Vancouver's Animation Boom: Netflix, 'Tangles,' and Indigenous Storytelling

Vancouver has emerged as one of the world's most sophisticated animation hubs, anchored by Netflix Animation Studios' 110,600-square-foot office, which employs more than 450 people.

The office, which rebranded from its previous identity under the Animal Logic banner, signals a long-term commitment. Netflix has operated animation out of Vancouver for more than 10 years.

"There's a vibrant animation industry here and having an animation studio in Vancouver has given us the opportunity to work with some of the most amazingly creative and talented artists working today," Amir Nasrabadi, chief operating officer for Netflix Animation Studios, told Variety.

Nasrabadi said the studio hires mostly locally. "There is incredible talent here and we're really proud to be supporting the growth and development of the animation industry in Vancouver," he said.

The studio produces films as one unit across all three of Netflix's animation locations. It has scaled up Vancouver in recent years because of the size and quality of the local talent pool. That pool has deepened as several other major animation outfits have established outposts in the city, including:

• Sony Pictures Imageworks
• Atomic Cartoons
• Bardel
• Mainframe
• Titmouse
• Icon Creative Studio
• A Disney outpost

Netflix's Vancouver team led animation on Adam Sandler's "Leo." It is now working on "Steps," Netflix Animation Studios' first feature produced entirely in-house, scheduled for release Nov. 20.

Has Vancouver become more than a service hub?

Stephanie Betts, chief content officer at WildBrain and a 20-year Atomic Cartoons veteran, has watched the transformation firsthand. When she started, Vancouver was "largely known for production services." It has since become "one of the most sophisticated animation hubs in the world."

"I love that people can now build an entire career in Vancouver," Betts said. "The ecosystem has matured enough to support talent at every level."

The city has evolved from a service center into a place where projects originate. "[O]ver time it has evolved into a place where original ideas are created, developed, and owned," she said. "Some of our most successful brands and original concepts have been shaped in Vancouver."

Historically, Vancouver's animation slate skewed toward children's and educational programming. That range has broadened. Betts cited an uptick in anime-influenced projects, gaming content, features, hybrid productions and adult animation.

"The industry has matured," she said. "You now have multiple generations of experienced creators who understand not only production but also brand-building, audience engagement, distribution, and franchise development, having honed their craft through years of production experience working on global IP."

The expansion of streaming platforms has also intensified competition for talent, pushing compensation upward.

What does 'Tangles' say about the local scene?

Leah Nelson's 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 proved difficult. Point Grey Pictures eventually stepped in. Producers Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen already had a deep connection to Alzheimer's through their nonprofit, Hilarity for Charity. Once they read the graphic novel, they "really wanted to jump in and produce the movie with us," Nelson said. A prominent voice cast including Abbi Jacobson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Bryan Cranston helped the film travel.

Nelson jokes that she was able to steal artists from their TV shows because they viewed the project as a "refreshing departure" from kids' TV content. "But I gave them back afterwards." She built most of her team in Vancouver.

"People told me I was nuts," she recalls. "But I felt like people would join it for the right reasons and we had so many people in our crew who were connected to Alzheimer's and dementia in some way…. It was a meaningful story for them."

Nelson said she hopes "Tangles" opens doors for more adult animated features. "It's in a different category from maybe what we think of as animated movies or cartoons," she said. "I think we need to see more [animated] films that are considered cinema where you can go to the theater and watch something dramatic and entertaining, and it just happens to be painted with an animation brush."

Where does independent Indigenous animation fit?

For Métis filmmaker Amanda Strong, animation offers a way to tell Indigenous stories while retaining ownership over how those stories are made. Strong founded Spotted Fawn Productions, a company that focuses primarily on animation and moving-image arts, particularly stop-motion.

Strong said stop-motion is especially suited to Indigenous storytelling because of the diversity and complexity of Indigenous narratives. Oral storytelling, shifting perspectives and stories that move between past, present and future all find an expressive counterpart in animation.

"I think a lot of Indigenous storytelling is not just this A-to-B-to-C Western story construct," she said. "The medium of animation, and in particular stop-motion animation, allows us to break out of what we would typically see in live action and just gives us this space to travel and go into different dimensions and portals of, I feel, what our stories can offer."

Spotted Fawn operates on a very different model from the major commercial houses. It relies primarily on arts-council grants and public funding and has co-produced work with the National Film Board. Strong recently served as an animation mentor for VIFF's animation accelerator, working with five teams developing projects for festival pitches.

What struck her was how many talented artists were trying to transition from larger companies to directing their own films, but lacked experience on the producing side. "Producing is not the fun part," she said, "and often the part that I think gets overlooked a lot."

Strong teaches fourth-year students in Emily Carr University's 2-D experimental animation program and has hired students from her classes. She sees abundant talent emerging from Vancouver's post-secondary institutions, but warned that the city's high cost of living remains a barrier.

"I think no matter whether you're in industry or independent, I hope there's more space for supporting independent works and story sovereignty for cultural stories," she said.

She counsels her students to decide deliberately: "Do you want to be a service provider for other people, or do you want to tell your own stories?"

Vancouver now has the studio footprint, the festival pipeline and a generation of experienced creators. The next test, Strong's question implies, is whether the producing infrastructure can catch up with the talent already leaving the classroom.