The Old Man and The Sea: Hands Above The Rest?

"He rubbed the cramped hand against the trousers and tried to gentle the fingers. But it would not open. Maybe it will open with the sun, he thought. Maybe it will open when the strong raw tuna is digested. If I have to have it, I will open it, cost whatever it costs." -- The Old Man and The Sea

The Old Man and The Sea. © Pascal Blais Productions inc., Imagica Corp., Panorama Film Studio of Yaroslavl.

It's all in the hands. In 1952, 53 year old Ernest Miller Hemingway of Oak Park, Illinois shrugged off the decay of his own weary, abused body, an increasingly scarred mind, and the pulsating aches of his five tools of anguished expression to compose his tale of an old Cuban who battles his own decay, a crippled left hand, and a giant marlin. In 1997, 40 year old Alexander Petrov of Prechistoe, Russia struggled against a strange environment (Canada), a new and intimidating technology (IMAX), and with the use of his finger tips, transformed Hemingway's ode to masculinity from splashes of oil paint into a vibrant, coherent, fresco in motion. Petrov's daunting task of filling 70mm of celluloid and projecting those chemically composed sight and sounds onto a seven story screen was as much a challenge as the fictional old man's four day battle with the marlin. The story becomes downright maniacal when you consider that an animation stand was constructed from scratch for the film. Of course unlike the old man, Petrov was not fighting for his humility and existence. While "El Campeon" fought the fish on his own, Petrov had the help of Russian colleagues and the technical team at Montreal's Pascal Blais Productions in producing the 22 minute animated interpretation of The Old Man and The Sea. Large format filmmaking is an absolutely unforgiving medium. The most minute error is amplified in immense proportions when projected on screen. The incredible detail of the image is both mouth watering eye-candy for any cinephile and a nightmare challenge for any filmmaker. With that to contend with, why would a Russian filmmaker comfortable working in 35 mm, and a Canadian production company with no previous experience in large format filmmaking, be interested in taking such a risk to produce The Old Man and The Sea? The Beginning of a Saga The story begins at the 1990 Ottawa International Animation Festival where Petrov's Oscar nominated film, The Cow was being shown in competition. "I fell off my seat when I saw [The Cow]," says Pascal Blais. "It was unbelievable the amount of work there. It was like seeing a Rembrandt come to life." Blais and his sister-in-law Martine Chartrand, a producer at the National Film Board of Canada, were in attendance. Although Blais was very impressed with Petrov's style and technique, it was Chartrand who pursued Petrov's talent and finally succeeded in securing an apprenticeship with him in Russia. While in Russia Chartrand discovered Petrov's interest in making a film about Papa Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea. Chartrand convinced Petrov to put together a proposal and storyboard and travel across the ocean to Canada in search of production money.

Ironically, Pascal Blais, realizing the difficulties involved in the production, was among the first to turn the project down. Petrov then made a series of failed pitches to the National Film Board, ASIFA-Canada, and a host of independent producers. Finally Blais, in a scenario that seems taken from a fairy tale, agreed to "give it a shot" because "there was a mutual respect and chemistry" between he and Petrov.

At first glance Pascal Blais Productions does not seem like an obvious choice to produce a literary film by an acclaimed Russian animator. Founded in 1983 by Blais and Bernard Lajoie, Pascal Blais Productions has been more known for their commercial work than for producing festival quality productions. Nevertheless Blais Productions is not a stranger to the independent scene. Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back) produced a spot for Bell Intermax that won Best Commercial at the 1996 Ottawa International Animation Festival and the company has also worked with legendary animator, Caroline Leaf (Two Sisters). In 1997, Blais took a new direction by co-producing the short film, The Old Lady and The Pigeons. This Canada-France co-production, directed by Sylvain Chomet, was met with resounding success on the festival circuit bringing home three grand prizes along with a Genie Award (Canada's Oscar for all you Yankee yuks). The success of The Old Lady certainly had its effect on Blais who went from commercial producer to friend of the independent animator overnight. "The mission of the company," says Blais, "is to produce high quality animated film accessible for large audiences. We believe that animation has a much larger potential than being confined to a category for kids' movies."

