Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks have partnered to develop a new leadership training program intended to provide high-potential candidates from underrepresented groups with an opportunity to gain valuable leadership experience. Leading up to the nine-month program, dubbed Leading and Empowering New Storytellers (LENS), the studios identify four candidates from both inside and outside of their existing crews who will dive headfirst into creative leadership positions and work together to make an animated short film.
Selected LENS candidates are brought into the roles of Director, Writer, VFX Supervisor and Animation Supervisor, and are charged with developing an animated short under the guidance of program creators and producers Michelle Raimo Kouyate (Puss In Boots, Silver Linings Playbook) and David Schulenburg (Spider-Ham: Caught in a Ham), while receiving unprecedented access to and mentorship by leaders at the two studios via workshops and talks with directors, animators, visual effects artists and other seasoned crew members. The final deliverable is an all-original short film, set in the existing world of an upcoming feature produced by Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks.
The LENS program is backed by Sony Pictures’ global, multi-pronged racial equity and inclusion strategy, Sony Pictures Action. The program’s goal is to provide creatives who have traditionally lacked access to leadership roles with a first-hand opportunity to deepen their understanding of every element of the animated filmmaking process including production design, animation, visual effects, lighting, sound, and various post-production processes. Through the program, participants will strengthen their ability to effectively articulate their film’s creative vision and collaborate across a variety of disciplines.
The LENS program officially rolled out internally at the studios in 2022, with an incredibly talented core filmmaking team who set out to create an original short film set in the world of the highly-anticipated upcoming release, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
“We feel honored and privileged to have been given the opportunity to give shape to the inaugural launch of the LENS program,” commented Raimo Kouyate and Schulenburg. “We are incredibly proud of how the hard work of all four filmmakers — Jarelle Dampier, Khaila Amazan, Clara Chan and Joe Darko — has paid off. They far exceeded all expectations as they stepped into their leadership roles and created a remarkable short. We are very grateful to be part of a studio that is doing meaningful work to give voice to varied groups and to the studio leadership — Kristine Belson, Michelle Grady, Pam Marsden and Paul Martin — who gave rise to this program and supported us every step along the way.”
The first short from the LENS program is titled The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story and it is a genre-bending thriller, focusing on a theme that is meaningful to the filmmaking team.
In The Spider Within, Miles Morales struggles to balance his responsibilities as a teenager, friend, and student while acting as Brooklyn’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. After a particularly challenging day living with these pressures, Miles experiences a panic attack that forces him to confront the manifestations of his anxiety and learn that reaching out for help can be just as brave an act as protecting his city from evil.
The short will debut exclusively at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this June, presented by the team:
Jarelle Dampier, director.
Jarelle Dampier is a director and story artist at Sony Pictures Animation. Dampier started his entertainment career in television as a story artist on various Justice League animated shows, Skybound’s Invincible, Marvel’s What If…? and Marvel’s Spider-Man before moving on to feature animation boards. After teaming up with Sony to direct for the LENS program, Dampier went on to serve as a story artist for the highly-anticipated sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and is currently working on an unannounced feature at Sony Pictures Animation.
Khaila Amazan, writer.
Khaila Amazan is a writer at Sony Pictures Animation. Prior to starting in the LENS program, Amazan began her entertainment career as a story trainee in the creative development department at Columbia Pictures, followed by executive assistant positions at the development departments of Walt Disney Studios and Netflix’s Original Independent Films group. Amazan’s TV writing credits include Netflix’s Freeridge and Blumhouse x Amazon Studios’ upcoming series The Horror of Dolores Roach. On the film side, Amazan wrote ACE Entertainment’s A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea & Tomorrow and co-wrote Stampede Ventures’ K-POPS! with Anderson .Paak.
Clara Chan, VFX supervisor.
Clara Chan is a visual effects Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks with over two decades of industry experience. In 2001, Chan joined Imageworks as a technical director in the lighting department. Her credits include the upcoming animated feature Spider-Man: Across the Spider- Verse, the Academy Award-nominated Over the Moon, first three Hotel Transylvania films, Storks, The Emoji Movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, Cats & Dogs 2, G-Force, Beowulf, the Academy Award-nominated Monster House, The Polar Express and Stuart Little 2. Earlier in her career, Chan worked as a software engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. Chan earned a B.S. in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s degree in visualization sciences from Texas A&M University. In her spare time, Chan is also directing and producing an animated short film, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Joe Darko, animation supervisor.
Joe Darko was a senior animator at Sony Pictures Imageworks, most recently completing work on the highly anticipated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Darko joined Imageworks in 2017 and his credits include the Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; the Academy Award-nominated The Sea Beast, for which he served as animation lead; The Mitchells vs. The Machines; Smallfoot; The Angry Birds Movie 2 and Vivo. Darko’s earlier credits include Thor: Ragnarok, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and The Son of Bigfoot. Darko attended Bournemouth University in the south of England and graduated with a degree in Computer Animation.
The team shared a joint statement on the program’s announcement:
“The LENS Program was life-changing for all of us — it allowed us to achieve a goal that we felt was very far away. Seeing diverse representation in leadership roles really makes a difference because it shows the next generation of filmmakers that the barriers are being broken down. Animation is the most collaborative art form there is, and it takes a special place to open its doors and foster creatives who have the potential to tell great stories, but haven’t been given their chance to shine. We are so grateful for this experience and the opportunity to create something meaningful, and we can’t wait to share it with the world.”
Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks will soon be gearing up for the program’s second round, in which participants will collaborate to create a short within the world of the studio’s upcoming animated feature, K-Pop: Demon Hunters.
