On the strength of Borrowed Time, directors Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj last month earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short. They also wrote the film in concert with Mark C. Harris. During their spare time over the past five years, Coats and Hamou-Lhadj devoted themselves to the project, continuing a collaborative relationship which began some time back when they were film students at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. While they wanted to continue working together frequently from that point going forward, geography in a pre-cloud sharing era got in the way as Hamou-Lhadj was at Pixar in Northern California while Coats’ roost was Blue Sky Studios on the East Coast.
But when Coats joined Pixar as a character animator in 2010, he could again team with studio character artist Hamou-Lhadj and eventually the wheels were put in motion for what was to be their directorial debut, Borrowed Time. The animated short introduces us to a weathered sheriff who returns to the remnants of an accident he’s blamed himself for and spent a lifetime trying to forget.
Coats and Hamou-Lhadj shared with SHOOT their perspectives on Borrowed Time, which also puts them in the curious position of being in competition with another Oscar-nominated short, Piper (Disney), a Pixar production. The camaraderie, said Hamou-Lhadj, is high at Pixar, noting that he, Coats and their studio compatriot Alan Barillaro, director of Piper, are enjoying their shared experience of being first-time Oscar nominees.
Relative to what inspired Borrowed Time, Coats explained, “We wanted to challenge the notion that animation is a children’s film genre. Animation can tell any story and it was exciting for us to delve into something with darker undertones, more emotionally dramatic, and at the same time doing something a little different with the Western genre. We love working in the family quadrant and children’s films at Pixar but moving into other areas can be an exciting challenge.”
Hamou-Lhadj noted that a core of a dozen people were committed to bringing Borrowed Time to fruition. And both Hamou-Lhadj and Coats had to be jacks of all trades, directing, character designing, modeling, rigging and doing most of the animating. Wearing all those hats presented an inherent challenge, observed Coats. “It’s difficult to maintain objectivity when you’re delving into the minutiae, the details of each shot. Instead of being worried that the cloud in the back left of the scene needs another pass, you have to look at the big picture—doing justice to the story and your characters.”
