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Shorts
Canvas
Cops and Robbers
Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad
Matters of Life, Death and Art Canvas, Cops and Robbers and Grab My Hand are three of the year’s noteworthy shorts which offer powerful and deeply felt messages.
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his past year, we were fortunate enough to witness an abundance of beautifully made animated shorts which addressed important and heartfelt messages. We caught up with the talented artists behind three of these shorts to find out about their sources of inspiration and techniques. Canvas is animation veteran writer, producer and director Frank Abney III’s labor of love, which took about nine years to complete. The nine-minute short, which debuted on Netflix in December, centers on a grieving man who loses his creative spark after the loss of a dear loved one, and recovers it thanks to his inquisitive young granddaughter. “Canvas was inspired by my personal experiences dealing with tragedy and loss,” says Abney. “We lost my father when I was five, and it affected my family immensely — especially my mother. As a kid, I watched as she pushed to take care of my sister and I, and often showed some kind of artistic background. But I never got to see too much of it, and wondered if there was more to that story and she had to push her talent to the side to raise us. Through my mother, I got to spend time with my grandpa (her father) growing up, and often saw this stoic man that would engage a bit, but I always felt had things bottled up, deep down. I wanted to tell a story about overcoming grief and surviving this type of trauma with the love and support of those around you.” Abney says aside from the narrative, he wanted to feature characters that represented who he is. “We don’t see
many Black characters in animation, and as a Black artist, I feel a responsibility to represent who I am in this industry,” says the helmer, who has worked as an animator on many features (including Kung Fu Panda 2, Incredibles 2, Coco, Toy Story 4, Onward and Soul) and exec produced last year’s Oscar-winning Hair Love. “Visually, my inspiration came from live-action films. I love how films like Moonlight, Selma and Pariah (to name a few) captured the narrative in such a poetic way. A lot of the references I pulled were from the real world, rather than previous animated films. I also consulted with live-action cinematographer/director Morgan Cooper, to help lend an eye to the visuals.” He says he made the short with about 80 people, from artists on the production side to musicians, editors, riggers, etc. “For the production, we used Autodesk’s Maya for the 3D animation,” he notes. “For the 2D animation in the short film, we used Toon Boom Harmony, TVPaint, Procreate and Adobe Photoshop. We were on a pretty shoestring budget compared to short films in the typical studio space.” The talented artist hopes Canvas will leave viewers with a positive spark. “I’d like audiences to take away a feeling of hope!” says Abney. “Hope that no matter what they’re going through, you can get through it, and you don’t have to do it by yourself. My community has become accustomed to moving on from its losses/traumas, and not taking the time to deal with them because of so many other things we have
to worry about in the world around us. But, I don’t want that feeling to be the norm, so with Canvas, hopefully it can leave a good feeling, that we can overcome and reclaim those things that bring us joy.”
Demanding Justice and Equality
Arnon Manor and Timothy Ware-Hill’s powerful short Cops and Robbers was the result of the filmmakers’ direct reaction to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery by three white residents of Brunswick, Georgia, while he was jogging in early 2020. Ware-Hill created the initial non-animated version of Cops and Robbers in response to the video released of Arbery’s murder. “This killing angered me, but it did not surprise me, because we as Black Americans have been going through this since the inception of our nation,” he says. “My hope was to not only express my frustration through an artistic platform, but also to bring awareness to these atrocities that we continue to face.” “I came across Timothy’s video poem on Instagram the following day, and I was moved and inspired by his powerful words to create an animated version of his poem, so I reached out to him with that idea,” says Manor. “I needed to express my anger and also be an ally to the cause in the best way that I knew how. My intent was that the film would spur further outrage at the ongoing police violence towards
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february 21
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