The Spine (film)

Production

Producing The Spine took two years, with the first year devoted mainly to development. The film was a more ambitious project technically than Ryan, and so required a much larger production team. Animators from Seneca College, which had been involved in Ryan, played a much larger role in the making of The Spine, with Seneca College people doing "about 95% of the animation," according to Landreth. Seneca professor Sean Craig, who had worked on Ryan as a student, was an animation director on The Spine. The film also utilized the input of C.O.R.E., including a team that did most of the computer rendering. The film was principally created using Autodesk Maya and Houdini 3D software.

The screenplay for The Spine was written by Landreth while enrolled in a professional screenwriting workshop at Ryerson Polytechnic University. Some of the story was based on what he'd seen, 20 years earlier, at a group therapy session for couples, where it seemed to Landreth that portraying a dysfunctional relationship would make for an interesting story. It took Landreth just two hours to put the outline together, but completing the story took a year. The Ryerson workshop helped Landreth to flesh out his story and as of 2009, he continues to meet with his writing group once a month. Landreth also credits the production teams from the National Film Board and Copperheart for their creative input.

Release

The Spine had its world premiere at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, followed by a North American premiere at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto. In August 2009, Landreth presented the film at SIGGRAPH in New Orleans.

Reception

Scott Hill of Wired.com called it "a freakish array of human drama" that will "blow minds".

The Spine received the award for the best film at the Melbourne International Animation Festival, and was named best animated short at the Nashville Film Festival. It was also nominated for the Genie Award for Best Animated Short at the 30th Genie Awards.