Toronto Sikh Profeeso R Won Oscar

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http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1273897,00110003.htm

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India has a reason to toast Oscars 2005, after all. And no, this isn’t about the reflected glory that Born Into Brothels — the Best Documentary (feature) on children in Kolkata’s red light area, Sonagachhi, made by two Brit filmmakers — fetched us. Meet Karansher Singh, Toronto-based animator par excellence. He’s the brains behind Ryan, winner of the Best Short Film (Animated) award at the Academy Awards this year.

Singh is a professor of computer graphics and animation at the University of Toronto by calling, but that’s not his claim to fame. The Oscar glory apart, he is also the man who designed Maya, a software for animation used by filmmakers from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to the world’s highest-paid director, Peter Jackson (The Lord Of The Rings). “It’s pretty much the industry standard on animation in Hollywood,” he says, talking to HT City from Toronto.

His involvement with Ryan director Chris Landreth goes back to almost a decade. “He’s the artist and I am the scientist in our projects,” says Singh. “When Chris suggested this idea, we both knew we had to film it.” Naturally so — the 13-minute film documents the life of Ryan Larkin, “the gifted animator of the late sixties who defied traditional norms set by Disney to pioneer computer-generated imagery (CGI)”.

Karansher Singh: An animator

par excellence

Don’t think it’s a sedate celluloid biopic. “Ryan’s life is a story in itself,” says Singh. “He reigned in his time, gradually became an alcoholic and today spends his days in a shelter for the homeless in Montreal.” Singh and Landreth’s tribute to their hero unfolds surreally. “We’ve tried to give the film a Salvatore Dali kind of feel,” he says. Singh calls it “non-photo realism”, and admits it’s his kind of animation: “I love fashioning painting-like imagery while rendering visual effects.”

He may have worked with the biggies (Dinosaur and The Lord Of The Rings films, to name a few), but his heart lies with independent projects like Ryan. “That’s where you can break new ground,” Singh points out. “The Oscar win is a boost, but it certainly doesn’t make life easier for indie filmmakers like us.”

If his struggle fetches him another Oscar or two, we don’t mind.