Moonbird
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Moonbird |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1959 |
| length | 10 mins |
| Rod | |
| Director | John Hubley |
| production |
Faith Hubley , John Hubley for Storyboard Films, Harrison |
Moonbird is an American animated short film directed by John Hubley in 1959.
action
Two brothers sneak out of the house at night to catch a bird. They have a bird cage with them, a noose and candy. The older brother carries a shovel, rebukes the younger brother, who is too loud for the silence of the night, and starts digging a hole. His little brother, who has only just learned to speak, wants to dig the pit himself and starts crying out of childlike defiance when he receives the shovel but has no strength to shovel. Both brothers finally hide in the ground to wait for the bird.
The little brother asked to be allowed to hold the noose to catch the bird. They miss the bird over the argument about how to properly hold the noose. When the two boys start a song later, the ostrich-like bird sneaks up and looks into the hole in the ground. Both boys catch him by holding his legs, but the bird proves to be tame. They allow him to come home with them if he keeps calm. The three of them finally return to the house: the older brother, the younger brother and the bird on whose back the much too small bird cage was strapped.
production
Moonbird was the first in a series of experimental animated films by John Hubley and his wife, Faith Elliott, based on the improvised conversations of their toddlers. In Moonbird , the couple's sons, Mark and Ray, talk. Later films such as Windy Day (1968) took conversations between their daughters Emily and Georgia as the basis for animated films.
In the film, the characters were drawn on black paper and then placed over the watercolor background using a double exposure so that they became transparent. The abstract, romantic drawings are by Robert Cannon and Ed Smith .
Awards
Moonbird won the Oscar in 1960 in the " Best Animated Short Film " category . Whereas in previous years the Oscar went mostly to Disney or Warner Bros. productions, Hubley's Storyboard Films was the first small production studio to win the Oscars. In the years that followed, mainly small or international animation studios won the Oscar in this category, leaving the established but less innovative animation studios behind.
Web links
- Moon Bird in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Moonbird on bcdb.com