When Netflix Animation Studios opened its 110,600-square-foot office in Vancouver earlier this year, it sent a clear signal about the city’s growing importance as an animation hub. Netflix produces its films as one studio across all three of its locations, Nasrabadi says, but the company has been able to expand its Vancouver operation in recent years because of the size and quality of the local talent pool. That pool has grown as more animation outfits – including Sony Pictures Imageworks, Atomic Cartoons, Bardel, Mainframe, Titmouse, Icon Creative Studio, and a Disney outpost – have established themselves in the city.
Netflix’s Vancouver team led the animation on Adam Sandler’s “Leo” and is currently working on “Steps,” Netflix Animation Studios’ first feature produced entirely in-house, which is scheduled for release Nov. 20. But Nasrabadi says Netflix isn’t interested in imposing a single house style. Betts sees an uptick in anime-influenced projects, gaming content, features, hybrid productions and adult animation.
But the expansion of major global streaming platforms into Vancouver has also intensified competition for talent – and pushed up compensation. One of the creatives developing original IP out of Vancouver is Leah Nelson, whose first feature, “Tangles,” premiered at Cannes, played at TIFF and is part of the Vancouver International Film Festival – VIFF. Nelson, co-founder of creative studio and animation house Giant Ant, spent years adapting Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir about a daughter, a mother and Alzheimer’s into a mostly black-and-white 2-D animated feature.
Financing an adult animated drama, however, was not easy. Fortunately, Point Grey Pictures stepped in. Producers Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen already had a deep connection to Alzheimer’s through the nonprofit they had funded, Hilarity for Charity.
Nelson figured that if she could get them to read the graphic novel, it might help her raise the funds. Nelson jokes that she was able to steal artists from their TV shows because they viewed the project as a unique and “refreshing departure” from kids’ TV content. It was a meaningful story for them.” Although it’s been a long journey, Nelson would love to make more films like “Tangles.” “It’s in a different category from maybe what we think of as animated movies or cartoons,” she says.
It’s like limitless what you can do with this medium, and it’s so beautiful, and I think it can tackle really complex subject matter as well.” For Métis filmmaker Amanda Strong, animation offers another kind of creative freedom – a way to tell Indigenous stories while retaining ownership over how those stories are made and who gets to tell them. To that end, Strong founded Spotted Fawn Productions, a company that focuses primarily on animation and moving-image arts, particularly stop-motion. Strong says that stop-motion is particularly suited to Indigenous s
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