Subconscious Password teams Seneca with Oscar®-winning director Chris Landreth
Media Release
Seneca College’s latest animated film wins Canadian Screen Award
Toronto, March 9, 2014 – Subconscious Password, the latest film by Oscar®-winning director Chris Landreth, produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) with participation from Seneca’s Animation Arts Centre and Copperheart Entertainment, has won Best Animated Short at tonight’s Canadian Screen Awards.
Several Seneca VIsual Effects for Film and Television professors and graduates also worked on the hit television series Vikings which won a Canadian Screen Award on Wednesday evening.
This is the latest of several honours for the 11-minute 3D short, which include the prestigious Annecy Cristal award for best short film at its world premiere in June at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France.
For Subconscious Password Landreth joined forces once again with producer Marcy Page of NFB, producer Mark Smith of Copperheart Entertainment, and faculty and students from Seneca College’s Animation Arts Centre, who collaborated with him to make Ryan (2004) and The Spine (2009).
“Seneca students have been involved in animating the last three films I’ve done with the National Film Board,” said Landreth. “It was completely natural to work with Seneca again on this project and it’s invigorating to work with such talented up-and-coming animators — the students were more professional than many of the professionals I know.”
More than 15 graduating students were given the opportunity to work on Subconscious Password with the support of five faculty members, as part of the Animation Arts Centre’s Summer Animation Institute in 2012. After graduating, many of them were hired to work on the project until it was completed last February. This is just one of countless examples of the hands-on learning opportunities Seneca students receive in preparation for their careers.
Mark Jones, Seneca’s Chair of Creative Arts and Animation, was one of Subconscious Password‘s Executive Producers, and Sean Craig, a 3D Animation Professor and Program Co-ordinator, was the Animation Director.
“We’re thrilled that Subconscious Password has won a Canadian Screen Award and we are very proud of Seneca’s contribution to the film,” said Jones. “The Seneca Summer Animation Institute is really unique because it allows graduating students to work with award-winning directors and filmmakers like Chris Landreth. It gives them the kind of on-the-job training they can’t get in a regular classroom and a competitive advantage when they start applying for jobs.”
The majority of the film was produced at the state-of-the-art Animation Arts Centre in Toronto, within Seneca’s Faculty of Communication, Art and Design. This industry-leading program cluster offers students a range of career-oriented educational pathways including animation, digital animation, gaming, and visual effects for film and television. Three Seneca students also worked on the film from the NFB’s office in Montreal. Subconscious Password is the first Stereoscopic 3D film for Landreth and Seneca College.
Multimedia
In this short animation, a common social gaffe — forgetting somebody’s name — is the starting point for a mind-bending romp through the unconscious.
Awards
- Grand Prize (Short Film) – Annecy International Animation Film Festival
- Silver Dove – International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film
- Silver Spike (Short Film) – Seminci
- Audience Choice Award for Best Animated Short Film – Calgary International Film Festival
- Official selection Sundance 2014
- Selected for the TIFF Canada’s Top 10 Ten Film Festival
About Seneca Animation
Seneca is ranked 12th in the world for animation, gaming and design, and has been at the forefront of developing Canadian talent for more than a decade. Seneca’s award-winning animation programs, with international partnerships and connections with industry leaders, open worlds of career possibilities in the entertainment universe that help students succeed in this creative field.
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