Borrowed Time (film)

Last updated

Borrowed Time
Borrowed Time short film poster.png
Film poster
Directed by
Written by
  • Andrew Coats
  • Lou Hamou-Lhadj
  • Mark C. Harris
Produced byAmanda Deering Jones
Starring
CinematographyLuke Martorelli
Edited byKathy Toon
Music by Gustavo Santaolalla
Production
company
Quorum Films
Release dates
  • October 31, 2015 (2015-10-31)(Austin Film Festival)
  • October 14, 2016 (2016-10-14)
Running time
7 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Borrowed Time is a 2015 American animated Western short film directed by Pixar artists Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj. [1]

Contents

Plot

In the Old West, a sheriff and his young son are traveling on a wagon trail. The sheriff gives his son his own pocket watch and his hat for good luck. During their trek, their stagecoach is attacked by bandits. While the sheriff attempts to fend off their attackers, the son drives the wagon, but loses control when it collides with a rock, breaking a wagon wheel, and causing the sheriff to be flung over a nearby cliff's edge. The son recovers, and observes the damage. As he looks around, he finds his father hanging on to a lower rock ledge. Attempting to reach his father with his hand, he isn't able to reach him; subsequently, the sheriff hands his son his rifle for additional leverage, and the son begins to pull him up. Before the son can pull his father to the top of the cliff, he puts his finger inside the trigger guard and accidentally fires the rifle, killing his father by mistake, leaving the young son traumatized.

Many years later, the son has risen to the office of the sheriff, and visits the cliff where his father died. Reliving the events of that day, he contemplates suicide, unable to cope with the guilt. He allows himself to slip off the cliff's edge, but when he sees the pocket watch his father gave him, he attempts to climb back onto the cliff, almost falling off in the process. He manages to get back up and retrieves the pocket watch, then breaks down crying. He cradles the watch in his hands and breathes deeply in a short moment of solace. He holds the watch close to his heart, and it starts ticking.

Production

The short took roughly five years to develop, from 2010 to 2015, as a part of Pixar's Co-op Program, which allows their animators to use Pixar resources to produce independent films. [2] [3] [4] The directors worked on the film in their spare time, while remaining full-time at Pixar and contributing to projects such as Inside Out , Brave , The Good Dinosaur , and WALL-E , along with shorts such as Toy Story That Time Forgot , Day & Night , Toy Story of Terror! , and Partly Cloudy .

Accolades

List of awards and nominations
YearAwardCategoryRecipientsResult
2015 SIGGRAPH Best In ShowAndrew Coats
Lou Hamou-Lhadj
Won [5]
St. Louis International Film Festival Best Animated ShortWon [6]
2016 Brooklyn Film Festival Won [7]
Fastnet Short Film FestivalBest CinematographyJames Campbell & Luke MartorelliWon [8]
USA Film Festival First Place: AnimationAndrew Coats
Lou Hamou-Lhadj
Won [9]
Woods Hole Film Festival Best Short AnimationWon [10]
2017 Academy Awards Best Animated Short Film Nominated [11] [12]
22nd Empire Awards Best Short FilmNominated [13]
Reel Shorts Film Festival Best Animated ShortWon [14]

The short was included in The Animation Showcase for 2016.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pixar</span> American computer animation studio

Pixar Animation Studios is an American computer animation studio based in Emeryville, California known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Since 2006, Pixar has been a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company.

<i>Tin Toy</i> 1988 short film directed by John Lasseter

Tin Toy is a 1988 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter. The short film, which runs five minutes, stars Tinny, a tin one-man band toy, trying to escape from Billy, an human baby. The third short film produced by the company's small animation division, it was a risky investment: due to the low revenue produced by Pixar's main product, the Pixar Image Computer, the company was under financial constraints.

<i>Knick Knack</i> 1989 film directed by John Lasseter

Knick Knack is a 1989 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar that was written and directed by John Lasseter. The short is about a snow globe snowman who wants to join the other travel souvenirs in a summer-themed party. However, the glass dome that surrounds him prevents him from doing so, thus leading to his many tries to break out of his snow globe. Knick Knack is Pixar's fourth short and the final short produced during the company's tenure as a hardware company.

