Animation pioneer Ryan Larkin back to drawing board crafting MTV station IDs

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This article was published 21/12/2006 (7182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO (CP) – Just over a year ago, renowned animation pioneer Ryan Larkin was seeking refuge not in an artist’s studio, but shuffling between homeless missions in Montreal.

Fast-track to 2006, when Larkin headed back to the drawing board – literally – with the release of his first original work in nearly 30 years.

Larkin has crafted for MTV Canada three five-second bumpers – branded station identifications that run into or out of commercials on the cable channel.

Larkin, 63, said he was inspired by MTV’s previous bumpers, and relished the opportunity to put his stamp on his own original spots.

“The five-second format was interesting, and I noticed that the bumpers that were done didn’t have enough meat, they were too incidental,” Larkin said Thursday in an interview at MTV Canada’s downtown Toronto headquarters.

“It’s a poetic statement that I was trying the develop – and I think I’ve succeeded, too.”

The bumpers, which will be the only channel IDs to air on the station on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, are animated black-and-white sketches linked by a central plug-in theme. In one, a bird-like character morphs into a jetliner, while in another, a man’s face ebbs and flows fluidly as plugs sprout from his ears.

“I was trying to make a comical image that was also very poetic,” he said. “Each character morphs into some kind of plug – they’re looking for something to plug into. You might say the message is ‘plug into MTV.”‘

The bumpers will appear in the station’s regular rotation in the new year.

Peter Moller, MTV Canada’s creative director, said the station was inspired by Larkin’s earlier work, and that Larkin captured the channel’s desire to create branding that was not just creative but “really Canadian.”

“From a human side, I’m very proud because I think that is a really, really nice result, trying to get Ryan back to the drawing board and finishing something, not just for himself,” Moller said.

“I feel really this material is so strong, because nowhere in Canada in the televised world do you see proper handmade animation anymore.”

Larkin was once a celebrated animator and filmmaker who was just’ when he started working for the National Film Board of Canada in’63.

In’69, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his animated short “Walking,” and his work during his– years with the film board earned him dozens of awards around the world.

But Larkin later fell on hard times, succumbing to a combination of creative block and alcohol and cocaine problems. He took to the streets of Montreal as a panhandler.

Larkin was recently propelled back into the spotlight as the subject of “Ryan,” a digitally animated tribute by Canadian animator Chris Landreth.

The 3-D short film garnered some 30 international awards and took home the Academy Award for best animated short in 2005. But as the glitter of Oscar glory faded from the headlines, it remained life as usual for Larkin – albeit with a little more notoriety.

“People would buy him drinks, he would buy them drinks, but then everyone would go home,” said Larkin’s friend Laurie Gordon.

Larkin now lives and works in a converted rooming house in St-Hyacinthe, Que., 60 kilometres northeast of Montreal, at the home of Gordon, her husband, and their beloved brood of cats and dogs.

Gordon created music for Larkin’s MTV bumpers and is working on music for his short film project, “Spare Change,” a 10-minute animated film documenting what Larkin calls the comical things that happened during his panhandling experience. They are hoping to have the project hit screens by next fall.

“There were a lot of people in the business that knew Ryan from before that, for their own reasons, were resistant to even thinking that it’s viable that Ryan could even possibly, even remotely begin to draw again – and this is where I think I differed,” Gordon said.

“I couldn’t possibly believe that an artist just dies when he’s so witty and creative.”

“It’s the ultimate comeback story. It’s the story of the underdog.”

Larkin said the script, storyboard, and several chunks of animation for “Spare Change” are complete, but admits it was a challenge at first to pick up the pen and paper after such a long hiatus.

“I hadn’t worked in films for 25, 30 years, and it took me many hours to get back into the groove,” he said.

Larkin said he’s interested in doing three more bumpers for MTV next spring, a project he’d like to take on twice a year. He said he is content using his tried and true animation techniques and leaving cutting-edge computer animation to others.

“It’s too alien to me,” he said. “There’s certainly a lot of highly technical computer animation images that I could never dream of getting involved with.”

“There’s a lot of fantastic imagery that is possible with computers, but still, I believe the old-fashioned watercolours and painting and slightly clumsy drawings are more entertaining and still very beautiful.”

“I think it’s time that I come back and pioneered again the same stuff that I pioneered 30 years ago.”