Geri's Game is a five-minute animated short film made by Pixar in 1997. It was written and directed by Jan Pinkava. It was the first Pixar Short created after the creation of Toy Story, the previous short being Knick Knack in 1989. The film won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.

Plot

The film is set in an empty park during autumn. The title character, Geri (voiced by Bob Peterson), is an elderly man who plays a game of chess against himself, "becoming" each of the players in turn by moving to the other side of the chessboard, where he changes his personality and either puts on or takes off his glasses to show this change. As the game progresses, it seems as though there are two people playing; at one point, they are both in frame. Black Geri (without the glasses) soon gains the upper hand over White Geri (with them), capturing every piece except his king and putting him in check. However, White Geri outsmarts Black Geri by faking a heart attack to distract him and turning the board around. Finding that now he is the one with only his king left, Black Geri resigns the game and hands over a set of false teeth as the prize. White Geri puts them in, then he chuckles and grins, and the camera pulls back to reveal that

there is only one Geri.

Your Friend the Rat is Pixar's first short film to feature traditional animation. At 11 minutes, it is also the longest Pixar short to date. Along with hand-drawn animation, the short also includes stop-motion animation, computer generated imagery (CGI) and live action, much like the children's television show A Little Curious.^[1] Like the feature length film on which it is based, Your Friend the Rat also features a musical sequence.

The short takes on the form of an educational film and stars Remy and Emile, two brown rats who argue for the reconciliation of humans and rats. They use historical facts presented to various styles of animation, as well as biased nonsense.

Your Friend the Rat won the Best Animated Short Subject category at the 35th annual Annie Awards and was released on DVD and Blu-Ray with Pixar's Ratatouille (November 6, 2007).^{[2] [3]}

Synopsis

The short starts in a three dimensional animation with Remy introducing himself and Emile to the audience and speaking on behalf of oppressed rats everywhere. Emile starts frowning about having to speak out, while Remy pulls a scroll and a two dimensional animation starts by presenting the relation between a human and a rat in contrast with human-dog and human-cat relationships. Remy points out that humans regarded rats in former times as sacred and luck bringing. He moves on to discussing rattus rattus and their connection to the Black Death, pointing out that it was caused by fleas not rats, resulting in the death of one third of Europe's population.

Remy further presents the Brown rat's history, mentioning their part in ending the Black Death, their honorable position in the Chinese zodiac and their sacredness in India for being the transport vehicle of the god Ganesh. The symbiotic relationship between rats and humans is introduced before the second appearance of Remy and Emile in 3D animation. Emile pulls a scroll from the side and presents through 2D animation the benefits of rats for the human. Their use for laboratory testing and as pets, the rats can have a good relationship with humans. Concluding the presentation Emile and Remy sing a song about the relationship between rats and humans. At the film's end, a long and drawn-out (mostly satirical) disclaimer is shown asking children to stay away from rats, while Remy and Emile stand in front of it and try to remove it, urging the audience to ignore the warning and complaining about freedom of speech and lack of food, respectively.

One Man Band is a Pixar short film. The film made its world premiere at the 29th Annecy Animation Festival in Annecy, France, and won the Platinum Grand Prize at the Future Film Festival in Bologna, Italy. It was shown with the theatrical release of Cars.

The short was written and directed by Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews and produced by Osnat Shurer, head of Pixar's Shorts group. The score for the short was written by Michael Giacchino, who also composed the scores for Pixar's animated feature films The Incredibles and Ratatouille.

Like many Pixar shorts, the film is completely free of dialogue, instead using music (played by the characters) and pantomime to tell the story.

On January 31, 2006 it was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film, but lost to The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation by John Canemaker and Peggy Stern.

Story

In this animated short film, we see Bass, a street performer playing a routine tune on a deserted Italian village square one fine afternoon, waiting for a pedestrian to tip him in his rusty iron cup. Soon, he spots Tippy, a humble peasant girl clutching a big gold coin, with the intention of dropping it in the piazza fountain to make a wish. Bass, seizing the opportunity, immediately plays an impromptu track, capturing the young girl's attention. Just when Tippy is about to drop the coin into Bass's cup, a newcomer steps onto the scene. Treble, a suave and flamboyant street performer, plays a more attractive sound, effectively stealing Tippy's attention, much to the anger of Bass. Not to be outdone, Bass ups his ante, with Treble daring to take it even further. As the two rivals unleash their arsenal of musical weapons, trying to vie for the attention (or rather, the tip) of Tippy, the girl cowers in their wild musical cacophony, and in the process, drops her sole gold coin, which falls down a drain and gets lost in the sewers of the village.

Heartbroken, Tippy sheds a single tear, but then angrily demands from Treble and Bass a replacement coin for the one they made her lose. When the two musicians come up empty-handed, Tippy insists she take one of Treble's violins and Bass's iron cup in an attempt to get her money back by playing solo. She then tunes the violin and begins to play it like a true virtuoso, prompting a passing pedestrian to drop a large bag of gold coins into her cup. Elated, Tippy hugs the bag and approaches the fountain, but not before she pulls two coins out of her bag and tempts Treble and Bass. But as they eagerly reach out to grab them, she tosses the coins into the top of the fountain, out of reach, to the dismay of the two one-man-band units. A post-credits scene shows that it is now nighttime, with Treble standing on Bass, trying to reach for the coins in vain. As the two start to fall backwards, the film ends.

The music during the credits is Pablo de Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen

Presto is a 2008 Pixar computer-animated short film shown in theaters before—and included on the DVD and Blu-ray release of—their feature length film WALL-E. The short is about a magician trying to perform a show with his uncooperative rabbit and is a gag-filled homage to classic cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. Presto was directed by veteran Pixar animator Doug Sweetland, in his directorial debut.

