Birds

The Birds, is a short animated film created by Pixar in 2000.  The story is about a group of birds that want to sit on a telephone wire, and the politics involved.

In this shot the little bird on the left flies in, and before it lands, it looks down, as naturally when we move to something of look towards something our eyes move first.  This is known as offset motion.  It creates a more realistic movement than if the bird were to just fly down onto the wire.

As more birds appear they all begin to squabble with one another, each moving their eyes to the side and then turning their heads, another example of offset animation.

Suddenly there is a sound off camera that catches the birds attention and the all look to the left.  As so far the viewer has only seen the telephone wire and the little birds, they know nothing of what is beyond these boundaries.  Having the little birds look to the side, indicates that now there is something else.  It's being added layer by layer, to build up the complete picture/story.

The shot switches and shows the big bird, standing on the telephone pole, not the wire.  The big bird's wave and squawks indicate that he/she wants to join the group, and the shot shows the distance between the big bird and the little bird. This shot could be a POV (point of view) shot from one of the little birds to show how much larger the big bird is, but it also accentuates the length of the wire, again showing distance.

After seeing the big bird, the shot zooms out, to a wide shot, for the first time and shows the audience where the birds are, on a telephone wire near a big field.  It only shows nature, aside from the man made fence and telephone poles.  This wide shot also shows the little birds moving to the right, getting further away from the big bird, again increasing the distance and accentuating it.

It goes back to the little bird's POV and because of them moving in the shot before the distance is now larger between them and the big bird.  This shot reinforces their distance from one another, by going back to the same shot framing as before but with a greater distance.

Similar to a shot earlier, the little birds look upwards to indicate to the audience that there is something, and to expect something to happen. The mid/close up shot shows the birds all huddled together, to symbolise in their world they are all that matters, and from their behaviour in previous shots, that is all they want.

The big bird has landed on the wire now, the action that was intimated in the screenshot before.  As this is the same shot, the framing is the same only now with the big bird taking the centre of the shot.  This shows his size in comparison, and that he takes up a lot of room on the wire and in the shot, with the little birds being squeezed on the edges of the frame.  Again symbolising the big bird's size.

The close up shot accentuates how close together the birds are by being such a close up shot, the birds are squeezed together as they are also squeezed in the frame.  Again the big bird doesn't fit in the shot, another way of showing the difference in size.  As the shot is a close up we can also see the discomfort on the bird's faces, do to all being squashed together.

Now we can see all the little birds whinging and squawking in this mid shot.  The mid shot shows us all the birds now, but close enough to see their discomfort and annoyance.  But being paralleled by the big birds dopey smile.  also we can see that the telephone wire is being weighed down by the big bird.

The shot zooms out a little bit to show more of the telephone wire, which the little birds were fighting over earlier now seems trivial as they had all that room, but are now all stuck together due to the weight in the middle.

 The shots goes back into an extreme close up, showing the frustration and intention of the little bird, giving the audience an impression that something might happen.  The little bird then pecks the big bird, which leads onto the next shot...

The shot goes back to the mid, showing the whole group again, and the big bird screeching and reaching up into the air, but using over exaggerated motion to enhance to pain and movement.  Also the big bird's sharp movement has caused the little birds to move away.  The big bird falls back, but still holding onto the wire.

Due to the big bird falling backwards the little birds are brought closer together once again in this close up shot, showing their surprise on the their faces.  It also shows the big birds feet still clinging onto the wire.

The extreme close up shows that one of the big bird's toes has come off the wire, and that he is now vulnerable to little birds pecking at his toes.

Having noticed that the peck caused the big bird's toe to come of the wire, the extreme close up shows that the 2 little birds in the middle have hatched an idea, the other birds on the edge of the frame seem oblivious...

As the birds peak away at the feet of the big bird, the extreme close up helps exaggerate the fear upon the little birds face as he realises what is about to happen, again an indication to the viewer that something is about to happen.  The bird at the left edge of the frame is also looking on, they all seemed to be involved with the pecking.

Now that the viewer has been told something will happen, the shot that crash zooms out to show that the wire is now hanging just above the floor, and the little bird in the screenshot prior had realised what will happen when the big bird falls off the wire.  This also tells the audience what will happen next.

As the last of the big bird's toes peels away from the wire, the close up shot shows the exaggeration of the speed the little birds were catapulted up into the air as their bodies fly off the top of the shot and their feather stay where they were standing.

The close up shot shows the, now naked, little bird, looking at the big bird who is laughing, showing that he isn't quite sure what the big bird is laughing at, as all of the little bird's feathers slowly glide down to the floor.  The little bird has noticed that the big bird is laughing at the little bird's lack of feathers.  The main focal point of this shot is the expression of each bird's face, the laughter of the big bird, and confusing/discomfort of the little bird.

Now all of the birds have landed, the mid shot, showing all of the birds, they have realised that they don't have any feathers and have gone into panic.  The framing of the shot helps show everybody's expressions, scenery and the movement in the scene.  In the beginning the little birds were laughing at the big bird, and now due to their actions, the big bird is now laughing at them.  In terms of story it has come full circle. As the big bird is only large object in the shot, the little birds panic and hide behind him.  If the shot were a wide shot, the little birds may have scattered to telephone poles.

The end itself is in a bird dropping.  Linking back with the theme of birds.