Directed
by: Ralph Eggleston
Producer: Karen Dufilho
Executive Producer: John Lasseter
Written by:
Music by:
Released on: June 5, 2000 (at the Annecy
Film Festival in France) then November 2, 2001 (attached to Monsters,
Inc.)
Running Time: 3 and a half minutes
One by one, a flock of small birds perches on a telephone wire. Sitting
close together has problems enough, and then comes along a large dopey
bird that tries to join them. The birds of a feather can't help but make
fun of him -and their clique mentality proves embarrassing in the end.
Bully's the first bird to land on the wire. Then come along Chipper, Snob
and Neurotic. You get a sense of their personalities until the rest of
the flock arrives and then become one. The big bird doesn't know he's being
made fun of but gets the last laugh just the same.
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For the Birds
is a story about a flock of small birds perched on a telephone wire and
a larger bird that tries to join them. The unwelcome bird upsets the flock,
and they decide to get rid of him.
Ralph Eggleston
makes his directorial debut at Pixar with For the Birds. Ralph joined
Pixar in 1992 as the Art Director of Toy Story,
for which he won an Annie Award for Best Art Direction: "It's exciting
that Pixar continues to actively produce and support short films.
Making For the Birds was hard work and a lot of fun, and our crew's amazing
creative collaboration has resulted in a film we believe everyone will
truly enjoy."
Take a closer look at the birds and you'll notice each one has countless
feathers. It's not easy to digitally create feathers that look natural
and move like they would in real life, but Pixar was able to work with
its existing technology to make it happen.
"Pixar
sees immense value in preserving the short film as an art form and using
it as a development tool for our creative and technical teams," said Dr.
Edwin Catmull, Pixar's Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer.
"The skills these professionals learn and polish are invaluable as we move
toward our goal of creating one feature film a year."
For the Birds
appeared to have a lock on 2000's Best Animated Short Subject Award. Having
already taken the 2000 Annie (The Animation industry's equivalent of the
Academy Awards) for best new short, it seemed to be a shoe-in for the Oscar...
until the person at Pixar who was supposed to file For the Birds's
official nomination papers allegedly neglected to get the proper paperwork
back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in time!
As a result,
For
the Birds was forced to sit out the 2001 Academy Awards. Determined
to make up for their mistake, and win an Academy Award for Pixar veteran
Ralph Eggleston -For the Birds' director-,
Pixar made a point of filing the proper paperwork for the short on time
the following year. But even so the studio's senior staff was extremely
embarrassed by this whole incident. It didn't stop the movie from winning
for Best Animated Short, even a year late!
Director Ralph
Eggleston accepted the award by saying: "It's exciting that Pixar continues
to actively produce and support short films. Making For the Birds
was hard work and a lot of fun, and our crew's amazing creative collaboration
has resulted in a film we believe everyone will truly enjoy." He add backstage
that he felt "very fortunate to work for a company like Pixar that encourages
short films to test technology and to grow talent. John Lasseter, my mentor,
has always made short films, and the studio now is making short films,
and it is very exciting to see short films on the big screen. It was actually
great to meet all the nominees this week." When asked about whether he
wants to do another short or direct his own animated feature, Eggleston
told AMO, " You know, it’s just great working at Pixar and I’d like to
do a little of everything. If I get the chance to direct, that would be
great, but I love working with large groups of people."
This short movie
was attached to all copies of Pixar's 2001 mega-hit Monsters,
Inc.
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