''Nuggets'' is a 2014 animated short film and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

video created by German animation director

Andreas Hykade Andreas Hykade (born 1968 in Altötting, Bavaria) is a German animator, cartoonist, and voice actor. Before studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart from 1988 to 1990, he attended König-Karlmann-Gymnasium Altötting. He worked as an ani ...

. It was uploaded on 13 October 2014 onto the Filmbilder & Friends YouTube channel.

Production and release

The film was created by Andreas Hykade and funded by the Federal Film Board. ''Nuggets'' features a stylised and minimalist animation style. A kiwi, the short's only character, is drawn with black strokes and lines, and is staged on a pure white background, with splashes of goldish yellow being featured in the form of the titular nuggets. German studio Film Bilder released ''Nuggets'' onto their Filmbilder & Friends

channel on 13 October 2014. The video is just over 5 minutes in duration. The video credits Hykade with the film's script, direction, and animation. Angela Steffen worked on the film's animation and artwork.

Heiko Maile Heiko Maile (born 12 January 1966) is a German musician and composer. He is best known as a member of the band Camouflage and as the composer for the score of the films '' The Wave'' and '' We Are the Night'' and won the Deutscher Fernsehpreis f ...

worked on the film's music and sound design. Additionally, Ralf Bohde, Bianca Just, and Thomas Meyer-Hermann received post-production, production management, and production credits, respectively.

Plot and themes

''Nuggets'' follows a

kiwi Kiwi most commonly refers to: * Kiwi (bird), a flightless bird native to New Zealand * Kiwi (nickname), a nickname for New Zealanders * Kiwifruit, an edible berry * Kiwi dollar or New Zealand dollar, a unit of currency Kiwi or KIWI may also refe ...

who encounters nuggets as it walks down a path. As it indulges in a nugget, the kiwi experiences a blissful

high High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift ...

, causing the kiwi to feel as if it is flying in the air. The kiwi progressively experiences diminishing returns with each nugget it consumes, with subsequent flights becoming shorter and the falls back down to the ground becoming harsher. As the kiwi struggles with this, the white background also becomes darker and darker. The short portrays the nugget as a metaphor for some sort of drug, with the story itself functioning as an

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

for the stages of

addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use o ...

. While there are no explicit references to drugs, some media publications have suggested the short specifically addresses drug addiction, with '' HuffPost Korea'' writing that most YouTube viewers also interpreted this meaning.

Reception

The video was covered by media outlets internationally. ''

HuffPost Canada ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'' wrote that the kiwi's struggle with addiction was "extraordinarily gripping", opining that "there's something so devastatingly human between the stark black and white lines of German animator Andreas Hykade's five-minute creation."

RTBF The ''Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française'' (RTBF, ''Belgian Radio-television of the French Community'', branded as rtbf.be) is a public service broadcaster delivering radio and television services to the French-speaking Commu ...

, a French

public broadcasting Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

organisation wrote that the ''

mise-en-scène ''Mise-en-scène'' (; en, "placing on stage" or "what is put into the scene") is the stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a theatre or film production, both in visual arts through storyboarding, visual theme, and cinematography, ...

'' in ''Nuggets'' was "refined". Writing for ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

'', Joe Berkowitz called ''Nuggets'' "a fully realized allegory for addiction", and opined that it "succinctly captures the heartbreaking reality of addiction." The video achieved virality on YouTube, receiving over 3 million views in a little over a month following its release. By April 2015, it reached over 7 million views. As of December 2021, the video has received over 21 million views. Outside of YouTube, ''Nuggets'' was also widely shared on

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

Cancelled sequel

In an April 2015 interview with the German-based newspaper ''

Stuttgarter Nachrichten ''Stuttgarter Nachrichten'' (''Stuttgart News'') is a newspaper that is published in Stuttgart-Möhringen, Germany. It sells together with the ''Stuttgarter Zeitung The ''Stuttgarter Zeitung'' ("Stuttgart newspaper") is a German-language ...

'', Hykade stated that half of a second part to ''Nuggets'' was funded. No further developments have been made, however.

Notes

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 5224562 2014 animated films 2014 short films 2014 films 2014 YouTube videos Animated films about birds Animated films without speech Films about addiction German animated short films 2010s German films Films released on YouTube