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Video shorts birds6/7/2023 ![]() There’s a bit of the story of The Scorpion and The Frog.”Įmploying what Salazar calls a “clean-rough” visual style, Bird Karma harkens back to classic hand-drawn animation but with a looser, sketchier texture that produces the emotional impact of some of the finest concept art. “You think that the bird gets enlightened by this fish, but in the end his instincts take over and he eats the fish. “I had a lot of fun doing this,” he continues. The bird’s movement is very staccato and very straight, and the fish is all about circles and weight, so they’re very different in the way they move,” he illustrates. ![]() “Even in their movements, there is a contrast between the two. “When I pitched it, I talked about the theme, which was, ‘Be happy with what you have,’ or ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ along with the idea that the bird is a primitive being, so it’s reacting on instinct, while the fish symbolizes a more, you could say, higher consciousness.”Įnlightenment in Bird Karma, according the Salazar, comes from the fish. “It was very fast, very rough and I did it myself on my personal computer,” Salazar recounts. He expanded the pencil test into a three-minute animatic, completed in his spare time over a three-month span, and pitched it to the program. But when the studio started soliciting projects for its fledgling shorts program, Salazar decided it was time to get serious about his idea. Then Salazar joined DreamWorks Animation, flying to Los Angeles with the sketches and pencil test packed up in a cardboard box that sat untouched in his attic for two decades. Improvising on the music, he began a series of drawings of birds employing simple geometrical shapes, eventually completing a 90-second pencil test. ![]() Twenty-three years in the making, the inspiration for Bird Karma first came to Salazar during the mid-90s while living in London, where he stumbled across a vinyl recording of primitive tribal music from India. Watch it in the player below, then scroll down for our interview with director William Salazar detailing Bird Karma’s journey from an obscure vinyl record to the screen: Here’s an exclusive look at how Salazar’s short film was brought to life in a new video, “ Bird Karma: from storyboard to final,” which takes viewers through a sequence starting with storyboards and rough animatics on through the ink & paint process, character and water animation, and finally the completed shot. Winning the Audience Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the short has also been highly lauded at presentations at CalArts, Gnomon, and the recent CTN eXpo. ![]() The five-minute Bird Karma had its World Premiere at the 2018 New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival, in February, and went on to open the Annecy Festival in June. When he finally captures and eats his elusive quarry, the karmic consequences prove highly unfortunate. Told over richly toned watercolor textures, the delightfully lyrical tale features a long-legged bird who becomes enamored of a gloriously colored fish. The 2D-animated short, directed by Salazar and produced by Jeff Hermann, brings a classic hand-drawn look to CG animation. William Salazar’s Bird Karma, the first project to emerge from DreamWorks Animation’s Shorts Program, which was formally announced in late 2017, is just one of the studio’s contenders for a nomination in this year’s short film Oscar race. Director William Salazar’s ‘Bird Karma’ brings a classic 2D look to CG animation.
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