“E1even Roses” – Pedram Goshtasbpour

About the film

October 1929, in a small town fringing an advancing metropolis a love triangle propels passionate activities. Anna is modern, cool; Vince is big, smooth; Trevor is small, smitten. The two asymmetric males compete for Anna’s attention through shameless and shameful acts. Dreams and dreads ignite teetering bulbs of love and pride. E1even Roses combines a range of different animation techniques that hark back to the animation of old, set to a classic operatic soundtrack.

About the creator

Pedram Goshtasbpour is a Canadian animator who has worked at Sony Imageworks on such productions as Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 and the The ChubbChubbs. In the late 1990s, he worked at Nelvana as designer on such productions as Ned’s Newt, Birds, Dumb Bunnies as well as at Amberwood Entertainment as storyboard supervisor on Hoze Hounds series. At Production Pascal Blais Pedram was a commercial animator/director for clients such as “Delmonte”, “Oscar Mayer”, “Hydro Quebec”, “Wonderbread” and “Gansito”; and at IMAX Sandde Animation he was a software consultant as well as senior animator on “Cyber World”.

Q&A with creator Pedram Goshtasbpour

This piece references classic animation and cinema, how much of an influence do the classics play on modern animation?

As feet to dives. Whether you’re rebelling against them or just aiming to exceed them, the Classics are the cliff from which the progressive and cliche-lite are risked. The Carrs and Dalis and O’Keeffes and Picassos were classical mavens before sinking into their darker, brilliant sides.

Having worked on so many big budget projects, you must have been keen to work on your on projects?

Big budget projects involve hugely talented people and I had the good fortune to be picked for a couple. Big budget projects also tend to break and rebuild and lull you into a resilient and sober craftsperson. Leaving big budget projects to do your own stuff is like going from a secure grand symphony to forming your own jazz trio: It’s as seemingly improvisational as it is scary and genial. Working on your own stuff can be far more frightening because you have 360-degrees freedom, an absolute spherical freedom to do anything and everything impossible. It’s like a miner on acid in a maze of warped mirrors.

What pieces have influenced you the most?

These days I read and listen more than watch and react. And that’s a constellation too wide and dark and brilliant to mention a few.

Classic music still seems to compliment animation the best, especially silent works. What is the special connection between these two art forms?

Norman McLaren once said that music and animation share movement and timing as their common denominator. He nailed it. Their contrived cadence tunes into and tames our natural heartbeat and stream of consciousness. Through motion, be it through vibrations or flicker fusion, emotions are unwound, manipulated, purged; music woos you to keep your wide eyes closed while film seduces you to keep your eyes wide open. — Or vice versa and inverse if each sucks arse.

What are you up to now?

Last year one of the feature scripts I wrote was locks-and-stocks sold and I was directing and producing it. Then the great recession drowned it all. Right now, I am helping raise funds for various projects while holding on to a day job.

Pedram Goshtasbpour

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