ADDISON COUNTY — When Vermonters gather around the tube to watch the 85th Academy Awards ceremony Sunday night they will be pulling for their favorite movies, actors and directors. One film up for an Oscar and the film’s director will have a particularly loud cheering section in Addison County.
“Paperman,” a seven-minute, black-and-white animated movie, is considered by some to be the front-runner in the Best Animated Short Film category. It was conceived and directed by John Kahrs, the son of Helen and Ed Kahrs of West Addison, and the younger brother of Lee Kahrs of Salisbury.
The Pixar/Disney film premiered at a film festival last June and was released in theaters this past November to run before the feature-length animated comedy “Wreck-It Ralph.” It is a charming story of a man and woman meeting on a subway platform, and the connection they maintained through a sheaf of papers.
John Kahrs was raised in the Hudson River Valley of New York, but came to Vermont every summer. Family have scheduled a viewing of the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday evening and hope that the winner will be announced live on air.
Kahrs, who now lives in Los Angeles, told Animation World News that he got the idea for “Paperman” while living in New York City in the early 1990s and commuting through Grand Central Station.
The clever animation style combines hand-made drawing and computer-generated graphics, that grew out of what he learned while working as the animation supervisor to the hit “Tangled.” He also worked as an animator on films including “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” “Monsters, Inc.,” “Toy Story 2,” and “A Bug’s Life.”
The film was posted on YouTube but was designated as private. It could be viewed on Saturday morning at this website.