The Spine | |
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![]() Two DVD set that contains the film | |
Directed by | Chris Landreth |
Written by | Chris Landreth |
Produced by | |
Starring | |
Edited by |
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Music by | Kirk Elliott |
Animation by | |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | National Film Board of Canada |
Release date |
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Running time | 11 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
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. [1] Voices for the couple were supplied by Gordon Pinsent and Alberta Watson. [2] [3]
Landreth has explained his animation style as "a kind of surrealistic portrayal of real people and what I do with the surrealistic part is to make people's emotional, psychological and spiritual state kind of very evident on their faces and in their body so that they look …scarred in a way that reflects their history." [2]
The Spine was produced by the National Film Board of Canada in association with Copperheart Animation and C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, with the creative participation of Autodesk Canada and Seneca College's School of Communication Arts. [4] [5] It is Landreth's second film with Copper Heart and the NFB, having won the 2004 Academy Award for Animated Short Film and the 25th Genie Award for Best Animated Short for his previous work, Ryan . [2]
Producing The Spine took two years, with the first year devoted mainly to development. The film was a more ambitious project technically than Ryan, and so required a much larger production team. Animators from Seneca College, which had been involved in Ryan, played a much larger role in the making of The Spine, with Seneca College people doing "about 95% of the animation," according to Landreth. Seneca professor Sean Craig, who had worked on Ryan as a student, was an animation director on The Spine. The film also utilized the input of C.O.R.E., including a team that did most of the computer rendering. The film was principally created using Autodesk Maya and Houdini 3D software. [5]
The screenplay for The Spine was written by Landreth while enrolled in a professional screenwriting workshop at Ryerson Polytechnic University. Some of the story was based on what he'd seen, 20 years earlier, at a group therapy session for couples, where it seemed to Landreth that portraying a dysfunctional relationship would make for an interesting story. It took Landreth just two hours to put the outline together, but completing the story took a year. The Ryerson workshop helped Landreth to flesh out his story and as of 2009, he continues to meet with his writing group once a month. Landreth also credits the production teams from the National Film Board and Copperheart for their creative input. [5]
The Spine had its world premiere at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, followed by a North American premiere at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto. [2] [3] In August 2009, Landreth presented the film at SIGGRAPH in New Orleans. [5]
Scott Hill of Wired.com called it "a freakish array of human drama" that will "blow minds". [6]
The Spine received the award for the best film at the Melbourne International Animation Festival, [7] and was named best animated short at the Nashville Film Festival. [8] It was also nominated for the Genie Award for Best Animated Short at the 30th Genie Awards. [9]
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.
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.
Ryan Larkin was a Canadian animator, artist, and sculptor who rose to fame with the psychedelic Oscar-nominated short Walking (1968) and the acclaimed Street Musique (1972). He was the subject of the Oscar-winning film Ryan.
Chris Landreth is an American animator working in Canada, best known for his work on the 2004 film Ryan. He has made many CGI animated films since the mid-1990s, including The End, Bingo, The Listener, Caustic Sky: A Portrait of Regional Acid Deposition, and Data Driven The Story Of Franz K.
Colin Archibald Low was a Canadian animation and documentary filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was known as a pioneer, one of Canada's most important filmmakers, and was regularly referred to as "the gentleman genius". His numerous honors include five BAFTA awards, eight Cannes Film Festival awards, and six Academy Award nominations.
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.
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.
Walking is a 1968 Canadian animated short film directed and produced by Ryan Larkin for the National Film Board of Canada, composed of animated vignettes of how different people walk.
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.
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.
Sleeping Betty is a Canadian animated short film by Claude Cloutier that humorously reinterprets the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. Awards for the film include Best Animated Short at the 29th Genie Awards, the Audience Award at the Etiuda&Anima International Film Festival, the Audience Award and Judges Award at the Melbourne International Animation Festival, Best Animation at the Jutra Award, as well as the Public Prize and the Best Canadian Animation Award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
Drux Flux is a 2008 animated short by Theodore Ushev, inspired by Herbert Marcuse’s treatise One-Dimensional Man.
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. In 2010, the film won the Yorkton Film Festival Golden Sheaf Award for Best Animation.
Thomas Cullen Daly was a Canadian film producer, film editor and film director, who was the head of Studio B at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
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.
Wild Life is a 2011 Canadian animated short film by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis. The film debuted at the 2011 Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto in June 2011 and online on January 6, 2012. The film was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 84th Academy Awards, and Best Animated Short Subject at the 39th Annie Awards as well as a Genie Award for Best Animated Short at the 32nd Genie Awards.
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.
Street Musique is a 1972 animated short film by Ryan Larkin produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). It is a line animation of "music as performance", in which actions of the film's characters are choreographed to the music of street musicians.
Steven "Steve" Hoban is a Canadian film producer. He has been nominated for three Genie Awards and won another. He has collaborated with Vincenzo Natali, David Hewlett, and Chris Landreth on multiple films. He is perhaps best known for Splice and the Ginger Snaps trilogy.