Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently stated plans to release six animated features a year. With an ever-increasing hold over the animation industry, the streaming giant has just announced three new animated short films to be released in the coming months: If Anything Happens I Love You, Canvas, and Cops and Robbers.
According to Netflix director of animated features Gregg Taylor, “Our goal is to bring our members best-in-class animation in all types of formats – features, series, adult animation, anime, and short form. Animated storytelling is most compelling when it can transport, entertain, and start conversations; and all three of these short films are beautiful examples of that. While each film is deeply personal and uses very different animation styles, all of them are equally powerful.”
If Anything Happens I Love You is an elegy about grief following a school shooting, directed by Will McCormack (who wrote the original Toy Story 4 script with Rashida Jones) and Michael Govier (Conan). It has an all-female animation team supervised by CalArts graduate Youngran Nho. Laura Dern executive produced the short, which was produced by Maryann Garger (The LEGO Ninjago Movie), Gary Gilbert (La La Land), Gerald Chamales (The Irishman), and Govier.
Canvas, is about a black painter who seeks to rekindle his artistic passion after the passing of his wife, directed by former Pixar animator Frank E. Abney III (Soul). It was made by a team of artists across three continents. They took on the challenge of simultaneously producing both CG and 2D animated sequences.
Cops and Robbers, directed by Arnon Manor (indie web series Mondays) and Timothy Ware-Hill (Kinky Boots national tour) is inspired by Ware-Hill’s poem about the racially motivated murder of Ahmaud Arbery earlier this year in Georgia. It uses a diverse range of animated techniques from more than 30 individual artists, students, and VFX companies from around the world.