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Landreth Chris
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 five-minute computer animated adaptation of a live theatre performance called Disregard This Play by the Chicago-based theater 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 Award for Bingo.
In his current film Ryan, Landreth turns his attentions to a biography of animator Ryan Larkin, while at the same time challenging our notions of documentary and animation. Landreth is arguably one of the most imaginative filmmakers working today in the computer graphics field. He gives us interpretive visuals that go beyond "photo-realism" into a pioneer realm where the visual appearance reflects the characters' evolving "pain, insanity, fear, mercy, shame and creativity»» a realm that he calls "psycho-realism".
