Nuggets
Video thumbnail
Directed byAndreas Hykade
Screenplay byAndreas Hykade
Edited byRalf Bohde
Music byHeiko Maile
Production
company
Film Bilder
Distributed byFilm Bilder
Release date
  • October 13, 2014 (2014-10-13) (YouTube)
Running time
5 minutes
CountryGermany

Nuggets is a 2014 animated short film and YouTube video created by German animation director Andreas Hykade. 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.[lower-alpha 1][2][3] Nuggets features a stylised and minimalist animation style.[4][5] 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.[4][5]

German studio Film Bilder released Nuggets onto their Filmbilder & Friends YouTube channel on 13 October 2014.[1] The video is just over 5 minutes in duration.[6] The video credits Hykade with the film's script, direction, and animation.[1] Angela Steffen worked on the film's animation and artwork.[1] Heiko Maile worked on the film's music and sound design.[1] Additionally, Ralf Bohde, Bianca Just, and Thomas Meyer-Hermann received post-production, production management, and production credits, respectively.[1]

Plot and themes

Nuggets follows a kiwi who encounters nuggets as it walks down a path.[7] As it indulges in a nugget, the kiwi experiences a blissful high, causing the kiwi to feel as if it is flying in the air.[7] 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.[7] As the kiwi struggles with this, the white background also becomes darker and darker, and the kiwi begins to gain weight.[6] At the end, the kiwi is seen looking at one last nugget, contemplating whether to consume it.

The short portrays the nugget as a metaphor for some sort of drug, with the story itself functioning as an allegory for the stages of addiction.[3][8][9] While there are no explicit references to drugs, some media publications have suggested the short specifically addresses drug addiction,[9][10] with HuffPost Korea writing that most YouTube viewers also interpreted this meaning.[6]

Reception

The video was covered by media outlets internationally.[3][4][9][10] HuffPost Canada 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."[7] RTBF, a French public broadcasting organisation wrote that the mise-en-scène in Nuggets was "refined".[4] Writing for Fast Company, Joe Berkowitz called Nuggets "a fully realized allegory for addiction", and opined that it "succinctly captures the heartbreaking reality of addiction."[11]

The video achieved virality on YouTube, receiving over 3 million views in a little over a month following its release.[5] By April 2015, it reached over 7 million views.[12] As of May 2023, the video has received over 24 million views.[1] Outside of YouTube, Nuggets was also widely shared on Reddit.[10]

Potential sequel

In an April 2015 interview with the German-based newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten, Hykade stated that half of a second part to Nuggets was funded.[12] No further developments have been made, however.

Notes

  1. ↑ The official description of the Nuggets YouTube video refers to the Federal Film Board as "FFA Berlin".[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Nuggets. Filmbilder & Friends. YouTube. 13 October 2014. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  2. ↑ King, Darryn (6 April 2015). "Andreas Hykade Appointed Director of Animation Program at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 "Schattig vogeltje toont hoe drugsverslaving werkt". Het Nieuwsblad (in Dutch). 7 December 2014. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Un court-métrage d'animation pour illustrer les méfaits de l'addiction" (in French). RTBF. 1 December 2014. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 Blitz editorial staff (27 November 2014). "Nuggets, uccellino spiega tossicodipendenza: fiaba del piccolo kiwi VIDEO". Blitz Quotidiano (in Italian). Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 Kang, Byung Jin (21 November 2014). "단편 애니메이션 '너겟'(Nuggets) : '중독'의 과정을 보여주는 단 5분의 애니메이션(동영상)". HuffPost Korea (in Korean). Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Cotroneo, Christian (24 November 2014). "Nuggets: Kiwi Video Paints Addiction In Simple Moving Terms". HuffPost Canada. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  8. ↑ "Nuggets: An illustration on addiction". Eluna Network. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  9. 1 2 3 "La tossicodipendenza spiegata da un cartone animato: ecco come - Video". Giornale di Sicilia (in Italian). 21 November 2014. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  10. 1 2 3 "Cortometraje genera discusión en YouTube" (in Spanish). CNN Chile. 21 November 2014. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  11. ↑ Berkowitz, Joe (24 November 2014). "This Animated Short Cleverly Reveals The Truth About Addiction And It's Devastating". Fast Company. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  12. 1 2 Haasis, Bernd (29 April 2015). "Wir haben hier einen Kulturauftrag". Stuttgarter Nachrichten (in German). Retrieved 2 June 2020.
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