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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Børge Ring is 90 today!

A Very Happy Birthday, Børge!
Børge is 90
In Holland and Denmark, it just turned Thursday February 17th 2011, the 90th birthday of my old mentor Børge Ring. He isn't smiling for the picture: the little guilded man he is holding is really heavy!

As film maker, Børge created (among numerous other things) the short films "Oh My Darling," "Anna & Bella" and "Run of the Mill" as well as the animated series "Anton." As jazz musician he played guitar and bass with famous bands like Leo Mathisen and Svend Asmussen, just to name a few. A little paragraph like this cannot do Børge justice in either field, as he has filled them both since the late 1930s! In 1952 he moved to Holland to work for the Marten Toonder Studios; after 20 years there he went freelance. Now turning 90, Børge slowed down, but his mind is still one of the sharpest around!

Above picture I took a few days ago, to be precise last Sunday, when I visited Børge in his and his wife Joanika's home in Holland, chewing the fat for too few hours. Børge told me the great news that he currently has the Academy Award "on loan," won for his film "Anna & Bella," on which I, too, wore many hats, including as editor, assistant director, cel painter and doing some animation, as well.

Hans, Oscar and Børge at 90
I am thus also proud to have a picture of the three of us together, after all these many years: the film had its first screening in August 1984 in the Dutch city of Haarlem during an intermission in the wonderful program presented by the great Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. I had been in Denmark only two weeks working on the feature film Valhalla when I had to come back to Holland for the proceedings I had organized. It gave me great pleasure to be able to invite Børge to peruse the musea of Amsterdam with Frank and Ollie.
Of course it was Børge who first introduced me to the Valhalla studio, which was the reason I moved to Denmark in the first place...

Hans, Oscar and Børge at 90
Funnily enough, in his native Denmark, Børge is mainly known as bass player. Here he had his beginnings with Mathiesen and Asmussen. But in Holland, he is the Oscar-winning film maker, decorated by the Dutch queen for his work in animation. Just few months ago, Børge had his memoirs published, thus far only in Danish. Will we see an English version soon?
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8 comments:

  1. A Snow White SanctumWednesday, February 16, 2011 at 7:52:00 PM PST

    Happy birthday BR! And many more.

    ReplyDelete
  2. chuckamuckThursday, February 17, 2011 at 6:24:00 AM PST

    Happy Birthday Borge!
    Keep on flipping.
    Yours
    Jürgen Frohn

    ("'Tau Ceti" - Egenolf & Jeske Cologne 1990)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Steven HartleyFriday, February 18, 2011 at 7:40:00 AM PST

    Happy Birthday Borge - here is another animator that's still with us from the Golden Age.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mark MayersonFriday, February 18, 2011 at 6:47:00 PM PST

    Hi Hans. Is Borge's memoir illustrated? Is it worth getting for those who don't speak Danish?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michael SpornSaturday, February 19, 2011 at 4:19:00 AM PST

    I remember how happy and thrilled I was when Borge's film won the Oscar. At the same time I learned a big lesson - the producer gets the award. I swore to always be, at the very least, one of my own producers so my name would be called out. (Even though I didn't win, that was a big thrill, too.)

    What a long and great life he's led. Happy Birthday, Borge.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Steven HartleyTuesday, February 22, 2011 at 9:30:00 AM PST

    Oh Hans,

    On your calculations board - I've tried typing in "Feet to frames" but it only comes up with "NaNaNa" or something - is there a different way, is it broken or am I not doing it right?

    --Steven

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hans PerkTuesday, February 22, 2011 at 2:49:00 PM PST

    Steven, it should work (just did for me)! The left top input box is for frames (a whole number), the right for feet (format: "nnn-nn" like "012-14"). If you enter feet in the left box, you get the output you mention. After entering in any box, click outside it and read the answer in the other box.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Steven HartleyTuesday, February 22, 2011 at 3:31:00 PM PST

    Thanks for the advice,

    I've managed to figure out - my using the footage on the right. Although I noticed that the calculations only go up to 999 feet. Although I figured out that if I wrote "1110-07" and my result only comes up as "1176-07" - I realised that I need to add another (0) to the feet colum and it will come up as 11760-07. I managed to figure that out by testing on a normal calcultor. Because 1110 x 16 is 17760.

    ReplyDelete