A Review of Albert Birney’s Tux and Fanny (2019)
The modern landscape of animation has been made up of grand studios since the medium’s inception. This is no more obvious then today. In this era, it is clear that Disney, Dreamworks, Illumination and Studio Ghibli are the studios that make up the majority of the mainstream attention towards animated films. That being said, independent creators have found ways to garner success through new media paths such as YouTube and Instagram. This is the way the medium is shifting.
Director Albert Birney is taking control of that opportunity. The growing market of short, accessible content is what is aiding small creators in finding a fanbase and following. Birney is a filmmaker that has been using this style of marketing to both fund and distribute his art. His debut film The Beast Pageant (2010) was largely funded through a Kickstarter campaign. He has followed this up by releasing his movies on video streaming services such as Vimeo and Amazon. Starting on June 20th, 2018, Birney started releasing his newest project Tux and Fannyon Instagram. Using their video sharing service, he was able to upload a constant stream of short scenes of this new animated project once a week. The story of Tux and Fanny is quite simple in concept. The story consists of the two titular characters going about their day-to-day activities living in a small house. We watch how they interact as friends and see how they depend on each other for company. It offers an incredibly different take on the animated friendship piece. Where bigger studios are able to use their enormous budgets to create hyper-movement between characters to show their raw emotions to the audience, Tux and Fanny, despite being a very slow-paced foreign language film is able to achieve the same level of emotional maturity. Based on how expressive the characters come across and the chemistry that is able to be felt between them the second they appear on screen together it is hard to not compare it to other popular animated content that has come out in recent memory.
The film had screened at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in fall of 2019. All of the shorts from the Instagram page had been edited together and made into a feature length piece. I was worried the pacing of the film wouldn’t be able to transition from its original format to the feature length style. However, the majority of the sequences take 2-4 of the Instagram shorts and can successfully use the longer format as if they weren’t originally made separately from each other. Tux and Fannyhas a very particular way of exploring deeper themes. The films main overarching theme is friendship and togetherness. Which is a similar theme that Disney attempts to explore with their films like The Lion King (1994) and Zootopia (2016). 
Birney is attempting to achieve a similar feeling while completely renovating the style of animation and presentation of those themes. We watch how Tux and Fanny solve problems together, co-exist and how they deal with hardships in their lives. It’s presented in a very deadpan way. The characters are speaking Russian in a very slow, drawn-out fashion. Something so different from the entirety of Disney’s style of animation. Even as early as Fantasia (1940)Disney had been experimenting with creating a poetic symphony of movement. Tux and Fanny is successfully usurping that idea by making such a muted version of a Disney style story while taking similar routes thematically. It definitely made a strong impression by successfully deploying these themes. The theme itself has been achieved before but never in the way that Birney accomplishes it here. By completely changing the style that other companies have used it makes the same themes feel new and fresh and not just recycled like how Illumination recycled the themes from Toy Story (1995)and lazily put them together in The Secret Life of Pets (2016).
Tux and Fannyappears to be bringing more intricate homages to old style animation as well. The 8-Bit style of animation can be found in many forms of entertainment from the 20thcentury. This 8-Bit style was very influential in the growth of video games in the 1970s and 1980s. The transition into 16-bit and then 3-D animation then took over. But the 8-Bit style remains a driving source of inspiration for directors like Birney. Tux and Fanny also pays homage to the old style of animation by adding a lot of sequences that utilize classical and jazz music. The piano that is in Tux and Fanny’s house gets a lot of play time. Reminding me of old Mickey Mouse cartoons where he would play the piano. Along with the sequence in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) where we see both Disney and Warner Brothers characters Donald Duck and Daffy Duck dueling with pianos. Birney deploys the piano as a plot device in the film, giving it a stronger presence then the other objects that surround them. Along with the older animation style it really looks as if he wishes to play a direct homage to the history of the animated form.
The idea of deploying your project on social media in the way Birney has is incredibly inventive. He was toying around with making somewhat of an appointment television feeling by posting his parts of Tux and Fanny weekly. Along with having interactions with fans of the series in the comments section. He made a very compelling narrative by using this style of presentation. With the oversaturated market of major animated projects in theatres its necessary for new, independent artists to find a new marketing style to promote their projects. It is also incredibly helpful that Birney has constructed an entirely original piece of entertainment that has its own identity. Tux and Fanny’s Instagram page has amassed ten-thousand followers for an independent project. It shows that even as an independent artist Birney was able to create a following for these colourful characters. He also has written in the films Instagram bio that there will be more episodes of Tux and Fanny coming in 2020, which I couldn’t be happier for. It is a testament to how creative Birney is that he was able to write in such a stylistic, niche story and have a plethora of fans being excited for a sequel.
In short, Tux and Fannyis an extremely entertaining piece of modern animation. It is able to take the history of animation style and themes and modernize them by using modern social mediums to produce a compelling piece of animated entertainment. Would recommend to anyone who is looking for an introduction to experimental animation or if you have an interest in animation other than what you can see in your average multiplex.
Films Cited
Tux and Fanny (2019). Dir. Albert Birney
The Beast Pageant (2010). Dir. Albert Birney
The Lion King (1994). Dir. Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff
Zootopia (2016). Dir. Byron Howard, Rich Moore
Fantasia (1940). Dir. Samuel Armstrong
Toy Story (1995). Dir. John Lasseter
The Secret Life of Pets (2016). Dir. Chris Renaud
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Dir. Robert Zemeckis
The FilmSpot 