Once Blais made the decision to try and produce Petrov's film, his first order of business was to approach Bernard Lajoie, Vice President of Pascal Blais Productions. Lajoie immediately began the search for production money. A tip from the late Barry Angus MacLean, a producer at the NFB, led Lajoie to investors in Japan. IMAGICA Corporation was very interested in producing a film based on Hemingway's writing. They were also excited that Alexander Petrov would animate the film, however, the Japanese co-producers (which also included Dentsu Tec. and NHK Enterprise 21) enforced one condition in order to secure their financing a portion of the film: it must be done in IMAX. This factor changed everything. Technical Pioneering Lajoie, having no previous experience in large format film production, set out to design both an IMAX camera and an animation stand perfectly suited for the needs of Alexander Petrov. Lajoie began by studying Petrov's style of animation, which consists of using his fingertips to paint with slow drying oil paint on a glass surface. Petrov's previous films (The Cow, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man and The Mermaid) had all been done in this style, however, it became apparent that Petrov would have to modify his usual approach to filmmaking in order to accommodate the IMAX screen. "Normally," says Lajoie, "Alexander would animate in a field of nine to twelve inches, but we discovered [for IMAX] that he would have to animate in a field of thirty inches, which is four, five or six times bigger than what you do normally in 35 mm." In the early stages of pre-production Petrov sent Lajoie a model and photographs of his animation stand to be used as a blue print for the creation of a highly sophisticated version. From this crude example -- built of what looked like a combination of foam core and wire hanger -- Lajoie was able to construct a stand and camera which more than stood up to the challenges of both Petrov's technique and the scrutiny of the large format screen. Petrov works on different levels of glass, animating a character on one level, while simultaneously animating a background on another and so on. Light is shone through the levels of glass and a photograph is taken. Petrov then manipulates the slow drying oil paint and another photograph is taken. This process was repeated 29,000 times to complete The Old Man and The Sea and the utmost accuracy was essential. "As Alexander is using oil painting on glass," notes Lajoie, "he's animating directly under the camera; he had to complete a scene before the oil dried. So he had to animate quite fast. When you do this movement with such precision and with cross dissolves and all that, you need a reliable system."

Petrov paints one of the thousands of morphing frames used to create The Old Man and The Sea. © Pascal Blais Productions inc., Imagica Corp., Panorama Film Studio of Yaroslavl.

Accommodating both Petrov's technique and the electronics behind it proved a challenge for Lajoie and his team: "We had to build with a precision of one thousandth of an inch on each axis, four levels of drawing that could move north, south, east and west." Problems with depth of field complicated this task. So much so that more modifications to the creation of the animation stand were necessary. Petrov's multi-leveled technique would have required a minimum of ten inches of depth of field. However, while adapting the IMAX camera to properly work for an animation stand, Lajoie discovered that they were able to achieve a depth of field of only two to three millimeters. A call was put into the IMAX corporation and Lajoie was able to secure an enlarger lens "which is more flat, which gave us four inches" but that was still not enough. The solution came by modifying the animation stand itself. Petrov needed space between the planes of glass in order to paint different sequences.

Lajoie found a solution by placing the glass planes on rollers so that they could roll in and out like drawers. This allowed Petrov to complete his work and at the same time reduced the amount of space he required, thereby solving the depth of field problem. "It took six months to think about it, to develop it, to conceive the part of the software that we needed and to put all the electronics together and to do the proper tests," Lajoie said of the ordeal. "We're using probably the most sophisticated technology in the world for cinematography, but at the same time, we wanted to control it totally so that it was just to serve the art. Technology is a tool; the content is much more important. My objective was to relieve Petrov of that kind of pressure so that the camera and movement were reliable and he wouldn't lose time thinking about the action and the light."

Creating a Dream

In March 1997, Petrov arrived from Russia. Blais Productions bought a house outside of Montreal to serve as both a studio and living quarters for Petrov. In order to accommodate the custom made animation stand, which was set up in the basement, a hole needed to be cut in the living room floor. Once everything was in place (Lajoie even ensured that the height of the surface of the stand was custom made to suit Petrov), Petrov, his son, Dimitri, his camera assistant Serguei Rechetnikoff, and the production team from Pascal Blais began what would turn out to be two and a half years of work.

To ease the transformation from 35 mm to 70 mm, the production team used a video assist so that Petrov was able to see the evolution of the process, therefore easing some of the pressure. "Any registration problem or any problem with the smoothness of the camera movement," says Lajoie, "can be seen on the screen quite easily. The duration of the shots have to be longer, because there is so much information to grab from the image." However, Petrov was not accustomed to such technology and would still calculate all the scenes in his head. This astonishing demonstration of human ability was baffling to Lajoie. "Animating a boat in rotation with a character on a moving sea, and to be able to animate that frame by frame by memory, I mean, it's just...I don't know what to say. It's Petrov."

Petrov's camera assistant was also cautious of the new technology. Blais claims, "Serguei would double check every axis [there are up to seven axis]. All the calculations of these curves of acceleration and deceleration...he would note them down, re-calculate them and correct them. The computer wasn't accurate enough for IMAX. It was accurate enough for 35 mm, but when it came down to IMAX sometimes it would square off a digit or two. He would change these figures. He was more precise than the actual computer. Sergei's level ofaccuracy is unbelievable. His log book is an art work that you could frame and hang in a museum. He took note of every single detail. His nightmare was to have Alexander re-shoot a scene because of one of his mistakes."

