Jørgen Klubien research

Bibliography

So what I find incredibly interesting and can’t entirely wrap my head around is how amazing Jørgen Klubien has been at using his creative talent to the largest extend possible. He has been the lead singer at “Danseorkestret”, just released his own solo album, worked as a story developer and animator for Pixar, Disney, Laika, Dreamworks, Tim Burton and so many more. He also worked as an illustrator on Donald Duck Daily and Sunday news paper strips, been a character designer for Denmark’s Radio, directed and written his own shot film, been in a music reality program and now works in the Danish amusement park Tivoli in Copenhagen. What a road to go down, I find it truly fascinating how he is able to change and try out new things as he pleases, implying a certain level of curiosity and eccentric personality.

Jørgen Klubien klipper silhouet med motiv fra Løvernes Konge. Sted: Tivoli.

Discography

ELMER-KLUBIEN, En tragisk Komedie (1981)
ElLMER-KLUBIEN, Marie (1982)
DANSEORKESTRET, Regndans (1984)
DANSEORKESTRET, Nat bli’r dag (1985)
DANSEORCHESTRA, Long Distance (1987)
DANSEORKESTRET, Det Flyvende Tæppe (1990)
ALBERTE, Lyse nætter (1991)
BUBBERS BALLONFÆRD (1993)
DANSEORKESTRET, Jagten på den store kærlighed (1994)
DANSEORKESTRET, Største Hits (1996)
DANSEORKESTRET, Spred Vingerne Ud (2000)
DANSEORKESTRET, Over Byen Under Himlen (2009)
KLUBIEN, Soul Cowboy (2014)

Filmography:

Oliver & Co. (1988)
The Little Mermaid (1989)
Bernard and Bianca (1990)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Lion King (1994)
Pocahontas (1995)
The Wooden Boy (1998)
Mulan (1998)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Peter Pedal (2006)
Cars (2006)
How to Train your Dragon (2010)
Shrek 4 (2010)
Frankenweenie (2012)
Dumbo (2016)

The road to Disney and Pixar

Klubien was initially smitten with the weekly Donald Duck magazines and imitated the drawing styles. He loved making comics and one day his mom showed him an article on Disney and how you can study to become an animator. He now knew what he wanted to do and during his teen years he practiced and practiced to become better. He first attended the Danish Design School but after one year moved to California to attend CalArts. After just one year, he was headhunted by Disney and was the only student in his year who got a job within Disney after only one year, which he was incredibly proud of. This also helped, that he had family ties within Disney, that made it so that he could go into the studio and look at what the animators were doing and talk to them.

Music

All whilst pursing his animation career, Klubien has always produced music by playing drums, singing and playing guitar. He created with two others the Danish band called “Danseorkestret” and three months every summer he would go back to Denmark to produce new music with the band and go on tours at Danish festivals. This double life and need to pursue music and actually take these long vacations from work resulted in him being fired multiple times from his jobs in LA as the American lifestyle was very different from what he wanted. But it didn’t stop him finding another job within film and animation afterwards.

Danseorkestret – Kom Tilbage Nu , 1:37 – 2:02

Cars

Klubien came up with the idea of a new Pixar film “The Yellow Car” that he wanted to direct. It was inspired by the fairytale The Ugly Duckling, which is made by the Danish H.C. Andersen. John Lasseter did not think it was strong enough story wise to run on a full length film. Just 2 years after Lasseter has the amazing idea of “Cars” saying he took a roadtrip with his wife and the whole story just came to him. Everything was based on Klubien’s original story, designs and concept art. The ending and the idea of having eyes in the windshield was also used by Lasseter. Lasseter and Klubien was initially really good friends and Lasseter had come back to Denmark with Klubien to spend Christmas with his family. Klubien confronted Lasseter about this and demanded that he would at least become the co-director of the film but as Lasseter wanted all the credit himself, he ended up firing Klubien. Lasseter told everyone working at Pixar at the time that they should interfere with Klubien making it hard for Klubien to get a job within Disney or Pixar again.

This makes me think what other things did Lasseter take the credit for? He has furthermore just been called out on his rude and inappropriate behaviour touching women inappropriately, kissing them in a greeting, inappropriate sexual behaviour in general disregarding the fact that he already has a wife and making sexual comments. All this within the workspace of Disney and Pixar. Now Klubien would have the change to go back and John Lasseter is no longer with either Disney or Pixar.

Lion King

An important scene within Lion King was storyboarded by Klubien, this is the “Be Prepared” song that Scars sings as he assembles the army of Hyenas. Listening to the song a couple of times, he initially thought of second world war. He grew up in Danish post-world war 2. The Danes were during WW2 occupied and invaded by the Germans, this meant that Denmark had German military walking the streets and there was an expectation within the Danish people to remain quiet and not speak up about own opinions as it could cot your life. Instead you had to do as you were told and Klubien mentions that this could be seen in his parents and also visiting museums around Denmark about the invasion gave him the idea of Scar being portrayed as Hitler.

He then drew scar as Hitler and thought of Leni Riefensthal’s propagandafilm “Triumph des Willens” showing nazi soldiers greeting Heil as they march down the street. Klubien then ported the hyenas doing the same thing and pitched the idea to his supervisor and group. His supervisor laughed and said it was incredible while everyone else thought is was too political and offensive. The idea come through immediately and was put into the film.