Now Streaming in Austin: "Pigeon: Impossible"

It's been a big few weeks for Lucas Martell. First, he and his wife Christina Martell welcomed their new son. Then the husband-and-wife duo behind Austin-based animation studio Mighty Coconut got to see the star-studded Hollywood remake of one of Lucas' shorts make it to the big screen with the release of Spies in Disguise.

The movie opened on Christmas Day, yet the high-budget Fox Animation feature – starring Will Smith as a secret agent who gets turned into a pigeon by a bumbling but enthusiastic scientist (voiced by current Spider-Man Tom Holland) – started as a much humbler homemade project. Martell spent six years animating the six-and-a-half-minute CG short about a spy who finds himself outwitted by a bird when a pigeon gets trapped inside his superspy briefcase. The story may be set in Washington, D.C. (as all good spy films should be), but eagle-eyed Ausinites will undoubtedly recognize that this particular bit of intelligence action looks suspiciously like it's located at the corner of Sixth and Brazos, which Martell used as the architectural model for the building in the short. For anyone else, who knew you could have that great a view of the Washington Monument from the Driskill?

Read more about Mighty Coconut in our studio profile, “Cracking the Mighty Coconut,” July 22, 2016.