Piper (2016 film)

Piper
Film poster
Directed by	Alan Barillaro
Produced by	Marc Sondheimer
Screenplay by	Alan Barillaro
Music by	Adrian Belew
Edited by	Sarah K. Reimers
Production company	Pixar Animation Studios Walt Disney Pictures
Distributed by	Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Release date	June 17, 2016 (2016-06-17) (with Finding Dory)
Running time	6 minutes
Country	United States

Piper is a 2016 computer-animated short film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Written and directed by Alan Barillaro, it was theatrically released alongside Pixar's Finding Dory on June 17, 2016. At the 89th Academy Awards, it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.

The short involves a hungry baby sandpiper learning to overcome her fear of water. The inspiration came from less than a mile away from Pixar Studios in Emeryville, California, where Barillaro, a veteran Pixar animator, would run alongside the shore and notice birds by the thousands fleeing from the water but returning between waves to eat.

A flock of sanderlings hunt for food at a seashore, rushing to peck at the sand when the wave recedes and retreating when it comes in. One baby is encouraged by her mother to join the flock, but she fails to retreat in time and is drenched by the incoming surf. The incident leaves the baby terrified of the water; she refuses to leave the nest, but soon notices a group of hermit crabs digging into the sand to find deeper food and keep from being buffeted by the tide. By copying their behavior, she starts to see the beauty of the underwater world and becomes skilled at discovering food for the flock.

Alan Barillaro used new, cutting edge technology to create the six-minute short over three years. In order to give the sanderlings and other birds visible in the background a realistic look, Barillaro and the Piper animation team visited beaches in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the Monterey Bay Aquarium to study their appearance and behavior. The sanderlings' feathers in particular were rendered in minute detail.