Heidi Madsen is an animation producer who originally trained as a 2D hand-drawn animator and has since worked across 2D, CGI, and live action. She’s also my neighbour, and this October I interviewed her about her career.
Her path into animation resonated with me, especially her experience of loving art but feeling out of place in certain environments. We also discussed how students can find their place in the industry. A recurring theme was networking: having solid skills matters, but so does building respectful relationships. It’s daunting that there’s no guaranteed route in, yet encouraging to know there are many ways to start and room to experiment. As I’m still figuring out my place, it’s reassuring to hear how transferable skills are across roles.
Our conversation lasted 1.5 hours and covered a lot, but I’ve selected and transcribed three particularly relevant excerpts for the next blog posts, focusing on entering the animation industry.
Q
How did you get into animation?
A
I always loved comics – wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. For five years I experimented, spending four months at an art and design workshop in Denmark, then went to business school learning accounting and IT, but I didn’t feel I fit into that world. A friend from Iceland recommended an animation workshop, which I loved. Especially the teamwork aspects, and drawing practice, which is key to hand drawn animation.
Q
The other course was…
A
A fabulous six month classical drawing course with Russian teachers, drawing movement lines as we remembered.
Q
You worked on a film in Munich when you were a student?
A
It was a feature film where I worked on clean-up and in-between, which I enjoyed. Then back at animation school in 2003 I finished my portfolio, and 2D died. Everyone was swapping to 3D, and I couldn’t afford to study 3D. Back then the computer side wasn’t intuitive and my passion was drawing, so I was a bit stuck. I felt I had a dated education and was heartbroken, my dream of working for Disney was shattered.
Q
Do you see 2D coming back now?
A
Then 2D was mainly for TV, and movies were being outsourced to China and India. Studios became huge, too expensive to produce in Europe. Experienced 2D animators created a niche for small ads and suchlike, but the big 2D industry disappeared.
Someone suggested I could be a producer, so I produced a short animation film using string puppets, as I knew how slow animators were, especially the students. Then we were suddenly in a live action environment, which was fun and a steep learning curve.
Q
Do you feel you were thrown into the producer role?
A
I jumped in at the deep end – it was kind of crazy, as I was trained to be an animator, which was nothing like that, yet it was natural for me. Instead of going back to college I produced two shows.
Then I went to Munich as production manager for eighteen months, and did a low budget 3D TV series.
Q
How did you find it, moving from live action puppets to 3D?
A
I didn’t think too much. Sometimes it’s good to be excited without really knowing what’s involved, but I knew the process. We did the pre-production. I had storyboarder training so I did it. The 3D itself was produced in China. I’m very curious, good at asking questions. Maybe as an artist I was less afraid to ask, because I had a foundation of knowledge, I could build it up.
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