Runaway (2009 film)

Last updated
Runaway
Runaway (2009 film) poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Cordell Barker
Written byCordell Barker
Produced by Michael Scott
Derek Mazur
Music by Benoît Charest
Production
company
Distributed byNational Film Board of Canada
Release date
  • May 2009 (2009-05)(Cannes) [1] [2]
Running time
9 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Runaway is a 2009 short animated comedy film by Canadian animator Cordell Barker. It received a special jury award for short films at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and was named the best animated short film at the 2010 Genie Awards. [3] [4] In 2010, the film won the Yorkton Film Festival Golden Sheaf Award for Best Animation. [5]

Contents

The film was also selected for the Sundance Film Festival and was short-listed, though not nominated, for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. [6] [7] It was also included in the Animation Show of Shows.

Plot

The film's story takes place aboard an out-of-control train. Barker intended the film to be a parable about life, and how the ruling class tries in vain to insulate itself from the fate suffered by the lower classes: [8]

The metaphor of this film is that, whether you notice the jeopardy or not, everybody is trapped on this track, and we’re all going to the same place,” Barker explains. “I’m a bit of a Cassandra. I’m always feeling like I’m looking around and seeing this really apparent jeopardy. But a lot of people I know [have] that kind of disbelief that anything can shake their normal day-to-day life,” he says. “I keep thinking, ‘Man, we’re doomed.' [8]

Production

The film was produced in Winnipeg by Michael Scott and Derek Mazur for the National Film Board of Canada. [9] The musical score for the film was composed by Benoît Charest, known for composing the film score for the animated film The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville). [4]

Runaway took Barker eight years to complete. The entire film was made with hand-drawn animation, with the exception of some more visually complex scenes:

I brought on Frantic Films early on in the production to just do a couple of shots where the train is doing a three-dimensional action. There was no way I was going to sit down and animate that train coming around the track, especially in the middle of the film, when the camera is actually moving through the train, through all the cars. It's one thing when things are moving past the sides of the camera, everything's moving more quickly, but that end point, the perspective point where its are barely moving from frame to frame - that would have been just horrible, trying to animate that. [6]

Cast

Musicians

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Film Board of Canada</span> Public film and digital media producer and distributor

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception, which have won over 5,000 awards. The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries.

<i>Ryan</i> (film) 2004 Canadian film

Ryan is a 2004 short animated documentary film created and directed by Chris Landreth about Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, who had lived on skid row in Montreal as a result of drug and alcohol abuse. Landreth's chance meeting with Larkin in 2000 inspired him to develop the film, which took 18 months to complete. It was co-produced by Copper Heart Entertainment and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and its creation and development is the subject of the NFB documentary Alter Egos. The film incorporated material from archive sources, particularly Larkin's works at the NFB.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benoît Charest</span> Musical artist

Benoît Charest is a Canadian guitarist and film score composer from Quebec. He is best known for the soundtrack of the animated film The Triplets of Belleville (2003), for which he won a César Award for Best Music Written for a Film as well as a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Music. The song "Belleville Rendez-vous", in particular, earned him an Academy Award nomination as well as a Grammy Award nomination.

Richard Condie, is a Canadian animator, filmmaker, musician and voice actor. Condie is best known for his 1985 animated short The Big Snit at the National Film Board of Canada and has won six international awards for Getting Started in 1979. Condie lives and works in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cordell Barker</span> Canadian animator

Cordell Barker is a Canadian animator, director and screenwriter based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He began animating in his late teens after taking on an apprenticeship at Kenn Perkins Animation. A two-time Academy Award nominee, Barker is an animation filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

The Canadian Screen Award for Best Animated Short is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian animated short film. Formerly part of the Genie Awards, since 2012 it has been presented as part of the Canadian Screen Awards.

<i>Madame Tutli-Putli</i> 2007 Canadian film

Madame Tutli-Putli is a 2007 stop motion-animated short film by Montreal filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, collectively known as Clyde Henry Productions, and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). It is available on the Cinema16: World Short Films DVD and from the NFB.

<i>The Cat Came Back</i> (1988 film) 1988 Canadian film

The Cat Came Back is a 1988 Canadian short animated comedy film by Cordell Barker, produced by fellow award-winning animator Richard Condie in Winnipeg for the National Film Board of Canada. It is based on the children's song "The Cat Came Back" by Harry S. Miller. It was in UK theaters with Touchstone's Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

<i>Village of Idiots</i> 1999 Canadian film

Village of Idiots is a short animated comedy based on the classic humorous Jewish folk tales about the Wise Men of Chełm, directed and animated by Eugene Fedorenko and Rose Newlove, written by John Lazarus, and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Fedorenko is the Academy Award-winning animator of the 1979 NFB short Every Child. In 1999, it was one of four films in the 1st Annual Animation Show of Shows.

