Chris Landreth | |
|---|---|
| Born | Hartford,Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | director,animator,writer |
Chris Landreth is an American animator working in Canada, best known for his work on the 2004 filmRyan. He has made many animated films since the mid-1990s, includingThe End,Bingo,The Listener,Caustic Sky: A Portrait of Regional Acid Deposition, andData Driven The Story Of Franz K.
After being an engineer for years, Landreth quit and began a second career as an animator. He received a BS (1984) in general engineering and an MS (1986) degree in theoretical and applied mechanics at theUniversity of Illinois. Three years following, he experimented in fluid mechanics research, until he made baby steps into the world of computer animation. In 1994, he was hired to define, test, and sometimes even abuse computer graphics software products. Such products include "movie Grade" software, not limited to but including programs, such asMaya, from theToronto-based animation firm,Alias (formerly Alias|wavefront, now owned byAutodesk).
This resulted in the productions ofThe End andBingo.The End was nominated in 1996 for anAcademy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Afterward, he metRyan Larkin, a renowned animator in the 1960s and 1970s, who had recently fallen into a spiral of excessive drinking, cocaine abuse, and homelessness. This resulted in the 2004 production ofRyan, which won an Oscar in 2005.
Landreth's 2009 filmThe Spine won the Best of the Festival award at theMelbourne International Animation Festival. Produced by theNational Film Board of Canada in association with Copperheart Entertainment,C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures andSeneca College,The Spine depicts a man who's physically and figuratively spineless and the breakdown of his marriage.[1]
Subconscious Password was his third with the NFB, Seneca College and Copperheart Entertainment.[2] It won the best short film prize at theAnnecy animation Festival 2013.
In 2016, he created the animated vignetteBe Cool for the NFB satiricalpublic service announcement series,Naked Island.[3]
Landreth is currently anartist in residence at theDynamic Graphics Project of theUniversity of Toronto. He is working on a feature-length adaptation of Hans Rodionoff, Enrique Breccia and Keith Giffen's graphic-novel biography of H.P. Lovecraft.[4]
Landreth's filmsRyan,The Spine andSubconscious Password were included in theAnimation Show of Shows.
Landreth is a master with The Beijing DeTao Masters Academy (DTMA), a high-level, multi-disciplined, application-oriented higher education institution in Shanghai, China.
Landreth uses standardCGI animation in his work, with the added element of what he calls Psychorealism. This often puts a surrealist styling into his work, notablyThe End,Bingo,The Spine, andRyan. For instance, inRyan, people's psychological traumas are represented by twisted, surreal lacerations and deformities. As people depicted in the film get distraught, their faces distort. At one time in the interview, Ryan gets so upset he literally flies apart.
Psychorealism is a style first put into words by Landreth to refer to what Karan Singh described as "the glorious complexity of the human psyche depicted through the visual medium ofart andanimation."[1]
| Year | Award | Category | Title of work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Academy Awards | Best Animated Short Film | The End | Nominated |
| 2004 | Academy Awards | Best Animated Short Film | Ryan | Won |
