The Making of Longbird

Starting with a (fictional) history of a legendary animator and his mostly lost creation of Longbird (which is a long bird), this film sees animator Will Anderson set out to recreate the work of this master by bring Longbird back with a modern slant and to a whole new audience. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as he thinks and as he struggles to find the right story, look and media, he finds that even Longbird himself doubts the process.

Although it does run a little long, this "making of" is nicely constructed and delivered to have some silly humor which is injected with real pain from the creation side to produce an enjoyable little film that is mostly amusing but also has heart. The opening few minutes are well done to create the idea of an old master animator and his character – this is convincing to the point I did have to check it is fictional. From here we get Anderson planning and failing to really deliver what he envisaged his project being, while his Longbird character steadfastly refuses to give him any respect or credit for what he is trying to do. The concept is nicely done and I liked that Anderson's insecurities were given a part in the material and, whether or not he really feels this way, it was interesting to see these doubts and creative struggles played out through Longbird.

The animation is pretty good as it mixes reality and animated characters well, with very good voice work from Sicinava as the title character. Anderson is also pretty good and I liked the move from comedic to more emotive conclusion. It does run a little longer than it needed to but it does still work very well for what it is and I enjoyed it for its back- story and comedic content but also, to me as a non-creative person, it did a nice job of presenting the struggle of an animator to get to grips with this character that he is trying to bring to the screen in a way that matches the images and ideas in his head.