter I have placed a 1,5 minute animation-showreel with clips from some of my work. Although I should say it hasn’t been updated since last year because I have been working intensely on my basic drawing skills.
This fall I attended The Drawing Academy with Maja as my teacher. Here I learned more than I have ever learned in such a short period of time. The course opened my eyes to a lot of new styles of expression and ways of working, and my basic drawing skills were greatly improved. It was an amazing experience to be around creative people all the time and to be inspired and to inspire others. After visiting TAW and experiencing the creative atmosphere and the amazingly welcoming people of the school, I am more certain than ever that The Animation Workshop is the right place for me!
My creativity is not limited to drawing. When I am not drawing I enjoy playing music, making sculptures and sometimes knitting. I just really like the creative craftsmanship and the challenges of doing something new. I also enjoy building stuff with my friends, such as big rafts or tree houses. It’s great to be able to built all the awesome things we couldn’t when we were kids, and the process from childhood dream to solid result is amazing.
Other than that I have been involved with (and directed) amateur theater which has taught me a few things about leadership and collaboration.
One of my goals in life is to travel the world. So far I have been to Japan and China and I have visited most of Europe. I can’t get enough of experiencing different cultures and meeting different kinds of people. I feel like every single trip has expanded my perspectives and added to my source of creativity and inspiration, and I think working in the animation industry internationally and traveling between jobs would be really exciting.
My influences and inspirations are many, and they keep changing as I grow older. As many others I grew up with Disney, who influenced me from early on. I have always enjoyed looking at Glen Keane’s sketches whose drawings express life and emotion. I later discovered the world of french animation and fell in love with works like The Illusionist and Ernest and Celestine - very different movies, but both with the kind of honesty and spontaneity that I love from Miyazaki’s films.
Right now I feel very much inspired by the works of Cartoon Saloon for their movies Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea which I like for their unique design and celtic style. I also feel inspired by Rebecca Sugar and her way to tell stories about life. I like that her stories are about relevant emotional topics like gender identity, existential crisis and family issues, served in a way that is equally interesting for children and adults. And I like the way she uses music in her work.
My three favorite works are:
Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen because I think it explores a lot of interesting ideas while beautifully letting the themes show graphically through symbolism and the composition of the pages.
I am big fan of Adventure Time because of the childish drawing style and the depth of the characters. I like that the story and the characters evolve throughout the series as opposed to older Cartoon Network series, where each episode rarely permanently affects the characters or the universe.
My current favorite movie is Pixar’s Monster Inc. I grew up watching this movie, but I only recently realized how original the idea is and how well it is done. I especially like the character designs and the work of the story boarders.
My three least favorite works are:
The animated movie Delgo, because the character designs look weird and that decreases the credibility of the characters.
I also don’t like Disney’s Frozen. The movie is not bad, but it was so overly advertised and proclaimed before it was even in cinemas. And when I actually saw it, I was disappointed by how vague and forgettable the premis was.
And I don’t care much for every Ninja Turtle live action movie ever made because the characters seem forced into a too realistic universe. In my opinion we don’t have to make everything into a live action movie, just because we can. Sometimes characters work best within their original medium.
I have experience with the following software:
- Photoshop Advanced
- Toon Boom Studio 5 Advanced
- Animate Good
- Final Cut Pro Advanced
- Illustrator Intermediate
- Spine Good
- Unity Beginner
- ProCreate Advanced
I will be financing the program with SU and with my savings.
I am curious to learn about animation and I can’t wait to work on exciting challenges in a creative team, surrounded by inspiring people.
I am determined to keep improving and work hard to reach my goals.
I have a lot to learn, and after having experienced The Animation Workshop through TDA, I know it is the right place for me to begin my journey into the world of animation.
Sincerely,
Jesper Andkjær Poulsgærd
