BurgessKate-LookingOnwards01

Computer animations have always been inspiring to me. As a child, I was hypnotized by the worlds that were created from nothing. The project that pushed me to take this class is a Pixar animated short called “Piper”. “Piper” is the story of a baby sanderling learning how to find oysters. Through this short, Pixar has managed to created extremely life-like images as well as tell a story without words and in a short amount of time. “Piper” was created by various teams of writers and animators spearheaded by director Alan Barillaro. The strategy behind the creation of the characters is what really interests me. Instead of creating human-like attributes on animals, such as adding eyebrows, “Piper” uses exaggerated attributes to allow connection to the characters while keeping their animal-like figures. In order to do this, the team turned to nature for inspiration, following sanderlings and taking pictures. The attention to detail is also outstanding. There are 4.7 to 7 million feathers on each bird in the short. Nevertheless, this took years to create using innovative perspectives on existing technology like Maya. “Piper” brings forward the possibility of even more detailed and imaginative animated shorts in the future.