Chris Landreth, Ryan

The film Ryan, by Chris Landreth, is an animated representation of an interview he had with Ryan Larkin. The story begins with Chris in the bathroom, about to meet Ryan, he gets the audience ready for the person their about to meet with a voice over about his own inner turmoil, and how that is rendered visually on his own body. So when we first meet Ryan, who is only a sliver of a face, we instantly know that we are dealing with someone who has almost entirely given up, who’s entity is slipping away from him.
The interview is about Ryan’s history as an animator, about how he began with stick figures, and then transformed the images into abstracted, morphing beings. We cut between the modern animation from Landreth to the fundamental (but genius) animation from Larkin. The interview reveals Ryan’s disgust for the people who have ripped him off, and he has lost his creative ability. His sliver of a face begins to flesh out, however, upon seeing a digitally reenacted vision of his ex-lover. This image seems to pacify his anger, and during his moment of fleeting comfort Landreth signifies this touch of humanity by fleshing out his face.
Chris goes on to talk about people in Ryan’s career, but he touches a nerve when he asks Ryan to stop drinking. Clearly this is all Ryan has to hang onto. By the end of the video we see Chris across the street, with the same sliver of a face as Ryan, who is begging for money in a very animated fashion.