There were a lot of pressures involved with the making of this film. Not only was it a new technology for virtually everyone involved, but it was also a much more expensive format. "It's a lot of risk. It's a lot of pressure. You spend an awful lot of money before seeing a frame of it. You need reliable people. You need reliable technology," claims Lajoie. After spending one month animating 500 feet of film, the exposed stock was then sent to Japan for processing. Petrov was forced to nervously await the results. "You can imagine the pressure on [Petrov] not knowing if he was going to lose one month of his life or not, working six days a week, twelve hours a day," adds a sympathetic Lajoie.

As it turned out, Petrov lost almost no time at all. The system built by Lajoie and his team proved to be reliable and highly functional. There were almost no mistakes made at all. "Alexander is unbelievable," says Blais. "Eighty-five to ninety percent of the scenes that we have in the film are his first try. He didn't do many re-shoots." Out of 250 scenes there were problems on an amazingly low three scenes.

"I have produced simpler films that have turned into nightmares," says Blais. "This one is the most difficult film we have ever undertaken and it was the one that went the most smoothly. I have never had so much respect for one individual as I have for Alexander Petrov. He had the pressure of the whole film on his shoulders. At the worst moments, he never lost his cool or his nice manners. We ended up the best of friends, which is very rare in this business."

While a friendship developed, a great film did not on a narrative level. For all the hype surrounding The Old Man and The Sea, Petrov's vision is a disappointment. Certainly it is difficult to condense Hemingway's novella into a 22-minute film, but within that time Petrov should have explored the complexity of at least one of the old man's relationships (eg. the boy, the marlin, his decaying hands, the sharks, his identity). The struggle between Santiago and the marlin is the backbone of the novel and the film fails to convey the intensity of that relationship. Time spent on, for example, the arm wrestling match in Casablanca could have instead been invested in the battle between the man and fish. In focusing on the non-essentials of the narrative, Petrov's interpretation becomes congested and ultimately superficial. In the novel, the on-going tension is a character in itself, but it is almost entirely absent in the film. In its place is composer Normand Rogers distracting, melodramatic score that serves as an inadequate substitute for the narrative's emotional void. The acting in both the English and French versions of the film are weak. In particular Gordon Pinsent's (a Canadian icon) unemotional impersonation of a Canadian maritime fisherman seems far removed from the shores of Cuba. Beyond the debate of content (and ultimately the scope of this article), one questions whether Petrov's technique is being misused on the construction of natural or photographic-like realism rather than exploring the more creative options of animation.

Delivering a New Marketplace Narrative shortcomings aside, The Old Man and The Sea has been a resounding critical and popular success. The film recently won the Grand Prize at the 1999 Krok Festival as well as receiving an Oscar nomination forBest Animation Short Film (Petrov's third nomination). In Montreal, some 50,000 spectators have seen the film, while in Paris somewhere between 60-70,000 Parisians have ventured to see what Blais proudly deems an independent film. "We really believe [Petrov's] style," adds Blais, "which is so different than what the average spectator is used to seeing gave us the opportunity to show [the audience] a new art form of animation that they are not used to seeing, and they can appreciate." But is this true? Is the success of The Old Man and The Sea a sign that independent animation has a market and audience, or is it more that an inherently loyal IMAX following will see anything in a large format regardless of content?

As we've seen with the likes of MTV, Sesame Street and so many other indie friendly producers and broadcasters, there is a tendency to appropriate the look of a particular animator without the content. In removing the heart of the animator's style, the purpose of and personality behind the style becomes diffused within the context of client controlled marketing. This is not to say that The Old Man and The Sea is empty fodder, however would an audience be flocking with the same verve to a decidedly personal and elliptical work like Petrov's The Cow that doesn't have the endorsement of a heavily marketed literary centenary?

Like Petrov's crude model for what would become a technically sophisticated animation stand, The Old Man and The Sea is a blueprint for a market which has the potential to become a new avenue for the production and reception of independent animation. Nevertheless, the box office numbers for The Old Man and The Sea, discriminating reception aside, suggests that perhaps the visual palate of the general public has expanded enough to support an alternative to mainstream animation. However, in its current form, IMAX animation bears more resemblance to a Hollywood studio epic than an independent personal vision. It's a shame too because what better way to deliver an audience than by the hands of a master.

Alyson Carty is an Ottawa-based independent filmmaker, assistantdirector of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and is currently studying cinema at Montreal's Concordia University.

Chris Robinson is executive director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival and the founder and director of SAFO, the International Student Animation Festival of Ottawa. In his spare time, Robinson is vice president of ASIFA-Canada. Robinson has curated film programs (AnimExpo, Images Festival and Olympia Film Festival), served on juries (AnimExpo, World Animation Celebration), and written articles on animation for Animation World Magazine, FPS, and Take One.