Piper | |
---|---|
Directed by | Alan Barillaro |
Written by | Alan Barillaro |
Produced by | Marc Sondheimer |
Edited by | Sarah K. Reimers |
Music by | Adrian Belew |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 6 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Piper is a 2016 American animated short film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Written and directed by Alan Barillaro, it was theatrically released alongside Pixar's Finding Dory on June 17, 2016. [2] It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 89th Academy Awards, becoming the first Pixar animated short to win the award since For the Birds in 2001.
The short film involves a hungry baby sandpiper learning to overcome her fear of water. The inspiration came from less than a mile away from Pixar Studios in Emeryville, California, where Barillaro, a veteran Pixar animator, would run alongside the shore and notice birds by the thousands fleeing from the water but returning between waves to eat. [1] [2]
A flock of sandpipers is hunting for food at a seashore by searching for bivalves exposed by receding waves and running away when the wave returns. A baby (named Piper) is taken to the shoreline by her mother so she can learn how to find her own food. However, she fails to pull away in time and is soaked wet by the incoming surf. The incident leaves Piper with aquaphobia and she refuses to leave the nest. Soon, she is compelled to return to the shoreline by her hunger and notices a hermit crab digging in the sand. While she is watching the crab, a large wave comes in and submerges her. However, this time the crab tells Piper to open her eyes, allowing her to see large bivalves exposed by the wave. Excited, Piper overcomes her aquaphobia and learns how to catch the large bivalves when they are exposed underwater, catching enough to feed her entire flock.
Alan Barillaro used new, cutting edge technology to create Piper over three years. [3] In order to give the sandpipers and other birds visible in the background a realistic look, Barillaro and the short animation team visited beaches in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the Monterey Bay Aquarium to study their appearance and behavior. The sandpipers' feathers in particular were rendered in minute detail. [2]
Piper was theatrically released on June 17, 2016, before Finding Dory. [1] [4] It was also included on the Blu-ray and DVD releases of the latter. [5]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Piper has a 100% approval rating based on five reviews. [6]
Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the short film a grade of "A−", calling it a "gripping survival story in cute, charming clothing". He praised the animation for being "incredibly lifelike" and said that Pixar had taken the medium of the short film into "uncharted new territory" with its realistic animation. Kohn also felt that while the short's plot was simple, its narrative style was similar to that of Studio Ghibli films. [7] Writing for Insider , Kirsten Acuna also praised the animation, calling the depiction of sand and water "incredibly real". [8]
Peter Debruge of Variety wrote that Piper was "simple as a haiku and yet stunning" and called it the "uncontestable best" of that year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. [9] Stephanie Merry of The Washington Post called the short "one of Pixar’s strongest", [10] while Marcy Cook of The Mary Sue opined that it was better than Finding Dory (alongside which it was released) and was worth the price of admission on its own. [11] In 2022, Comic Book Resources ranked the short second on its list of the best short films made by Disney or Pixar. [12]
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Academy Awards | February 26, 2017 | Best Animated Short Film | Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer | Won | [13] |
Annie Awards | February 4, 2017 | Best Animated Short Subject | Piper | Won | [14] |
Empire Awards | March 19, 2017 | Best Short Film | Piper | Nominated | [15] |
The short was also part of The Animation Showcase 2016.
The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is given each year for the best animated film. An animated feature is defined by the academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique, a significant number of the major characters are animated, and animation figures in no less than 75 percent of the running time. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was first awarded in 2002 for films released in 2001.
Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, formerly Sheridan College of Applied Arts and Technology, is a public polytechnic institute operating three campuses across the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada.
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was written by Stanton, Bob Peterson, and David Reynolds from a story by Stanton. The film stars the voices of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, and Geoffrey Rush. It tells the story of an overprotective clownfish named Marlin (Brooks) who, along with a forgetful regal blue tang named Dory (DeGeneres), searches for his missing son Nemo (Gould). Along the way, Marlin learns to take risks and comes to terms with Nemo taking care of himself.
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).
The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in American cinema and television. Originally designed to celebrate lifetime or career contributions to animation, the award has been given to individual works since 1992.
Robert Peterson is an American animator, director, screenwriter, storyboard supervisor and voice actor who works at Pixar. He was hired at Pixar by Roger Gould in 1994 as an animator for commercials, before subsequently becoming an animator on Toy Story (1995). He was the co-director and co-writer for Up (2009), in which he also voiced the characters Dug and Alpha. His work as a writer for the films Up and Finding Nemo (2003) earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He was also a co-writer on Cars 3 (2017) and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program for his work on Forky Asks A Question (2020).
Ralph Eggleston was an American animator, art director, storyboard artist, and production designer at Pixar Animation Studios. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for For the Birds.
Dory is a fictional blue tang and a major character of the American animated film series Finding Nemo. She suffers from the disability short-term memory-loss, which often causes frustration to Marlin, especially while his son Nemo is in danger. However, her childlike optimism and ability to communicate different languages from both humans and whales have helped both her and Marlin advance their quest to find Nemo.
Darla Kay Anderson is an American film producer who formerly worked at Pixar Animation Studios. She sits on the national board of directors for the Producers Guild of America.
Finding Dory is a 2016 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton, co-directed by Angus MacLane, produced by Lindsey Collins, and written by Stanton and Victoria Strouse, the film is a sequel/spin-off to Finding Nemo (2003). Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks reprise their roles from the first film, with Hayden Rolence, Ed O'Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy joining the cast. The film focuses on the amnesiac fish Dory (DeGeneres), who journeys to be reunited with her parents.
Finding Nemo is a CGI animated film series and Disney media franchise that began with the 2003 film of the same name, produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The original film was followed by a sequel, Finding Dory, released in 2016. Both films were directed by Andrew Stanton. The film series received widespread critical acclaim from critics and audiences with two films released to-date, the series has grossed $1.9 billion worldwide.
Gini Cruz Santos is a Filipina animator at Pixar studios based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked on numerous Pixar animation films including Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, Up, Lifted and Brave. She was nominated in 2004 for an Annie award for her detailed lifelike animation on Finding Nemo, and was nominated by the Visual Effects Society for an award for this project as well.
Angus MacLane is an American animator, filmmaker and voice actor, best known for his work at Pixar Animation Studios. He co-directed the film Finding Dory (2016) and made his solo feature directorial debut with the Toy Story spin-off film Lightyear (2022). MacLane is also a Lego enthusiast and created the CubeDudes building format and designed a LEGO WALL-E that has become an official set from The Lego Group.
Nicolas Alan Barillaro is a Canadian director, animator and writer at Pixar best known for his work on the animated short film Piper, that earned him widespread acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film which he shared with the film's producer Marc Sondheimer.
Marc Sondheimer is a producer at Pixar. Best known for his work on animated short-film Piper, that earned him wide spread acclaim and let him won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, which he shared with director Alan Barillaro.
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