Ryan Larkin, as he appears today and in Chris Landreth’s new film. All images courtesy of Copper Heart Ent. and the National Film Board of Canada. Photo credit: Liam Maloney.

Chris Landreth’s short film Ryan (2004) paints in broad strokes the story of Ryan Larkin, the celebrated animator whose life trajectory during the last 30 years has lead him to become a panhandler in downtown Montreal. As we enter into the discomfiting visual language of Landreth’s 14-minute semi-documentary, we discover an affecting narrative that explores the fragility of an artistic life.

Given the seeming superficiality and indifference in everyday affairs, one might argue that a person needs to be insane to be sane in modern society. Ryan reminds us that perhaps we can all spare a little change — in allowing ourselves, and others, the opportunity to be different.

Ryan was produced by Copperheart Ent. and the National Film Board of Canada in association with Seneca College's Animation Arts Center. The film was made using Alias Maya for modeling, rigging, animation, lighting and rendering; Discreet combustion for compositing and 2D effects; Adobe Photoshop for painting and texturing; and Adobe Premiere for editing.

Greg Singer: To begin with, how did you come to know Ryan Larkin? Why did you choose to make this film?

The week Landreth served on the Ottawa International Animation Festival selection committee with Larkin led to the making of the short film. Photo credit: Shira Avni.

Chris Landreth: I had come to know Ryan, actually, from kind of an accident. I was asked to be on the selection committee of the Ottawa International Animation Festival. There were originally to be four of us animation professional types selecting films. At the last minute, one of [them] dropped out. The organizer of the festival, Chris Robinson, happened upon Ryan Larkin in Montreal. Chris had heard of Ryan, and that Ryan had this unusual lifestyle of panhandling for spare change. He thought it would be interesting, in light of this other guy dropping out, to have Ryan be on the selection committee. So, Chris drove Ryan to Ottawa from Montreal, and that’s how we got to meet him.

That week was very unusual. It was basically three of us, being the animation professionals, judging these films, and Ryan was at that point acting very much like a person who had not been around animation at all; very much like a bum, actually. He was saying, “I got to have my beer now... I’m tired, I got to lay down...” He was out of it for the first day or two. Then something kind of remarkable happened. He came to realize, I think, that he was in the company of people like he had been around when he was a creative person, and he started to really come alive, and we got to see him being lucid and engaged and very impassioned. That transformation of the personality was a very striking thing.