SparkShorts is a series of American independent animated short films produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The program consists of giving employees at Pixar six months and a limited budget to develop indie short films. The first short, Purl, was released at SIGGRAPH on August 14, 2018, while the next two shorts, Smash and Grab and Kitbull, were both given a limited release at the El Capitan Theater on January 8, 2019, alongside the former. The SparkShort program was developed in order to find new filmmakers at Pixar.