Airdrie resident involved with Oscar-nominated movie
Airdrie has a connection to the Academy Awards.
Lifelong resident Brent Planiden, head sound engineer for Twisted Pair Productions, was one of the sound effect and dialogue editors for the Academy-Award-nominated animated short film Wild Life.
Planiden was born and raised in Airdrie and graduated from Bert Church High School in 1993. He was born into a musical family and has always known he wanted to be part of “the industry.”
“Growing up, I was always in bands and around music. I started my own studio,” he said.
“It’s been my lifelong dream. I wanted to be involved in the industry on some level. My whole family has some sort of creative edge.”
He has been working as a sound engineer for the past seven years and says the best part of the job is meeting new people.
“I get to meet a lot of very interesting and creative people,” he said.
Twisted Pair Productions has a relationship with Wild Life Calgary filmmakers Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby.
“It made sense for us to do their post production here instead of in Vancouver or anywhere else,” he said.
“We got to work with the legendary Andy Malcolm, who has worked on movies such as Titanic and Alice in Wonderland. It was amazing to see him work.”
Malcolm is a well-known foley artist from Ontario. A foley artist is someone who reproduces everyday sounds in movies. He started his work in the 1970s and has won a number of Genie and Gemini awards over the years. His credit appears on more than 500 films.
Wild Life took almost 10 years to make and features hand-painted animation. The 13-minute video is about a British man who attempts ranching in Alberta in 1909, only to find out it’s much more difficult than expected.
“It’s very eccentric and very artsy,” said Planiden. “It describes what was going on back in that time. It is interesting all the work they put in. Every frame was painted and it is incredible how much hard work went into it. It blew me away.”
He said he wasn’t expecting the film to be nominated for an Academy Award but it is “fabulous” that all the hard work is being recognized in this way.
“It is neat to see that,” he said. “It shows that great productions can be done out of Calgary. People look at Toronto and Vancouver as the hubs but Calgary is getting noticed. People are starting to see that you can get work done here and done very well.”
He said Airdrie is also becoming known on a larger scale.
“There are a lot of very talented people that come out of Airdrie,” he said.
“We are not a small town any more. We have great talent in all areas.”
Planiden said Twisted Pair Productions is working on a number of projects in the new year including the CMT production Employee of the Week and a movie called Hannah’s Law, a western starring Danny Glover and Alberta actress Sara Canning and shot in the Bragg Creek area. The TV movie is about bounty hunter Hannah Beaumont (played by Canning, who grew up in Sherwood Park) tracking down the ruthless gang that killed her family. Greyston Holt stars as Wyatt Earp and Ryan Kennedy plays Doc Holliday in the film. The cast also includes Billy Zane, Kimberly Elise and John Pyper-Ferguson. The film is directed by Rachel Talalay and co-produced by Oakes and Mike Frislev.
For more information on Twisted Pair Productions, visit www.twistedpairproductions.com
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