Pixar's Personal Approach to Disney+ SparkShorts Series

With the launch of Disney+, Pixar is finally getting a chance to flex some more muscles to a larger audience with some snackable content. At the launch, Disney+ will feature Pixar's SparkShorts, a series of short films which are rooted in personal and inspirational experiences of the filmmakers behind them. Titles such as Smash and Grab, Kitbull, Float, and Purl will be making a splash early on, each already having been screened for critics and receiving positive responses. After Pixar opened its doors to members of the press, each of those four SparkShorts films' directors opened up about their opportunities and perspective.

Moments after Float was screened to the small audience at Pixar, director Bobby Rubio opened up about the film's inspiration coming from a personal place with his own son. "As a father, it was hard for me to deal with and I remember going to the parks and looking at other children, typical children, and I hated it," Rubio said. "It just reminded me that I had something different and that's what I tried to put into the short. It's about a father who sees the difference, he doesn't see the special until he truly accepts his son...He begins to encourage him...I've been there and I want you to know that you're not alone."

The experience was no different for Purl director Kristen Lester. While Lester is living out a dream in working in animation, the dream was not immediately what she thought it would be. "Purl was inspired by my time working in the animation industry as a woman," she explained. "I was in school and I looked around at my class and my class was about 50% men and 50% women and I expected that's what the industry would look like."

When Lester arrived at her first job, that wasn't the case. It was very lonely and isolating," she explained. Lester explained that it was a male-dominated environment and they were all drinking at 9am and talking about things she would never talk about. "I had this realization that we were turning ourselves into men basically to be here."

"I found myself, I just want so badly to do the thing that I loved, I just did whatever I needed to do to fit in," she said. "That meant everything from drinking at 9am to not talking about the fact that I liked when Harry Met Sally cause that was embarrassing. There I was out in the industry working for a long time and I didn't realize how much of the feminine's part of myself I was putting aside to be accepted. Then, I came to Pixar, and I started working with women for the first time." That's where Purl comes in, telling the happier ending to Lester's story so far.

Rosanna Sullivan also checks in with Kitbull, a story about an unlikely pair, which she found a lot of heart in. "It started as an escape for me, actually, I just wanted to draw something fun," Sullivan explained. "It just so sort of evolved over the years into a story about these two characters and ultimately into a story about connection and what that looks like and how that's formed for the first time. I want these two characters to feel like outcasts. Naturally, you think black cat and pitbull, usually that has a pretty visceral reaction. As a kid I struggled with being sensitive and making friends...I did overcome that shyness that I had and it was very powerful...making a friend when they're hard to come by when you're much younger always stuck out to me."

Ultimately, it seems Pixar's mission statement is being plastered onto the screen in inspirational and bright fashion: "Diverse voices and diverse stories."

Pixar's SparkShorts will be available on the Disney+ streaming service beginning on November 12.