Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 20754 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
BEST FRIENDS: I BIRD | 1983 | 1983-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 5 mins 9 secs Credits: Individuals: Sheila Graber Song 'Best friends' Words Pierre D'Heaume Song 'Best Friends' Words Alec Costandinos Song 'Best Friends' Music Carlos Leresche Animated & Directed by Sheila Graber Executive Producer Nicole Jouve Produced by Marble Arch Films and Interama Genre: Animation |
Summary An animation on the keeping of a budgerigar as a pet. The film explains how and why it is important to feed them the right foods and keep their cages clean and safe. This children's cartoon was created by celebrated South Shields animator Sheila Graber for a children’s television series that was broadcast around the world in the 1980s. |
Description
An animation on the keeping of a budgerigar as a pet. The film explains how and why it is important to feed them the right foods and keep their cages clean and safe. This children's cartoon was created by celebrated South Shields animator Sheila Graber for a children’s television series that was broadcast around the world in the 1980s.
[Titles appear over animations of a budgerigar and a child in a red and white striped t-shirt]
Title: Best Friends
The film begins with a dark swirl of...
An animation on the keeping of a budgerigar as a pet. The film explains how and why it is important to feed them the right foods and keep their cages clean and safe. This children's cartoon was created by celebrated South Shields animator Sheila Graber for a children’s television series that was broadcast around the world in the 1980s.
[Titles appear over animations of a budgerigar and a child in a red and white striped t-shirt]
Title: Best Friends
The film begins with a dark swirl of colour representing darkness. In a nest, a blue coloured female budgerigar sits on three eggs. One of the eggs hatches to reveal a chick, it’s eyes closed. The female looks down on her chick. A yellow male budgerigar appears and begins to feed four chicks in the nest.
The male and female budgerigar stand side-by-side. Next to them is the featherless chick. The chick begins to age showing yellow, blue and then green adult feathers. It begins to flap its wings and lifts into the air landing on the next title.
Title: I Birds
The budgerigar begins to peck at the title before flying off and landing on the finger of a young child in a red and white stripped t-shirt. The child looks down at the budgerigar and a cage appears to their left.
The budgerigar hops and flies around inside a cage next to a window. The young bird swings on a small swing before jumping off and landing on a perch, a larger perch beside it. The budgerigar trims its beak on a cuttlefish bone before climbing the bars of the cage.
The child attaches a bath to the side of the cage and the budgerigar jumps in and begins to splash around. Back on its perch, the budgerigar cleans itself with some pruning.
The budgerigar points it’s wing at the child who is holding a container of seed. The child blows the old husks away and holds up a box of seed. The film fades to show the budgerigar eating from the container. It flies across the cage and begins to eat at a container of grit. The image of the budgerigar changes to show an x-ray of the bird's digestive system and how the grit is used to help digest a string of millet seed, a slice of carrot and a bunch of dried greens. Sitting at a table, the child also tucks into a sandwich, which she holds in one hand with a glass of milk in the other.
Back in the cage, the budgerigar drinks from a water dish. It turns towards the camera looking sad as it’s cage is dirty. The child removes a tray from the cage and scrapes away the waste. He then washes the tray in the sink, the budgerigar sitting on one of the taps smiling. The budgerigar flies off and lands on the child’s head before flying back inside it’s clean cage.
The budgerigar looks directly into the camera blinking. The film cuts to show the bird looking at itself in a mirror hanging in the cage. A bell attached to the bottle of the mirror rings as the budgerigar pecks at its mirror image.
The child appears beside the cage as the budgerigar fades to become a colourful finch. The finch then turns into a brightly coloured canary singing on the perch, fading again to show the child now holding a pigeon. The child throws the pigeon into the air and watches as it flies away. The child walks towards a parrot squawking on a perch. The budgerigar reappears and lands on the child’s shoulder. The parrot fades away and is replaced by a television screen on which four children are singing with the child and budgerigar watching.
The image of the television fades and is replaced by a table on which sits a red and blue ball. The budgerigar jumps onto the table and begins to roll the ball across it, stopping beside a mug on which there is an image of an owl looking down at the budgerigar.
Inside the cage, the budgerigar plays with a yellow toy bird on a spring. It pecks at it with it’s beak causing the toy bird to bob back and forth.
The room changes from day to night and a breeze blows in from an open window. Sitting on its perch, the budgerigar is shocked when a clap of thunder is heard. The budgerigar jumps off its perch and flies towards the camera looking scared. The image changes to that of the child.
The child holds up the budgerigar in her hand and puts the bird back into its cage. The film ends with a cover showing crescent moons and stars being lowered over the cage.
Credit: Song ‘Best Friends’ Words Alec Costandinos
Credit: Song ‘Best Friends’ Music Carlos Leresche
Credit: Animated & Directed by Sheila Graber
Credit: Executive Producer Nicole Jouve
Credit: Produced by Marble Arch Films and Interama
Credit: Logos
© Interama / marble arch films 1983
Context
A caged bird sings
Budgies for beginners: home comforts for birds explained to young pet owners.
Pecking orders issued to young pet owners by a caged budgie buddie with a faultless pitch. This is one of ten traditional colour animations from the Best Friends television series that delighted children around the world in the 1980s, hand painted by the renowned South Shields artist Sheila Graber.
As a gifted amateur, Sheila Graber received commissions from the Tate Gallery in London, Tyne...
A caged bird sings
Budgies for beginners: home comforts for birds explained to young pet owners. Pecking orders issued to young pet owners by a caged budgie buddie with a faultless pitch. This is one of ten traditional colour animations from the Best Friends television series that delighted children around the world in the 1980s, hand painted by the renowned South Shields artist Sheila Graber. As a gifted amateur, Sheila Graber received commissions from the Tate Gallery in London, Tyne Tees TV and the BBC. When she became a full-time professional animator, Graber gained an international reputation for her 1981 adaptations of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories for Nicole Jouve of Interama, agent for The Magic Roundabout, who began to distribute the artist’s animations worldwide in 1977, and commissioned the Best Friends series in 1983. In relation to I Bird, Graber has recounted the Giorgio Vasari story about Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, who so loved animals that he bought caged birds in the market place in Florence simply to let them go. |