The Coat

At its core, this is a story about a lonely boy named Gus who really, really, really wants a dog. His grandmother's house is blanketed in "no dog" signs and crocheted anti-dog décor, so Gus is stuck watching the neighborhood dogs go by through a pair of binoculars — until he discovers something stranger: his grandmother's coat, curled up on the couch, is breathing. It has a tail. It wags. Gus rigs up a leash from a scarf and takes it for a walk, and chaos, tenderness, and a running squirrel gag ensue.

Once greenlit, Carolyn wrote and directed the short, leading a team of 17 Pixar artists through a 10-week production — heading up story development and the world's visual design, and generating shots herself alongside the team. The stop-motion style was a deliberate choice, made to lean into what AI could feasibly deliver at the highest visual quality.

Pixar production materials can't be shared publicly — what follows is early pitch artwork and the method proposed before production began.