Ryan, produced by Toronto’s 49th Parallel, is a project of interest on several levels. The one-hour made-for-TV film is an innovative documentary with live-action footage directed by John L’Ecuyer (Saint Jude) on the subject of Ryan Larkin, an animator prodigy from the National Film Board in the late 1960s.

Nominated for an Academy Award for his short film Walking, Larkin later succumbed to substance abuse and ended up on the streets of Montreal.

Chris Landreth (The End), an Oscar-nominated 3D animator in his own right, tracked down Larkin and interviewed him, and will be using these conversations as the basis for a 12-minute animated sequence in a style somewhat comparable to Richard Linklater’s Waking Life that Landreth dubs ‘psycho-realism.’

Seneca College’s Digital Media Centre, which offers training in its $1.5-million compositing lab on systems such as Discreet’s flame, has made six workstations and its render farm available to Landreth. It has also built production space and supplied technicians and animators from among its graduates. Alias|Wavefront has contributed Maya licences and Discreet has donated flame suite time and compositing software. The 14-month project, with a broadcast commitment from Alliance Atlantis, went into production on April 1. 49th Parallel is currently finalizing copro negotiations with the NFB.

-www.49thparallel.ca