Maddie Schønningsen

Originally from Norway, Maddie studied on our BA (Hons) Animation and Illustration and after graduating won awards from two international film festivals for her major project short Lossnord.

What have you been doing since graduating from ARU?

I haven't actually gotten to do everything I was thinking of doing after the course ended, but I only graduated this year, so it's been a short amount of time. I've been doing some freelance work and I'm also working my normal job at a sports retailer to get by.

I'm just trying to not stress about the future because I know it's hard to get into the professional animation field. I've applied to a bunch of festivals and I thought I'll let myself wait for that, see what happens, and lo and behold I got some good responses from them, which is really exciting.

Now I'm planning on applying for jobs – I’ll look more into that when the new year comes.

Tell us about your film festival success

Well, I entered about eleven festivals at once. I just found the ones that I felt like my film would fit into, and then I applied through Film Freeway, which was quite easy. It's a pretty penny sometimes, especially if you reach later on in the festival, but I thought that it was worth it as an investment, and also it's going to give me a bit more credibility when I apply for jobs if I have something like a review of my work.

The first festival I got feedback from, the New York Short Animation Festival, picked me as a finalist. I wasn't chosen for an award, but they considered my work and I thought that was so exciting.

Then the next one comes in and it's Festigious, a monthly competition based in Los Angeles, so they have more turn around. I got through to the quarter finals, then the semi-finals, and then the final. I was getting feedback throughout, and laurels every time saying “Oh, you won this one, you won that one.” Then I  actually won Best Animation.  I was so excited. I don’t really know how to describe it. I was telling everybody about it, “Oh my God, I won a festival,” and I got a digital laurel reward pack that I can apply to my work.

Around the same time, the LGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival also picked Lossnord for Best Animation. They gave me a feedback video, with strangers watching my film and giving me feedback! That just made me more excited about the result because I saw their reactions, and I was able to interpret the feedback in different ways. It was very exciting, and I really think that it was a good move by the lecturers to push us into doing it.

Where and what did you study before ARU?

I went to school in Norway, and chose a course that had me moving eight hours from home. It was cold! The course was, and this is a rough translation, Art, Design and Architecture.

It was a wide curriculum that also involved printmaking and photography, as well as normal studies like English, math, Norwegian, sciences, stuff like that. It's a basis to go on to art-based further education. We did stuff for architecture like building models, and we designed clothing items and other things. We also did painting and digital art.

It's kind of like A-levels but lasts three years, which meant I was also a year older than most people on my degree. Not that it made much of a difference, but it was an interesting perspective because I'd lived the life of a student away from home before.

Did you always know that you would go to university and if not, what changed your mind?

It was something that I just thought I was going to do always. In Norway, when you’re done with the level of school I got to, either you have to find a job, usually like a retail job, and then continue with that, or you go further and try to specify your field.

A lot of people choose not to do that, but I wanted to figure out if art was what I wanted to do. I felt like I wasn't at the stage where people would hire me to do stuff; I didn't feel like I had the skills to be paid to do something. So I thought, why not do more?

What inspired you to get involved with animation?

Originally I wasn't going to apply for animation, because I didn't do animation at all in my A-level equivalent. I got inspired by a YouTuber I was watching, she was doing illustration not animation, but she said that she went to animation school and it helped her skills develop. It helped her see art in a more 3D way, and this was a good tool because a lot of animation practice is very technical — you have to understand form and movement.

That made me think it might be the best way for me to upgrade my skills. So I didn't go in with the thought process of “I want to do animation as a job.” It was more that I wanted to learn something new and, very suddenly, I just decided on that!

Why did you choose to study at ARU?

I looked into art schools in Norway, but they were all quite far so I would still be away from home anyway. So I thought, why don't I try abroad? That's a very once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I originally applied to five schools for animation, all in the UK. I had no idea most of the time about where anything was because I’d never been to the UK before. It seemed interesting in general, and it was kind of luck of the draw. But the ARU course was both illustration and animation, and when applied I wasn't thinking I was going to do animation as a career — just for skill development. So it seemed like if illustration was part of it, then I'd probably learn more in that field as well. I've always loved drawing, so it's quite easy for me to pick up new things.

I feel really lucky having studied here. I've met more wonderful people, and my lecturers have been great. I really admire them.

What’s the most valuable thing you took away from your education?

A lot of what the lecturers told me was very constructive, and it feels now like I have a more automatic work process for animation specifically. If I have an idea, I think back to how they would go about their projects in the beginning; how they would say to do it; how to write it down, prepare it, research it, think it through.

