''Billy's Balloon'' is a

16mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...

animated short Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

by Don Hertzfeldt. It was his 4th and final student film at

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

. Similar to his other cartoons, he utilizes a minimalist stick-figure technique. The film was invited into Official Competition at the 1999

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

(where Hertzfeldt was the youngest director involved), and it won the Grand Jury Award at the 1999

Slamdance Film Festival The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which als ...

. On top of its film festival runs (and subsequent popularity online), the short has also appeared on

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...

and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...

and

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

in the US and on a number of international TV broadcasts around the world. Hertzfeldt has noted that the short's international popularity is likely because it has no dialogue and plays like a silent film.

Plot

A stick figure toddler (presumably named Billy) sits happily with a balloon and rattle until he is unexpectedly hit on the head by the balloon. The balloon gradually escalates its attack into a pummelling. When an adult passes by the balloon acts innocent until the adults pass out of sight. Billy is then slowly lifted into the air and dropped multiple times until the balloon stops in the clouds and Billy sees another child held up by a different balloon. They wave to one another and the other child is struck by a plane. A short sequence shows a girl being attacked by several balloons. Two short sequences follow of multiple children being terrorised by balloons. No explanation is given of how or why the balloons are mistreating children. The story is considered a parody of French film director

Albert Lamorisse Albert Lamorisse (; 13 January 1922 – 2 June 1970) was a French filmmaker, film producer, and writer of award-winning short films which he began making in the late 1940s. He also invented the strategic board game ''Risk'' in 1957. Life Lamor ...

's 1956

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

Le ballon rouge ''The Red Balloon'' (french: Le ballon rouge) is a 1956 French fantasy comedy-drama featurette written, produced, and directed by Albert Lamorisse. The thirty-four-minute short, which follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a s ...

''. There have been many interpretations on what themes the short represents, but Hertzfeldt intentionally avoids talking about them, so as to not invalidate the personal experiences the audience has with the film.

Home media

''Billy's Balloon'' was featured on the DVD "Don Hertzfeldt Volume 1", a compilation of Hertzfeldt's short films from 1995-2005. Special features included original pencil tests, production sketches, notes, and deleted ideas from the film. In 2015, ''Billy's Balloon'' was remastered again for inclusion on the ''

It's Such a Beautiful Day "It's Such A Beautiful Day" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in 1955 in '' Star Science Fiction Stories No.3'', an anthology of original stories edited by Frederik Pohl, and later reprinted ...

'' Blu-ray.

References

External links

* * Short films directed by Don Hertzfeldt 1990s animated short films 1998 films Animated films without speech 1990s American animated films 1998 animated films American animated short films {{short-animation-film-stub