Ryan (2004)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Chris Landreth

Genre:

Documentary | Animation | Short | Biography | Drama | Fantasy

Plot:

The movie talks about the life of Ryan Larkin, a gifted Canadian animator of the late '60s and the early '70s.

Plot Keywords:

Animator | Producer | 1970s | Restroom | 1960s

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 19 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Ryan Larkin	...	Himself (voice)
Chris Landreth	...	Himself (voice)
Felicity Fanjoy	...	Herself (voice)
Derek Lamb	...	Himself (voice)

Directed by
Chris Landreth

Produced by
David Baas	....	animation producer
Jed DeCory	....	executive producer
Jeremy Edwardes	....	associate producer
Steven Hoban	....	producer
Karyn Nolan	....	executive producer
Marcy Page	....	producer
Noah Segal	....	executive producer
Mark Smith	....	producer
David Verrall	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Fergus Marsh
Michael White

Film Editing by
Alan Code

Production Management
Larry Deflorio	....	executive in charge of production
Paula Devonshire	....	post-production supervisor

Art Department
Paul Cieniuch	....	set designer
Brian Lemay	....	storyboard artist

Sound Department
Ray Cook	....	optical soundtrack
Eliot Crackower	....	assistant sound re-recording mixer
Roderick Deogrades	....	sound effects editor (as Rod Deogrades)
John Elliot	....	foley assistant
Steve Hammond	....	foley artist
Martin Gwynn Jones	....	adr editor
Martin Gwynn Jones	....	dialogue editor
Garrett Kerr	....	sound effects editor
David McCallum	....	sound supervisor
David Rose	....	sound effects editor
Lou Solakofski	....	re-recording mixer
Jane Tattersall	....	sound effects editor
David Yonson	....	adr mixer

Visual Effects by
Dave Bachelor	....	digital effects artist
Dave Bachelor	....	rendering assistant
William Dwelly	....	character set up
William Dwelly	....	visual effects
Martin Kumor	....	programmer
Martin Kumor	....	technical administrator
Steven Lin	....	systems admistrator
Ian MacLeod	....	digital artist
Simon Sherr	....	character setup
Helen Zotalis	....	modeler
Helen Zotalis	....	texture artist

Animation Department
Robb Denovan	....	animator
Martin Hesselink	....	animator: pre-production
Terry Kalinich	....	animator
Sebastian Kapijimpanga	....	animator
Paul Kohut	....	animator
Jeff Panko	....	animator

Other crew
Rob Aitchison	....	pre-production consultant
Winston Emano	....	publicist
David Magdael	....	publicist
David Steinberg	....	legal
Steven Wallace	....	publicist
Anne Stulz	....	publicist (uncredited)

Thanks
Ryan Larkin	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• Copperheart Entertainment
• National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Other Companies

• Coptor Productions Inc.  post-production facilities
• Film Effects  digital intermediate
• Tattersall Sound  sound editing services (as Tattersall Sound & Picture)

Runtime:

Canada:14 min | Argentina:14 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIA | USA:TV-PG | Argentina:Unrated

Company:

Copperheart Entertainment

Trivia:

The Pinhead clown from Chris Landreth's Bingo (1998) makes a cameo appearance near the end of the film.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Chris: Hi, my name is Chris and I'm here to explain some things.

Movie Connections:

References It's Tough to Be a Bird (1969)

Outstanding animated short

I saw this film at the Newport International Film Festival a few days ago (June 12, 2005). It won an award at the Festival for Best Animated Short.

I am an animation enthusiast who has created some of his own experimental animations. Up until seeing "Ryan" I didn't know the film existed and the NIFF did not list it as an Academy Award winner. So I went into the theater to see a series of short animated movies of which "Ryan" was included.

When I LEFT the shorts program screening, I couldn't help thinking of how profoundly moved I had been after having seen "Ryan". The imagination and creativity that went into the making this short were nothing short of incredible. The two main characters were fragmented and distorted in a way that represented (as many of you have said) the disintegration of the psyche and persona of the individuals. But the faces still had shreds of their original faces included. This was one of the animation techniques that amazed me the most because I really could not tell if the facial shreds were computer generated or rotoscoped from the faces of actors then applied to the individual shreds.

This movie was also laid out as an animated documentary, which is unusual. This means that there isn't much action. Everything is in the interviews that were conducted throughout the film. This means the animators had to REALLY pay attention to the small details. One detail in particular occurred towards the end of the film. This detail shows all street signs, store fronts and window writing written backwards. But if you look closely in one of the windows, you will see the reflection of one of the characters, and he is a complete being. So the world we have been taken to in this marvelous film is very similar to the world Alice stumbled into when she went through the looking glass.

This is a very definite 10 out of 10. Most of my points are awarded for imagination, creativity and for telling a moving story about someone I had never heard of before.