Honestly, I feel like adapting that to how it works for yourself is, of course, the best way. So I do a bit of both. I throw it out. I write it out. I try to figure it out, and then I go back and redo it. But I do feel with the work process I learned in animation, I have a more prepared view of it.

After having put it into practice on my internship, I found it worked and that is obviously why they're telling us to do it that way. That's how it works in “real life”, in the industry, so that's something I really think that helps me from the course. If I had never done it, I wouldn't have that perspective.

The lecturers have actually done jobs in animation and creative fields, so they know the process and that's what they're trying to get us used to as well. So yeah, I think that's probably my most valuable thing.

Which aspects of the course most helped your career development, and why?

We did a couple of group live projects, where we worked with a client. We did one for 9Trees and one for Action on Empty Homes. We all pitched a brief, and they picked the one that they liked the most from each group. The person whose pitch was picked aldo got to direct it.

My pitch was picked, which I think created a lot of work because I have a particular view and I'm a perfectionist. So I tried to really make it how I was imagining it to be. It ended up working out, but partly because I was overworking myself a bit!

I also did a summer internship with Flying Eye Books in London. It was really fun because I made a trailer for the book Shackleton's Journey, one of their best sellers which was being republished, and I put so much work into it. It looks like a coloured pencil animation, because that is much the style of the book. They really liked the animation and used it in their promotion.

So I just feel more confident in my professional abilities as well as my animation ability. I feel like, if I get a commission, I can judge it better, I have more perspective on how to communicate with the client. But that's something I also got from the internship specifically because they gave me a lot of tips on it.

What piece of advice would you give to other students in your field?

Do your best work, because it's hard for people, including me, to discipline themselves outside of having a deadline that's given to them. And one of my biggest motivators that I thought about during my course was my portfolio. That is what makes people want to hire me.

So do your best work, but also value your health — don't overwork yourself. Even if you're not agreeing with a task, or you don't find it that exciting, try to make it into something you want to do, and try to make it as impressive as you can, because this is usually what you show to people if you want to get hired.

I did end up on the side of overworking and taking too long over projects, but that was something that made me happy with what I was doing. I spent a lot of hours on my work — even if other others around me were slightly worried sometimes!

But if this is something you want to do in your professional life, you need to figure out where your limits are and put your best foot forwards, because a lot of the people that hire you won't hire you for your Bachelor's in animation — they’ll hire you for your portfolio.

What was your favourite thing about studying in Cambridge, and what did you learn about it that you didn’t know before?

I remember my first time here, I was walking to an Airbnb with my mum and we had no idea where we were, but all I could think was “I feel like I'm in a movie”. It’s a city with tall buildings, but very flat as well. I've never been to such a flat place in my life!

I really enjoyed living here. I got a bike when I moved a bit further away from uni and it's so easy to get around. I like that it's smaller. It kind of feels like a smaller place whilst also having larger shops. You get into town and suddenly it feels like you're in a different place. It's very varied.

It's also very international — a lot of international shops and people as well. It's a very exciting place to come to and I'm glad that I ended up here because I think it's easier to navigate than London. But it's not small and it has a lot of things to do and it's hard to get bored. If you want to go out and do something, you can sit in the park or go to a cafe or just wander around.

Where it came into play most on the course was for observational drawings, which are about seeing form and replicating it on paper. We would walk around and find different spots to sit and draw — you can find such architecturally complicated shapes, and very built up places. Then you can go into the graveyard behind uni or to a park where you just see trees and people playing around.

Also, I feel like I just disappear when I sit and draw people — it doesn't seem that weird here!

What projects are you currently working on, both at work and outside it?

I've done a few commissions in the time that I've spent working in retail and waiting for festivals. It's been illustration jobs, that's an easier avenue to get work. It’s usually smaller things, so less time needed and less of an investment.

I did a poster; I’ve done some character emotes for someone’s website; and helped a few people I know who wanted to manage their professional development on YouTube. I feel like I've been part of their beginning, and they might continue coming back to me for art and jobs.

I have a few commissions under my belt in general. I've done a couple of posters for Andøya Space in Norway, promotions for school children to come and visit the station. It has a museum-like walkthrough part where you can interact and learn about space, then they do projects and send up a small rocket. I've also done some work for a local paper for Christmas.

Animation-wise, I think I'm on the verge of getting a few things to do, but it wouldn't be a big project, more smaller ones that wouldn't cost much for the person to hire me.

I'm more self-motivated with animation, but illustration is where I probably have more experience doing commissions. So I now have a wider skill pool to draw on, and I feel more secure in that — if I can't find a job, I have other things I can apply myself to where I might get hired, within different fields.