presentLaurie has spent the last couple of years filming Ryan on the comeback trail. The footage will be part of a documentary called Pause...Making Spare Change, which will be released along with the animation Spare Change but will be far more then just a "Making of"... of course it will.
Circa 2001, Laurie learned about Ryan Larkin in a news piece documentary on CBC's investigative television program, Disclosure. "It really shook me up and I was compelled to meet this man. Ryan was working his "spot" only two blocks away from where I lived. My eyes fell upon his delicate frame wrapped in a tattered coat for the first time on St.Laurent Boulevard. He was working his "spot" in front of a popular deli. I introduced myself (and my dogs Target and Rudy) and asked Ryan if he'd ever consider doing a bit of animation for a Chiwawa music video.He played with my dogs and I'd give him our CD and he'd choose a song... initially it was Umbrella Man from The Sick World Of Yona."
This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and an unexpected turn 'n' twist in animation history.
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CHIWAWA did the music and voices for the MTV bumpers - Krassy cameos as Plug Man "nyum nyum" vox bumper and Laurie swanks it up as the singing Ryan crooner face morphs to Bango. All bumper music are samples or reinterpretations of Do It For Me
On Sunday February 18 2007 at the Copacabana, there was a beautiful celebration for Ryan. Many shots of brandy and plenty o'pints 'o beer consumed. Many mourner/revelers were there to laugh and cry for our buddy Ryan. Everyone from the Nutters to ex-lovers to the real Felicity were there, a cousin named Alan, and the ever so lovely Bob Verrall, and the team who will help make MusiVision help see Ryan's work through to the end, including Craig Graham of Cine Pro Productionsand Nicolas Zavaglia of Juventus Films and Don Winkler. Thank you to the Canada Council and Le conseil des artes et des lettres du Quebec and many generous private donations. We are still are short though folks...spare change, spare change...
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Ryan Larkin experienced an artistic renaissance in recent years. He used to say that he never lost his inspiration and that he was still working, even when he was panhandling. There were doubters but Ryan proved that this was indeed so. He began conceptualizing Spare Change with Laurie Gordon in 2003. Eventually he did a few sneak peaks for MTV Canada channel IDs called "bumpers" which made their debut December 25, 2006. Ryan was now doing his own thing and talking to reporters, not about his past addictions or life on the street but about his "re-animation". (was he ever not animated?)
Much sadness is connected with Ryan's life, but at the end, Ryan had experienced rebirth and renewal. How on earth will we finish the film, you ask? Spare Change already exists. We have to be sculptors who mold the images like a piece of marble that holds the sculpture already within. We're archaeologists excavating a treasure. Ryan has left enough material and content to grasp Spare Change, channel and co-direct Spare Change while animators Eric Lepage, Yin Ko Lee, and Tom Tassel will help bring the images into magical motion.
Ryan's was our friend. We welcomed him into our home, and into our family. We had some great times and rough times; laughter and tears, yelling, artistic crisis', reading lots and lots, composing music, drawing and conceptualizing for Spare Change, and of course watching the local CTV weather forecast. Ryan got breakfast in bed and taught us how to poach an egg. We will miss Ryan's lopsided smirk, twinkling silver blue eyes and rhythmic sound effects which ornamented his conversation, "ch ch ch","sssss" - we'll miss his inimatable comic sensibilities and unique way of seeing the world. We still see his expressive finger dances.Ryan died content, in a home full of love and animals which he adored. He was long off the streets and less in need of panhandling albeit he still loved doing it as a "hobby".We will miss Ryan and have learned more about our own humanity and animality by having had Ryan Larkin, the "manimator" xss-stra-ordinaire in our lives.Laurie, Krassy, Tika, Ling Ling aka Ringolo, Copyright aka Needle Cat, Mommy aka MumCat(RIP June, 2008), Cosma aka Trademark, and your cat Ocelot.
Photo by Felicity Fanjoy St. Norbert Street, Montreal August 1975.Ryan looks like he could have been in Krassy's band The Clouds circa 1994.
Spare Change is now an official co-production between MusiVision and the NFB, slated for fall release 2008.
To download the one sheet click here Spare Change One Sheet.
Spare Change
Director Ryan Larkin
coming soon
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