The original idea for the short was a magician who incorporated a rabbit into his act who suffered from stage fright. This was considered to be too long and complicated, and the idea was reworked. To design the theater featured in Presto, the filmmakers visited several Opera Houses and theaters for set design ideas. Problems arose when trying to animate the theater's audience of 2,500 patrons—which was deemed too expensive—and was solved by showing the back of the audience.

Reaction to the short was very positive, and DVD reviewers of WALL-E considered it to be an enjoyable special feature. One critic called Presto a "winner through and through",^[2] while another found it to be "a short and hilarious animated film".^[3] Presto was nominated for an Annie Award and Academy Award.

Plot

Turn-of-the-century magician Presto DiGiotagione^[a] is famous for a hat trick wherein he pulls his rabbit Alec Azam^[b] out of his top hat. The short begins with an unfed and unhappy Alec locked in a cage, out of reach of a carrot.^[4] After Presto returns from eating a meal, he begins practicing his act with Alec, revealing that the top hat is magically connected to a wizard's hat kept backstage with Alec, so that when Presto reaches into the top hat, his hand appears out of the wizard's hat, allowing him to grab Alec and pull him out of the top hat. He intends to feed Alec the carrot, but realizes that he is late for the show and rushes off to the stage without doing so. Presto tries to start the performance, but Alec refuses to cooperate until he is given the carrot. Presto then spends the rest of the show trying to catch Alec through the opening between his top hat and the wizard's hat. Alec cleverly turns the hat's magic against his master in painful and humiliating ways, such as putting the magician's finger in a mouse trap and later into an electrical socket, causing him to dance wildly, and having his head sucked into a vacuum kept offstage. The audience interprets this as a part of the act and applauds wildly. Eventually, Presto's foot is caught on a rope that lifts him up to the top of the stage. When his foot comes loose from the rope, he falls from the ceiling, along with a piano and some scenery. Alec, realizing that Presto will be crushed, uses the magic hat to save him, much to his frustration, earning the audience's wild approval for both himself and Presto. Presto gives Alec the carrot (and many more), as well as second billing on the posters advertising the show.

Boundin' is a 2003 Oscar-nominated short film, shown at the start of the Disney-Pixar film The Incredibles. The film was written, directed, narrated and featured the musical composition and performance of veteran PIXAR animator Bud Luckey.

Plot

The film features a sheep that lived in the Old West whose elegant dancing is very popular with the other animals. One day the sheep-shearers arrive and shear it for wool. Having lost his coat, the sheep becomes shy and loses the confidence to dance so elegantly. It is whilst in his bare state that a jackalope comes across the little lamb and teaches him the merits of "boundin'" rather than dancing (that is, getting up whenever you fall down). The sheep is converted and its joy in life is restored. The sheep's wool eventually grows back in the winter, only for it to be cut again, but his pride is now completely unshaken and he continues to "bound".

Lifted is a 2006 Pixar computer animated short film directed by Gary Rydstrom. This is the first film directed by Rydstrom, a seven-time Academy Award winning sound editor and mixer.

The film was released theatrically with Pixar's Ratatouille (June 29, 2007). The short also received a sneak peek at The 42nd Chicago International Film Festival.^[1]

Plot

A young alien, Stu, is inside a spaceship taking an examination in abduction. He must snatch a sleeping farmer named Ernie under the watchful eye of his imposing instructor, Mr. B.^[2] To accomplish this, Stu must, from memory, utilize the array of thousands of unlabeled toggle switches on the giant console before him. Using the correct switches, Stu must manipulate the tractor beam, lifting the human from his bed, out the window, and into the ship. With a few hesitant flicks of the wrong switch, and eventually a frustrated swipe at the array, he mistakenly propels the human into walls and occasionally the ceiling, but never waking the farmer from his slumber. After repeated failures to successfully lift the human into the ship, Mr. B takes over and, wielding the massive bank of switches with ease, returns the farmer to his bed and cleans up the mess inside the farmhouse.

Ashamed over his failure, Stu starts whimpering, trying to hold back his tears. In a rare moment of compassion, Mr. B generously offers Stu the opportunity to launch the space ship back home. Full of glee, Stu takes hold of the steering apparatus and starts to lift the ship into the air, but the flying saucer plummets to the ground, crushing the farmer's house. When the spaceship finally departs, its underside covered in debris, all that remains is a crater with a tall pillar of dirt in the center, left by the tractor beam's cargo entry, atop which the farmer is still sleeping soundly in his bed.

During the end credits there is the sound of an alarm clock, the farmer waking up, yawning, a loud scream which echoes (meaning he fell in), then a thud.

For the Birds is an animated short film, produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released in the year 2000.

Plot

A group of small birds land on a telephone wire. When a much larger and awkward-looking bird arrives and lands on the telephone pole, the smaller birds reject him with taunts and insults. Eventually, the larger bird moves from the pole to the wire, heavily weighing it down and causing the smaller birds to slide inwards and crowd together, much to their dismay. The large bird persists in trying to win their friendship, until at last the smaller birds decide to shove him from their perch, eventually ending up with the larger bird upside down. The birds decide to peck at his toes and shake the wire to loosen him off. While doing so, smaller ones notice one-by-one the telephone wire's low altitude with the weight of the large bird, which would sling all of themselves upwards should the bird fall. By the time the last two birds (who were pecking at the toes) realize this, it is too late, and they end up losing all their feathers. Realizing they are now completely nude, the birds all crowd behind the larger bird to hide themselves. The larger bird can't help but laugh.