am2xAnimated Movies was launched by Olivier Mouroux in 1999. In addition to a daily news report, he also created a database of information about past, current, and upcoming films. In 2003, he took a job in the industry and had to give up his work on the site. Several fans of Animated Movies decided to take on the task of keeping the news portion of his site going, and founded what is now Animated Views.

As AV turns 15, let's take a look back at the site we descended from. Below you can explore the database Olivier compiled at Animated Movies during its existence, as it last appeared online in October 2003.




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
 
 

STORY

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.
 
 

 

INTERESTING FACTS

  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."

Bird in the making  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!
Ralph Eggleston receives the 2001 Oscar for Best Animated Short
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.
 
 



Animated Movies original content © Olivier Mouroux