<i>Luxo Jr.</i> 1986 animated short film directed by John Lasseter

Luxo Jr. is a 1986 American computer-animated short film produced and released by Pixar. Written and directed by John Lasseter, the two-minute short film revolves around one larger and one smaller desk lamp. The larger lamp, named Luxo Sr., looks on while the smaller, "younger" Luxo Jr. plays exuberantly with a ball to the extent that it accidentally deflates. Luxo Jr. was Pixar's first animation after Ed Catmull and John Lasseter left Industrial Light & Magic's computer division of Cinetron Computer Systems. The film is the source of Luxo Jr., the mascot of Pixar.

<i>Geris Game</i> 1997 short film by Jan Pinkava

Geri's Game is a 1997 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar and written and directed by Jan Pinkava. The short, which shows an elderly man named Geri who competes with himself in a game of chess, was Pixar's first film to feature a human being as its main character; Geri later made a cameo appearance in Toy Story 2 as "The Cleaner", here voiced by Jonathan Harris instead of Bob Peterson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Lasseter</span> American filmmaker (born 1957)

John Alan Lasseter is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is the head of animation at Skydance Animation. He was also previously the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, as well as the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pete Docter</span> American filmmaker (born 1968)

Peter Hans Docter is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios. He is best known for directing the animated feature films Monsters, Inc. (2001), Up (2009), Inside Out (2015), and Soul (2020), and being a key figure and collaborator at Pixar. He has been nominated for nine Oscars and has won three for Best Animated Feature—for Up, Inside Out and Soul—making him the first person in history to win the category three times. He has also been nominated for nine Annie Awards, a BAFTA Children's Film Award and a Hochi Film Award. He has described himself as a "geeky kid from Minnesota who likes to draw cartoons".

<i>Reds Dream</i> 1987 film directed by John Lasseter

Red's Dream is a 1987 American computer-animated short film written and directed by John Lasseter and produced by Pixar. The short film, which runs four minutes, stars Red, a unicycle. Propped up in the corner of a bicycle store on a rainy night, Red dreams of a fantasy where it becomes the star of a circus. Red's Dream was Pixar's second computer-animated short following Luxo Jr. in 1986, also directed by Lasseter.

<i>The Adventures of André & Wally B.</i> 1984 animated short film directed by Alvy Ray Smith

The Adventures of André & Wally B. is a 1984 American animated short film produced by the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Project, a division of Lucasfilm and the predecessor of Pixar. The short was groundbreaking by the standards of the time and helped spark the film industry's interest in computer animation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Stanton</span> American filmmaker (born 1965)

Andrew Ayers Stanton is an American filmmaker and voice actor based at Pixar, which he joined in 1990. His film work includes co-writing and co-directing Pixar's A Bug's Life (1998), directing Finding Nemo (2003) and its sequel Finding Dory (2016), WALL-E (2008), and the live-action film, Disney's John Carter (2012), and co-writing all four Toy Story films (1995–2019) and Monsters, Inc. (2001).

Borrowed Time may refer to:

<i>Sanjays Super Team</i> 2015 American film

Sanjay's Super Team is a computer-animated short film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Written and directed by Sanjay Patel, and based on his childhood, it premiered on June 15, 2015 at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France, and accompanied the theatrical release of Pixar's The Good Dinosaur on November 25, 2015.

<i>Cosmos Laundromat</i> 2015 film directed by Mathieu Auvray

Cosmos Laundromat: First Cycle, developed under the code name Project Gooseberry, is an animated absurdist sci-fi fantasy short film directed by Mathieu Auvray, written by Esther Wouda, and produced by Ton Roosendaal. It is the Blender Institute's 5th "open movie" project, and was made utilizing the Blender software. The film focuses around a depressed and suicidal sheep named Franck who's offered "all the lives he ever wanted" by a mysterious salesman named Victor. On August 10, 2015, it was released to YouTube. The film was originally intended to kickstart a feature-length film. A short film sequel was written and designed but never brought to production. In 2020, Roosendaal announced that the one film would be the total of the project.

