Considering director Meni Tsirbas started his career in graphic design and visual effects on movies like Titanic, it's not surprising Terra, his first feature film, has a vivid and original look to it.
The animated science-fiction adventure is set on Terra, a planet inhabited by the peaceful Terrian species. When humans, who have burned through the resources of Earth and three other planets, discover Terra they decide to settle there. The problem is, if they make Terra habitable for themselves it will become inhospitable and fatal to the Terrians.
The Terrian world is a thing to behold - all smooth shapes and curves.
"I started visual development years before going into production. It took a long time. Hundreds and hundreds of sketches," Tsirbas explains in an interview with
CityNews.ca while in Toronto to attend the film's gala presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival. "It was important to create a contrast between the two races: the alien race and us. The contrast played with the flowing shapes and natural curves of the alien race against the hard-edged, mechanical, corroding feel of the human world."
Touching on issues of conservation and environmental awareness the Montreal-born filmmaker set out to create something both fun and thought-provoking.
"It has themes that you can chew on, think about, and discuss. There are darker moments and lighter moments and hopefully we balanced them out" he says of the ten-year-old project.
"We tried to make a film which has themes and ideas that are timeless. It addresses patterns in human behaviour that have been happening throughout history and it was important that the story be told in an organic way so there's nothing you're hitting people over the head with."
Terra features the voice talents of Brian Cox, Dennis Quaid, Luke Wilson and Evan Rachel Wood. Cox, who has a background in radio plays, came up with the voice of his character, a military general from Earth, on his own.
"Brian Cox is just a brilliant actor," Tsirbas enthuses. "He has this amazing command of his voice, he's able to modulate and (it) has almost a musical quality."
The Concordia University-schooled director first made Terra as a short film, but his intention was always to do a full-length feature. After receiving the green light, part of the less-than-$20 million budget was spent on building a special animation studio.
"We looked at existing studios to see if we could make a deal with them and it didn't seem to work out," he notes. "Then we started running numbers and realized that because of the advancement of technology and the affordability of it now we were able to actually build a studio."
Still images from the film reveal a world and creatures that spring directly from Tsirbas's imagination - disarming and quite different style-wise from what other animation studios are doing currently.
"I wanted to make the aliens relatable but unique, (and) instantly endearing. I studied how that happens with design and I found that if you really enlarge the eyes (it works). They're based a bit on certain animals as well as the concept of anime, where you get the payoff with large eyes that are very emotional," he reveals.
"They don't have legs. They're literally fish out of water. They swim around, but they do have hands. It's really a cross between something anthropomorphic and something not."
Terra is the only animated film to be included in the 2007 film festival's Gala programme, high praise for a first feature. Tsirbas just hopes he's made something audiences will enjoy.
"I think the art form of animation is so much more expansive," he says. "There are so many things you can do with it."
Terra, screening at TIFF07:
Tues. Sept. 11, 10am
Scotiabank Theatre 10
Fri. Sept. 14, 4:30pm
Cumberland 1
Images from Terra courtesy
http://www.menithings.com/
Laptop courtesy
LG