Bunny (short)
Encyclopedia
Bunny is a 1998 animated short film by Chris Wedge
and produced by Blue Sky Studios
. It has been featured on the original Ice Age
DVD release from 2002 and its 2006 "Super Cool Edition" re-release. The website, http://bunny.blueskystudios.com, offers the following synopsis:
"Baking alone in her kitchen, tattered old Bunny receives a troublesome late-night visitor from the deepest woods -- or deeper. A hairy moth, as battered as Bunny, seems to be stalking her. Her attempts to remove it only make the moth more insistent. What is it about this nocturnal pest that stirs her deepest fears and memories? To find out, she must go through an emotional metamorphosis that sheds a whole new light on this quirky but heart-warming tale."
Influenced by the classic Uncle Wiggily illustrations by Lansing Campbell
, the short features the music of Tom Waits
.
Bunny won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
for 1998 as well as a Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica
.
, lives alone in a small cabin in the forest. While baking a cake one night, she is continually bothered by a large moth
that keeps flying around her kitchen. No matter what she does, she cannot get rid of the intruder; she is especially annoyed when it runs into a photograph, taken many years ago, of herself and her late husband on their wedding day. Eventually she knocks it into the cake batter, which she quickly pours into a pan and shoves into the oven. She then sets the kitchen timer and falls asleep, only to be awakened by loud rumblings and blue-white light coming from the oven, whose door soon falls open. Crawling inside, she finds herself confronted by the moth and begins to float through an otherworldly space toward the source of the light, with a pair of giant moth wings sprouting from her back to propel her as the insect leads her along. She is soon revealed to be among dozens of moths being drawn to the light. The film ends with a close-up of the wedding photo, which comes to life as the younger Bunny nestles her head contentedly on her husband's shoulder; the shadows and reflections of two moths play across the image as well.
During his introduction to the film on the Ice Age DVD, Wedge offers his interpretation of these events. Bunny dies in her sleep, and the oven serves as a gateway to the afterlife. Her spirit is instinctively drawn into it, as a moth going toward a bright light, and reunited with that of her husband.
Chris Wedge
Chris Wedge is an American film director, best known for the films Ice Age and Robots.-Early life and career:Wedge was born in Binghamton, New York. He attended Fayetteville-Manlius High School, graduating in 1975...
and produced by Blue Sky Studios
Blue Sky Studios
Blue Sky Studios is an American CGI-animation studio which specializes in high-resolution, computer-generated character animation and rendering. It is owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Greenwich, Connecticut...
. It has been featured on the original Ice Age
Ice Age (film)
Ice Age is a 2002 American computer-animated film created by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge from a story by Michael J. Wilson. The story follows three Paleolithical mammals attempting to return a lost human baby to its parents...
DVD release from 2002 and its 2006 "Super Cool Edition" re-release. The website, http://bunny.blueskystudios.com, offers the following synopsis:
"Baking alone in her kitchen, tattered old Bunny receives a troublesome late-night visitor from the deepest woods -- or deeper. A hairy moth, as battered as Bunny, seems to be stalking her. Her attempts to remove it only make the moth more insistent. What is it about this nocturnal pest that stirs her deepest fears and memories? To find out, she must go through an emotional metamorphosis that sheds a whole new light on this quirky but heart-warming tale."
Influenced by the classic Uncle Wiggily illustrations by Lansing Campbell
Lansing Campbell
Lansing Campbell was an American illustrator best known for his illustrations in the Uncle Wiggily series of books by Howard R. Garis. He also used the signature Lang Campbell....
, the short features the music of Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
.
Bunny won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
for 1998 as well as a Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica
Prix Ars Electronica
The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music...
.
Plot
Bunny, an elderly female rabbitRabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
, lives alone in a small cabin in the forest. While baking a cake one night, she is continually bothered by a large moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
that keeps flying around her kitchen. No matter what she does, she cannot get rid of the intruder; she is especially annoyed when it runs into a photograph, taken many years ago, of herself and her late husband on their wedding day. Eventually she knocks it into the cake batter, which she quickly pours into a pan and shoves into the oven. She then sets the kitchen timer and falls asleep, only to be awakened by loud rumblings and blue-white light coming from the oven, whose door soon falls open. Crawling inside, she finds herself confronted by the moth and begins to float through an otherworldly space toward the source of the light, with a pair of giant moth wings sprouting from her back to propel her as the insect leads her along. She is soon revealed to be among dozens of moths being drawn to the light. The film ends with a close-up of the wedding photo, which comes to life as the younger Bunny nestles her head contentedly on her husband's shoulder; the shadows and reflections of two moths play across the image as well.
During his introduction to the film on the Ice Age DVD, Wedge offers his interpretation of these events. Bunny dies in her sleep, and the oven serves as a gateway to the afterlife. Her spirit is instinctively drawn into it, as a moth going toward a bright light, and reunited with that of her husband.