My name is Ralph Eggleston.
I am the director of the Pixar short film 'For the Birds.'
This project becan many years ago when I was a student.
I could never draw these small birds
you will see in a few seconds.
<each of the four birds has its own personality.
First there is Bully, then comes Chipper.
The third one who has just landed is Snob, and finally comes Neurotic.
You have an idea that each has its own character,
but when they are together they all behave in the same way.
Suddenly, the big bird is hooting. They turn around.
He is a tall and arkward fellow.
Now all the small birds morph into one.
The big bird just wants to join them
but the small ones won't let him.
Responsible for the feathers in this project
was our leading technical director Bill Wise.
Director of the gorgeous animations was Jim Murphy.
We had a lot of fun at work. Karen Dufilho was producer.
A small crew worked for two years
on this project. It looks easier than it was.
There are a lot of tricky things gooing on.
Some of the Pixar short films served for R & D.
This one was mainly for fun. There were some novelties
but most of it was based on existing technology.
The feathers were new.
Every bird has gazillions of moving feathers.
Between these tightly squeezed birds
that hadn't got a volumetric collision detection yet,
we created an improved version of contact points.
We called them Pringles. We could form them
and animate them on the surfaces of the birds.
There. Wait for the reverse tracking shot.
The hill in the backgrouhd is a matte painting.
It's almost unnoticeable, but the wheat is constantly in motion.
First we wanted to do a wide angle shot
to show the wind moving the wheat.
This was animated first,
the floating bird feathers.
It was technically difficult to let them float for a while,
and then let them sink to the ground in a natural way.
These feathers were animated by hand.
The bird who landed first is also the bird which crashes down first.
He's called Bully. It all started with him.
It's his idea to peck at the toe
and he's the first to land again. So we did not change that.
This film 'For the Birds' was also the last film
created and published in Point Richmond.
After that, there were no earshattering air raids from Chevron next door any more.
No explosions, no fear to be buried alive.
in case of a big earthquake.