Bird Becomes Bird

Details: 1997, 5 mins, 35mm, Dolby A

Summary: A child is inspired by the odd behaviour of a bird. A film exploring identity.

Credits
Discussion
Reviews and add your vote
Awards & Sales
Festivals & distribution
Technique

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Credits

Composer – Sam Sutton
Musicians – Joy Smith, Sally Ward, Ester Harriott, Kirsty Stains & Ed Lithgow
Art Director – Andrey Zolotuchin
Camera – Zoya Kireyeva
Editor – Nick Fenton
Sound – Pete Goudino, Roger Walker
Mix – Stuart Hilliker
Voices – ‘Child’ Zosia McKenzie-Dowmont, ‘Mother’ Marilyn Milgrom
Actors – ‘Child’ Hanna Bains, ‘Mother’ Jane Gorden
Painters – Lucy Lee & Andrey Zolotuchin
Special Thanks To – Marjut Rimminen, Alexei Karaev, John Cary, Tony Fish, Technicolor, Digital Films, Mathew Holben, Porqupine Studios
Produced by – Myf Hopkins, UK & Valantina Chignakova, Russia
Written, Animated & Directed by – Lucy Lee
Filmed at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio Animation Assocation, Ekaterinburg, Russia
© National Film & Television School 1997

Discussion

Yes films should speak for them selves, and for some people they do, but there are different ways of watching and different interpretations for different people. I have listened to other people’s responses and I am glad of what they see in the film. I am just giving you my interpretation, I’d love to post up someone else’s interpretation here too (please post one in the forum). There is no right or wrong way to interpret the things you see, as long as you can see that it is telling you something about yourself, like the girl watching the bird, what the bird actually does is neither here nor there, what is important to her is what she thinks the bird is doing.

The film is set on a frozen estuary, a mother and child are making their way across it. The mother knows they must cross as quickly as possible, the child is wandering about in a world of her own, unaware of the mothers worries.
The child lives in two worlds. One is the world of her and her mother. Here she is trying to get the mothers attention and love, and not succeeding, but only managing to annoy her. The other is the world of the bird which she is watching and projecting onto, much of what she sees is fantasy, the bird seems to be born from the snow, and from the start the child is directing the bird, like a day dream, she is making up the birds monologue. Through her interpretations of the bird she explores her own issues.
The bird that her fantasy is based on is basically heron like, it stands near the water, then jumps in to catch a fish, gets un-nerved by the ice cracking and flies off. However through the girls eyes, the bird is looking longingly into the water because it envies the fish, it jumps in because it wants to be a fish, in her eyes it is swimming with the fish because it wants to live with the fish. She identifies with the bird who would rather be a fish, looking into the ice she sees the bird swimming up and becoming the reflection of herself, and realises that maybe she could be something else. The child is in a world of her own, and doesn’t understand the interruption of the mother, who is getting exasperated with her. Thus having her little dream shattered, she sees the bird’s emergence from the water as its sense of failure, of loss of a dream, it fails to be a fish.
While concentrating on the bird the girl hears the ice cracking, but she is so engrossed in what the bird is thinking that the mother has to grab the girl, and drag her along. This interruption causes the girl to panic. To her the most important thing is the bird, and her own sense of safety is intrinsically tied up with her idea that the bird needs to discover that it is actually a bird and can therefore fly. The bird must become a bird (not a fish), just as the girl must discover and become what she is, not what someone else thinks she is (fundamental separation that must occur between mother and daughter). Hence the girl screams and struggles and finally runs off in her own direction.

Influences:

Left to right, Lucy Lee, Zoya Kireyeva, Andrey Zolotuchin in Ekaterinburg '96. Andrey and Zoya taught me a huge amount about film making, and were a fantastic influence on the film. The film was shot in the Sverdlovsk Film Studio Animation Assocation, Ekaterinburg, Russia. They taught me about the technique, and it was a refreshingly creative place to work. The people I met there were completely committed to the creative concept of film making. Many of the directors have now moved to all corners of the world. Valentin Olshvang is still there, who recently made "Legend of the Origin of Crawfish", most fantastic film.

I first walked on a frozen estuary in ’95 in St Petersburg, I was terrified! It was the most amazing thing I’d ever done; the experience has never stopped influencing me. I kept hearing the ice cracking and breaking off the bottom of the sheet, it made great booming noises. I had made 3 trips to Russia before going there to shoot the film in November ’96. I first went to Yekaterinburg in ’94 when it had only just become more open to visitors (it had military significance) and I saw the city change enormously over the time. My response to the “New Russians” was that Russia has to become Russia. It has to find its own unique solutions to its own unique situation. 'The bird is a bird, not a fish.'

Reviews & add your vote!

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Awards

Chicago Film Festival, USA, 1997 - Gold Hugo
Poitiers, France, 1997 - Canal+ Buyers Award
Tarusa, Moscow, Russia, 1998 - Best Art Direction
Nominated – British Animation Awards ‘98

Festivals, Distribution & Sales
(I never kept a list at the time so there are more which I can’t remember.)

Distrubuted by the British Film Council

Listed in
UK Short Film Database
British Films Catalogue

Sales & Broadcast
Channel 4
Canal+
Various DVD compilations

Technique

Hand painted under a rostrum camera, using ‘straight ahead’ technique of animating. Images are made on a multiplane bed with translucent oil paints, mirrors, gells, paper, vaseloine and various others bits and pieces. The human characters were videoed and the animation was sketched onto animation cell, then used as the base image to paint from. It took 2 people about 3 months to paint. Example of working story board, which is reworked throughout the production process.