Biography for
Jannik Hastrup
Jannik Hastrup (born on 4.5.1941 in Næstved).
Danish cartoon animator, cartoon director and cartoon producer. Some readers
have probably and rightly wondered that such a significant personality within
the history of Danish cartoons has not received a special mention under biographies
here in the cartoon history's mention of the more or less significant or even
outstanding professional work of those concerned. But as far as is known, it
is a 'fate' he shares with other more or less significant people in the same
situation. But in order to try to make up for the aforementioned shortcoming,
I must apologize here for the fact that he and especially his career within
the Danish cartoon industry is more than abundantly mentioned in several contexts
on the internet.
As early as 1959,
Jannik Hastrup was apprenticed to the cartoon creator Bent Barfod, who was his
inspiration and who had established his own drawing studio as early as 1947.
The opportunities to get professional, qualitative training in the creation
and production of non-commercial Danish cartoons were then very limited , as
in the 1950s, apart from Barfod, there was only the option of applying to the
State Information Service for production support. Jannik Hastrup, as well as
his colleague Flemming Qvist Møller, later also used this solution and
had relative success in creating and producing a series of interesting cartoons,
especially in the form of so-called "moving films", where, for the
sake of financial affordability, one uses carved or cut-out figures, which are
placed under the so-called trick camera and exchanged exposure for exposure
on a flat background. That kind of technique eventually made it possible to
produce quite a few "cartoons".
Jannik Hastrup became and rightly is
particularly well-known for his films about Cirkeline in collaboration with
his ex-wife Hanne Hastrup and other subjects in collaboration with the writers
Bent Haller and Flemming Quist Møller. But from around the 1980s, Jannik
Hastrup began to seriously create and produce so-called long cartoons, which
means cartoons of so-called feature length, which again means with a running
time of 60-70 minutes. But there is also and perhaps especially reason to
mention his creation and production of quite a few so-called short cartoons
with subjects that one might not immediately think or think would be suitable
for the cartoon medium. At least not when and if this medium is to be considered
and perceived as a form of amusing entertainment. But since Jannik Hastrup -
by the way, especially together with Flemming Qvist Møller - belonged
to the younger group of young intellectual cartoon fans who wanted to use the
medium for political and social protest, the films had to and should be part
of their creators' outlook on life and world, marked as it was at that time
by the so-called neo-Marxism.
To explain the word
neo-Marxism, it can be mentioned in particular that it is an expression of directions
within Marxism which, among other things, is based on particular and renewed
studies of Karl Marx's early writings, often characterized by distancing himself
from both capitalist society and totalitarian socialist regimes. Neo-Marxism
also includes words and concepts such as dialectical materialism, historical
materialism, capital logic, monk Marxism, Trotskyism, revisionism etc. The core
point of the ideological criticism of the time, which is to say around 1968,
was precisely neo-Marxism's claim about capitalism's oppression of the working
class.
Harry Rasmussen himself
worked as an animator on two of Jannik's long cartoons: "Strit og Stumme"
in 1986-87 and "Fulglekrigen i Kanøfleskoven" in 1989-9o. In
the first-mentioned film he was especially the animator of the rat general MacDonald
and in the latter film especially of the mouse Ingolf.
It should be mentioned that in 1988 Jannik
received an Honorary Award for his total production. This appears from the two
lists below:
Jannik's feature film
The Bicycle Mosquito
and the Mini Beetle (2014)
The Bicycle Mosquito
and the Dancing Mosquito (2007)
Cirkeline and the
World's Smallest Superhero (2004)
The Boy Who Would
Do the Impossible (2002)
Cirkeline - Cheese
and Love (2000)
Cirkeline - Storbyens
Mus (1998)
H.C. Andersen and
the Crooked Shadow (1998)
The Apes and the
Secret Weapon (1995)
The War of the Birds
in the Kanøfles Forest (1990)
Loud and Dumb (1986)
Samson and Sally (1984)
Benny's Bathtub (1971)
Janniks short film
Just a prank' (2015)
Tefik, when you
fall you get back up again / Tefik, when you fall you get back up
again (2014)
Asylum child - Jamila,
if only I could fly / Jamila, if only I could fly (2013)
Asylum child - Solén,
I always remember daddy / Solén, I always remember daddy (2013)
Cirkeline in Fandango
/ Circleen in Fandango (2010)
War & Peas (2006)
You've got sugar (2005)
A Tale about The
Guilty Conscience (2005)
Dog & Fish (2001)
Tango Jalousie (1996)
Birdland - A History
of Jazz 4 episodes (1995)
Song of the Sea
(1993)
It's just us chickens
/ Aint Nobody here but us chickens (1992)
The Wonderfull World
of Barney and Betty (1991)
Take Care (1988)
Magic Mary and her
puppets 1 - the golden ring /
Magic Mary and her
puppets
(1985)
Magic and the Stuffed
Animals 2 - A Fox's Fur (1985)
Roji Negra (1985)
The further adventures
of the Ugly Duckling (1982)
The Thralls 9
episodes (1980)
Better rich and healthy
than poor and sick (1977)
The Historybook
/ The Historybook 9 episodes (1973)
The Wishbone (1972)
Cirkeline / Circleen
19 episodes (1967-71)
Bennys Badekar /
Bennys Bathtub (1970)
Rengbuen / The Rainbow
(1969)
The Hippo (1969)
The Great Sleigh
Robbery (1969)
The boy and the
moon (1968)
It Don't Mean a
Thing (1967)
The General / The
General (1966)
Slambert / Scoundrel (1966)
Elverskud (1966)
How to bring up your
parents (1966)
The Chimney Sweeper
Went for a Walk (1965)
The Bassoon That
Got a Stomachache (1965)
Concerto erotica (1964)
Agnete and the Merman
(1964)
Speaking of Agnete
and the Seaman, it can be mentioned that while Harry Rasmussen was working for
Jannik Hastrup in 1986-87, he told him about his own planned project of a long
cartoon based on H.C. Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid".
Jannik was inclined to think that it could be a project that he and his company,
Dansk Tegnefilm Kompagni, could possibly take into production after the completion
of "Strit og Stumme", however on the condition that it would be possible
to obtain financial support from The Danish Film Fund.
Consequently, Harry
Rasmussen prepared and submitted a copy of the script and a budget estimate
to the Statens Filmfond represented by film consultant Ida Zeruneith, who approved
both parts. However, as fate or chance would have it, he learned via his good
friend at Walt Disney Productions, Edvard A. Hansen, that the Disney company
had just now put the same subject and project into production! Thus the exit
for Rasmussen's beloved Mermaid project.
But for Jannik Hastrup,
the situation only meant that he could continue with his own and his own long
cartoon projects, which in this case meant "The War of the Birds in the
Kanøfle Forest", which Harry Rasmussen also worked on as an animator.