Interview with Mads Matthiesen: Turning his short film (Dennis) into a feature film (Teddy Bear)

Who: Mads Matthiesen, an up-and-coming director working out of Denmark.

Body of work: Dennis; Catherine; Teddy Bear

Goal of interview: To discuss the creative and promotional differences between making a short film and a feature film.

Mads Matthiesen displayed his short film Dennis at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. Four years later, he finished film school and decided to take his acclaimed short and stretch into a feature film. This second effort with lead actor Kim Kold became Teddy Bear, which continues the story of an insecure bodybuilder who has never had a girlfriend and lives with his overbearing mother. Matthiesen discusses extending a short film into a feature film and the challenges it presents. 

Cinema Beans

You had made a few short films before Dennis. What in particular about that project led to the feature film?

Mads Matthiesen

I wasn’t sure about Dennis when I set out to make it. I wanted to find a bodybuilder that could act. And he had to be a big guy—a real bodybuilder. And Denmark is a very small country and I didn’t know if I could find someone. At some point Kim Kold came to an audition, and he had never acted before. He just had great talent. Obviously he looked like I wanted. He’s tall, 140 kilos (308 lb.).

So I did the short and it got a lot of hype at festivals. I did that during film school, and when I was done there I wanted to do a feature. I was picturing different ideas for the screenplay and one of these ideas was doing something with Kim Kold again, because I found him and I thought he had great screen presence. Dennis was 18 minutes and I didn’t feel like I was finished with the topic of the “big guy” and his struggles. I only touched on it in the short film. So I pitched the idea of continuing to work with Dennis and the mother.

So Martin (Zandvliet, co-writer) came up with this idea about going out into society. There’s this whole symbiosis between Dennis and the mother, and then Martin came up with this idea of sending Dennis out to Thailand. Because, especially in Scandinavian and Nordic countries, a lot of men go to Thailand or do the mail-order bride thing. And that was funny to me. The idea of this very insecure man going there. There’s a lot of contrast in that. And people were very interested in that, which helped with the financing. And we had the short film to show to people, which is both a plus and a minus. It’s a good thing because you’ve got a teaser or a pilot to show people what you want to do, and on the other hand, they'd say, “You’ve already done that film? And you want to go do it again in a feature? We’ve already seen it.”

But I wouldn’t do it without Kim. So I went to him very early and discussed it, and he was very much up for it. After Dennis he had a couple of small parts and got more experience.

Cinema Beans

Yeah, I saw that he’s going to be in The Fast and the Furious 6, which is the role people would imagine him to be.

Mads Matthiesen

Yeah, that’s kind of funny.

Cinema Beans

You talked about Dennis being insecure. Your first film is about a first date, and Teddy Bear starts with a first date going wrong. Why do you think he has so much troubling conversing with women?

Mads Matthiesen

Not because he hasn’t been out into the real world. He’s just been overprotected by his mother. The outside world is a scary, no matter what age. He just needs to get out there.

Cinema Beans

Do you think that says something about his profession? Being cooped up, and being able to work from home with his mother?

Mads Matthiesen

We worked with that. Of course he has something he needs to escape with, but it’s also disallowed him from going out into the world all those years. He needs an escape though that doesn’t allow him to confront his fears.

Cinema Beans

Physical exertion seems like a way of pushing away that stress.

Mads Matthiesen

I think for some people who work out, this is the escape. It’s an obsession. Definitely for bodybuilders.

Cinema Beans

In regards to Dennis and his mom: it’s very loving, but it’s also pretty messed up the grasp she has on him. What did you keep in mind when you wanted to transfer the obligation he has to his mother to a longer running time?

Mads Matthiesen

I didn’t want to explain too much. I didn’t want to tell the whole “why” story. Just small hints and allow people to decide what happened. I also didn’t want to repeat in the feature. The only thing I wanted to repeat was mentioning Dennis’ father. At the end of the film the mother says how Dennis looks like his father, (and he says,) “No, I don’t.” I wanted to begin the feature where the short film ends.

Cinema Beans

A big difference between the short and feature is that he’s able to leave his mother in the end and move on with his life.

Mads Matthiesen

Yeah, he’s definitely one step further than in the short film.

Cinema Beans

I noticed smaller differences in the films between Dennis and his mother that are more intimate. There’s the scene where Dennis is taking a shower and the mom comes in to go to the bathroom, and it's completely natural. I felt like that spoke volumes about their relationship.

Mads Matthiesen

Yeah. We discussed having a scene like the last one in the short film (where Dennis crawls into bed with his mother), where they’re intimate, but we ended up taking it out. Then we’ve got the bathroom scene, which is the same, but maybe a little subtler.

Cinema Beans

Do you think it’s harder to stretch this material out for a feature length film or compact everything into a short film?

Mads Matthiesen

It’s different things for both the short and the feature. Regardless, you need a good story, but you also need different ways of telling it. They’re both very hard. But the hardest for me with the feature was going beyond a half hour. And you also have the whole financing thing and you need a lot more money. And you have a lot of expectations from cinemas. The entire economic thing was new to me. So much different from making a short.

I also wanted to do a film that was low key. A small drama, which was also a challenge because it might be easier to make a high-end drama with more speed, but I wanted to do a slow film where you can sit and relax.

Like I said, it was both a plus and a minus doing the short film before the feature. But we ended up getting the money because of that short film. We can show distribution that (Dennis) got 4 million views on Youtube and we can show that people are into this big guy and his mother.

Cinema Beans

You don’t see a lot of popular short films on Youtube. I usually have to track them down. Would you recommend that route to new filmmakers?

Mads Matthiesen

I think it’s a good thing. The problem is that there’s no money in it. Dennis was part of Sundance in 2008 and it was part of the deal we made with Sundance to put it on Youtube. It was not put out by us, so we had help promoting it. If you just put a film up there you normally wouldn’t get many hits. But it’s definitely a good idea. It was a good idea to make that deal with Youtube.

I would definitely say to get it out there. It’s a possibility for people to see your film. Don’t be scared, just get it out and maybe something will happen.