René Jodoin

Jodoin, René

René Jodoin, animation filmmaker, producer (b at Hull, Qc 30 Dec 1920). Jodoin joined the NATIONAL FILM BOARD when he was scarcely out of l'École des beaux-arts, and worked with Norman MCLAREN on his newly established team in FILM ANIMATION. He also collaborated with McLaren on Alouette (1944). In 1949, Jodoin left the NFB to work in the private sector, but he returned in 1954 and for seven years put his talents to work on didactic films for the Department of National Defence. His most famous film in this series is entitled An Introduction to Jet Engines (1959). After this, in the spirit of McLaren, he directed Dance Squared (1961), a kind of introduction to mathematics. In 1963, he took on responsibility for a programme of scientific films. The next year, the NFB created an autonomous French section, but it was only in 1966 that a specific animation studio was created that came under Jodoin's direction. He himself lent a hand by shooting Notes on a Triangle (1966). Under his guidance, this studio would define its own personality and encourage the personal artistic expressions of the filmmakers (original, if not experimental), who were living through the advent of computers and the first steps in computer-generated animation (notably films by Peter Foldès). As director, René Jodoin supported films realized in the Studio, and there directly produced more than thirty, including some by Co HOEDEMAN, Pierre HÉBERT, André Leduc and Francine Desbiens. In 1977, he gave up producing and returned to directing with two films Rectangle and Rectangles (1984), and A Matter of Form (1985). This abstract and personal film is distinguished by research on shapes, geometry and symmetry. Jodoin retired in 1985 but still directs using microcomputers as in Between Time and Place (1999). In 2000, the NFB dedicated a boxed set to his work. He received the Prix Albert-Tessier in 2001.