<i>Bear Story</i> 2014 Chilean film

Bear Story is a 2014 Chilean animated short film, directed by Gabriel Osorio Vargas. The screenplay was co-written with Daniel Castro, and the film was produced by Pato Escala Pierart. The story is inspired by the director's grandfather, Leopoldo Osorio, who was imprisoned for two years after the Chilean coup d'état and then forced into exile for the duration of the dictatorship. The film was a critical success, winning the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at the 88th Academy Awards. It is the first Chilean film to win an Academy Award and also the first Latin American animation to win or be nominated for an Oscar.

Andrew Coats is an American director, writer and animator at Pixar. He received critical appraisal and recognition with 2016 animated-short film Borrowed Time which he co-directed, wrote and released independently as a part of Pixar Co-op Program, which allow their animators to use Pixar sources to make independent films. Coats received an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film nomination at the 89th Academy Awards, shared with Lou Hamou-Lhadj.

Lou Hamou-Lhadj is an American director, animator and writer at Pixar. He is best known for his work on film Borrowed Time, which together with Andrew Coats, he directed, wrote and released independently through Quorum Films, LLC. Hamou-Lhadj is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at 89th Academy Awards, that he shares with Andrew Coats.

<i>Bao</i> (film) 2018 film by Domee Shi

Bao is a 2018 American computer-animated short film written and directed by Domee Shi and produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It is the first Pixar short film to be directed by a female director. It was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival before being released with Incredibles 2 on June 15, 2018. The film is about an aging and lonely Chinese Canadian mother suffering from empty nest syndrome, who receives an unexpected second chance at motherhood when she makes a steamed bun (baozi) that comes to life. The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 91st Academy Awards.

<i>Purl</i> (film) 2019 film short by Kristen Lester

Purl is a 2018 American computer-animated short film directed and written by Kristen Lester with the story written by Michael Daley, Bradley Furnish, Lester, and James Robertson, produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the first short released as part of Pixar's SparkShorts program, and focuses on a ball of yarn named Purl, who gets employed in a male-dominant company, which causes her to be ignored by her fellow employees. The short was previewed at SIGGRAPH on August 14, 2018, premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on January 18, 2019 and released on YouTube on February 4, 2019, and on Disney+ on November 12, 2019 to universal acclaim from critics, particularly for its themes.

SparkShorts is a series of American independent animated short films produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It consists of a program in which Pixar's employees are given six months and limited budgets to develop animated short films that were originally released on Pixar's YouTube channel, and later on Disney+.

References

  1. "Borrowed Time". Facebook.
  2. Failes, Ian (January 24, 2017). "How Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj Made The Independent Short 'Borrowed Time' Inside Pixar". Cartoon Brew . Retrieved July 29, 2016.
  3. Hill, Libby (January 29, 2017). "Two Pixar animators explore the depths of grief and guilt in 'Borrowed Time'". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  4. Desowitz, Bill (January 29, 2017). "'Borrowed Time': How Two Pixar Animators Made a Daring, Off-Brand Western Short". Indiewire . Retrieved October 24, 2016.
  5. Harary, Dan. "SIGGRAPH 2016 ANNOUNCES AWARD WINNERS AND HIGHLIGHTS OF 43RD ANNUAL COMPUTER ANIMATION FESTIVAL". SIGGRAPH. ACM SIGGRAPH. Archived from the original on January 14, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  6. "2015 SLIFF Awards". Cinema St. Louis. Archived from the original on December 25, 2017. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  7. "Animation Film @ Brooklyn Film Festival". Brooklyn Film Festival. January 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
  8. "…AND THE WINNERS ARE – FFF 2016". Fastnet Film Festival. Archived from the original on March 2, 2017. Retrieved March 2, 2017.
  9. "USA Film Festival Official Website". USA Film Festival. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  10. "2016 Audience Awards". Woods Hole Film Festival. Retrieved March 2, 2017.
  11. "Oscar Nominations 2017: See the Full List". Vanity Fair . January 24, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
  12. "Oscar Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . February 27, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  13. James Dyer (February 7, 2017). "2017 Three Empire Awards Nominations Announced". Empire. Retrieved March 19, 2017.
  14. "2017 Award Winners". Reel Shorts Film Festival. May 17, 2017. Retrieved September 8, 2017.