Alan Barillaro is the director of Disney’s best short film, ‘Piper’. He made those little creatures look so real and genuine on-screen wonderfully.
Alan beautifully crafted the baby bird in the short film Piper, which is the sequel to Finding Nemo and is named as Finding Dory. He has designed the short film through cutting-edge technology that would very well signal the future of the technology.
His secret Mantras
The only rule Alan Barillaro followed was that when it comes to featuring feathers, sand, and water we choose any one of them. But in this short film, all three elements are on display in a very lukewarm and heart-touching manner.
His unimaginable efforts
Pixar’s Piper is a dialogue-free film where the baby bird learns to fight the shore and feed itself. It all started with an animation demo based on the sandpipers, Alan would see on his morning Bay Area runs. After that, Alan was all set to turn these visuals into a story. Before filming of this film, Alan did a detailed study of baby birds and feathers. The study involved early morning field trips from Pixar’s Emeryville headquarters to the cold and foggy sands of Muir Beach, where he was shocked to know how freezing cold Northern California beaches can be.
For months before actually starting to shoot, Alan noticed each detail and did a deep study about the beaches of North California to give this short movie an essence of the real world.
After working on several of Pixar’s most famous films, Alan knew how to draw inspiration from the studio’s past. The script of Piper contains entirely of chirps and soft music, rather than dialogues.
Alan’s three kids also came up as tough critics of this short film, all six minutes of it. “They let me know which character they do not like, or which one they admire,” says Alan. In fact, Pixar’s track record with ripping Academy Award nominations, Pixar’s Piper might be the safest bet in the best-animated-short film category.
