Chris Landreth’s (left) surreal, grotesque but moving animated short, Ryan, elicits very emotional responses from audiences. Photo credit: Shira Avni; Ryan image courtesy of Copper Heart Ent. and the National Film Board of Canada

Different audiences react to Chris Landreth’s short Ryan in different ways. At a recent American Cinematheque screening in Los Angeles, the enthusiastic general applause at the end was accompanied by a more personal thank-you from a theater employee, who told Chris in person that her mother had recently died while addicted to painkillers and that she hoped Ryan would increase public understanding of the way we deny our addictions.

Ryan Larkin, the subject of Landreth’s surreal, sometimes grotesque and ultimately moving animated short, has seen it too. After his first viewing, having taken in a vision of himself as a man with 80% of his head missing, Larkin reacted simply, “I don’t like the way I look.” Landreth had to point out that, strictly speaking, he felt the same way about his portrayal. Landreth is also a character in the film Ryan, and between rainbow-colored spikes flying out of his skull, emotional scars manifested as practical ones, and a fluorescent halo that pops up above his head when he tries to act noble, Chris replied, “I don’t like the way I look, either.” That seemed to settle the matter.

Ryan is the story of Ryan Larkin, former NFB animator who gave up his art in the face of overwhelming personal problems but managed somehow to keep himself together to the present day. (For background, please see this appreciation from AWN’s own Animation Pimp, as well as a brief summary from June’s Fresh from the Festivals column.)

Landreth first met Larkin in the summer of 2000, when Landreth was on the selection committee for the Ottawa Animation Festival and Larkin was chosen as a last-minute replacement for committee member who dropped out. “Chris Robinson, the organizer of the festival, was in Montreal at that time,” Landreth says. “He had just gotten to know Ryan, had found him hanging out on the street, and they had shared a beer or two.” Chris drove Ryan back to Ottawa, and together they made the selections of films for the festival. “It was clear this guy had an amazing story, that in one way would be very easily told, but really needed to be done in a way that did justice to it.”

Landreth started driving up to Montreal on weekends with a soundman to record interviews. For six months starting in March 2001, Larkin told Landreth the story of his life, and Landreth took away the 20 hours of interviews and began to construct a short film screenplay around the transcripts.

“Steve Hoban is the principal guy in Copperheart Entertainment,” Landreth says, “and I had known Steve for years before [Ryan]. We had worked together on an Imax project called Cyberworld 3D. I thought it would be great if he could be part of this thing.” Copperheart was the first production company attached to the project, but it was not a financier, so the search for more partners continued. The first production grant, $60,000, came from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2002. Shortly afterwards NFB signed on as well, bringing facilities and additional animators to Landreth’s team.

Then Seneca College in Toronto came on board. “They were just starting an animation program called the Animation Art Center,” says Landreth, “and they saw this project as a really great opportunity to get it jump-started.” Landreth got a studio as well as a group of students to complement his crew, and the results pleased him no end.

In all, Ryan was in production for three years as Landreth went from rough storyboards to animatic to a finished product. From the beginning he and animation supervisor Dave Baas worked with the animators to help them achieve completely naturalistic movement to complement Landreth’s often eye-popping character designs. Landreth’s visual sense is influenced in equal parts by English painter Francis Bacon, Chicago magical realist painter Ivan Albright and Polish surrealist Zdzislaw Beksinski. But his preference for far-out character canvases is complemented by an equally intense desire for simulation of human movement and behavior that’s thoroughly grounded in naturalism.

“That fact that people, to this day, are still confusing the animation with motion capture is flattery in that respect,” Landreth says. “The characters’ appearances are pretty disturbing and jarring as it is. It would have been even more jarring if they moved in any way that was stylized or not human-like, and not reflecting a thought process and emotional process that did justice to their humanity.”