Tank and Xstine Team With HBOMAX and WarnerMedia Access

We aren't going to under-sell this one: this is a pretty huge deal. It's been an incredible thing for us to watch Tank Standing Buffalo follow his own path into animation. The dedication he put into Still, his Chris J. Melnychuk scholarship film from 2017, and since then, he really hasn't slowed down. He made himself a fixture at our studios up until the pandemic made that impossible, and he's made the most of the last few years with his impressive, TIFF-debuted short RKLSS. With that work ethic, it's long been clear that big things were on his horizon.

Even still, it's fantastic to see that him and production partner Xstine Cook (another creative force of nature and the instigator of an absurd number of Calgary arts events and institutions in the worlds of animation, puppetry and mask theatre, including the Festival of Animated Objects that is on now) have been selected for HBOMax and WarnerMedia Access' new animated shorts program cohort. They'll be working with industry veterans to put together a short animation, along with master classes, workshops, and other resources meant to boost their already formidable talents.

It couldn't go to more deserving folks, if you ask us, and we can't wait to see the results.