Strange Invaders is a 2002 short animated film by animator Cordell Barker. It tells the story of Roger and Doris, a couple who lead a quiet life. When a child crashes into their living room, the couple are initially enthralled. However, the child becomes increasingly destructive and proceeds to ransack their home and ruin their lives. Things become increasingly bizarre until Roger realises the true nature of It.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodore Ushev</span> Bulgarian animator and filmmaker

Theodore Asenov Ushev is a Bulgarian animator, film director and screenwriter based in Montreal. He is best known for his work at the National Film Board of Canada, including the 2016 animated short Blind Vaysha, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.

When the Day Breaks is a Canadian animated short co-directed by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis and featuring the voice of Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright singing the titular song.

Christopher Hinton is a Canadian film animator, film director and professor, living in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Hinton's films have won international awards and been twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film: in 1991 for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short film Blackfly and in 2003 for his independently made short Nibbles. Hinton won a Genie Award for his 2004 short film cNote. He began freelancing for the NFB in Winnipeg in the 1970s. He has written and directed over a dozen films for The National Film Board of Canada, CBC, & Sesame Street. Recent films, Flux (NFB,2003), cNote, Chroma Concerto (2007), and Compression (2008), explore the boundaries of narrative and abstraction and the integration of contemporary media into the moving image. He was a full-time professor in the Animation Program at Concordia University.

<i>Lipsett Diaries</i> 2010 Canadian film

Lipsett Diaries is a 2010 short animated documentary film about the life and art of collage filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, animated and directed by Theodore Ushev and written by Chris Robinson. The 14-minute film was produced by the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal, where Lipsett had worked from 1958 to 1972, before committing suicide in 1986. The film is narrated by Xavier Dolan.

<i>The Spine</i> (film) 2009 Canadian film

The Spine is a 2009 animated short film by Chris Landreth about a married dysfunctional couple, created in Landreth's "psycho realist" style, in which characters' mental states are reflected in their physical appearance. Voices for the couple were supplied by Gordon Pinsent and Alberta Watson.

How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels is a 1996 animated short by Canadian animator Craig Welch, produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis are a Canadian animation duo. On January 24, 2012, they received their second Oscar nomination, for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short film, Wild Life (2011). With their latest film, The Flying Sailor, they received several nominations and awards, including for the Best Canadian Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and on January 24, 2023, they received a nomination for the 95th Academy Awards under the category Best Animated Short Film.

Subconscious Password is a 2013 3-D animated film by Chris Landreth offering an imaginary, comedic look at the inner workings of Landreth's mind, as he tries to remember someone's name at a party.

Get a Job is a 1985 comedic musical animated short by Brad Caslor, featuring a rendition of the song of the same name, made famous by The Silhouettes. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in Winnipeg, the project took Caslor seven years to complete, from conception to release. Caslor began the film as a social guidance film for the Canadian government, however, during production it evolved into a more comedic work, incorporating a wide range of classic animation characters and techniques, including the styles of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Al Simmons and Jay Brazeau performed the music in the film, which received the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Award for Best Animated Short at the 8th Genie Awards.

No Problem is a Canadian animated short film, directed by Craig Welch and released in 1992. The film centres on a lonely man who wants to be in a relationship with a woman, but every time he goes on a date his id and superego both come out to wreck the opportunity.

References

  1. "National Film Board of Canada". 11 October 2012.
  2. "Runaway wins audience prize at International Critics' Week in Cannes". 25 May 2009. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  3. "NFB animation a "Runaway" winner at Genie Awards [ dead link ]". forum.bcdb.com, April 13, 2010
  4. 1 2 "Winnipeg animator wins jury award at Annecy". CBC News. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. June 15, 2009. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  5. "Our Collection: Runaway". National Film Board of Canada. 2009. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  6. 1 2 Brown, Todd (January 27, 2010). "Sundance 2010: Cordell Barker Talks RUNAWAY". Twitch Film . Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  7. "The Academy (Shorts) Short-List". Cartoon Brew . November 21, 2009. Archived from the original on 25 November 2009. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  8. 1 2 Dixon, Guy (Jan 27, 2010). "A Runaway success". The Globe and Mail . CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  9. "Runaway". Collection. National Film Board of Canada . Retrieved 9 March 2010.