“For the Birds” is a hilarious Pixar short that teaches a lesson on bullying. While its easy to get distracted by the adorable, squeaky little birds in the film, there is more than meets the eye. Pixar’s superior talent for storytelling is well known around the world, and that same talent applies to this short film: no dialogue is used, and the setting and characters are all fairly simple to understand. However, the story remains the priority, as the amusing tale of discrimination backfires on the evil little birds towards the end of the film. Pixar also excels at innovation. However, as John Lasseter himself reminds us, they didn’t brand “Toy Story” as the first CG film. Instead, they branded it as a fantastic motion picture, which is what it was made to be. John refers to Alfred Hitchcock, who used new technology which would go unnoticed in his films unless you looked carefully at certain shots in his films. Like Hitchcock, Pixar is constantly innovating and incorporating new technology in their films. However, they call attention to the story of a film, rather than the technology, because that’s what film is ultimately about. Technology will change throughout the years, but stories last forever. Like Hitchcock, Pixar incorporates advanced technology into “For the Birds”. The characters all have feathers, which can be a pain to animate (especially back in those days), and the film also integrates real world physics during some of the more, er, animated moments in the short film. This was incredible to me, since I hadn’t been previously aware that Pixar’s shorts were so advanced, and it was so cool to see Pixar concern themselves with fantastic storytelling, rather than brag about their technological innovation.
If only Peter Jackson did that with the Hobbit trilogy.
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