Chris Landreth
Biography
Chris Landreth went into animation as a second career after a stint as an engineer. He received his MS degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois in 1986. For three years he worked in experimental research in Fluid Mechanics at the University of Illinois before making his leap into computer animation.
In 1994 Landreth joined Alias/Wavefront, where it was his job to define, test and abuse animation software, in-house, before it was released to the public. In addition to well-mannered software, this resulted in the production of animated short films, including The End (1995) and Bingo (1998).
In his surreal short The End, the animator discovers he's the character in his own work while trying to think of a decent ending for it (it will not be the first time that Landreth challenges the illusion he is trying to create). Bingo is a 5-minute computer animated adaptation of a live theatre performance called Disregard This Play by the Chicago-based theatre company, The Neo-Futurists. The recorded audio performance of this absurdist play was used in Bingo, which then incorporated bizarre visual imagery and exaggerated characterization to support the telling of the story. Both films have received wide international recognition and numerous awards, including an Academy Award nomination for The End in 1996 for Best Animated Short Film and a 1999 Genie for Bingo.
Now recognized as one of the animation world's rising stars, Landreth embarked on his most ambitious project yet: the animated documentary Ryan (2004), which marked Landreth's first co-production with Copperheart Entertainment and the National Film Board of Canada. Ryan, a portrait of animator Ryan Larkin, allowed Landreth to push the boundaries of the visual technique he calls psycho-realism – in which the body becomes a visual metaphor for a character's deepest inner states. Ryan immediately became a contemporary classic, and was honoured with more than 50 awards, including an Oscar®. Working with the same team of producers, Landreth has followed up Ryan with The Spine (2009), a film that continues his explorations in the use of unique imagery to represent human psychological turmoil
