LOS ANGELES — Chicago visual artist Hebru Brantley had already made a name for himself with in-demand works around original characters including Flyboy and Lil Mama, collected by art lovers around the world, when last year he jumped at the chance to expand his comics-, anime- and pop culture-inspired storytelling into film.
Impressed by the success of Stefon Bristol's Independent Spirit Award-winning debut sci-fi feature "See You Yesterday," Netflix was quietly combing its networks to build a first-of-its-kind genre accelerator film program with directors similarly ready to make their first move into studio filmmaking.
So Brantley pitched three ideas, the last of which he'd originally intended to make on his own with his daughter using puppets — "something to do during the pandemic," as he describes it. Soon he was working with Jim Henson's Creature Shop directing an original fantasy adventure inspired by a spooky encounter he'd had in his backyard.
