As though it weren't enough that Pixar's feature films are absolutely incredible, the company regularly puts out shorts that are just as good. Be it Burn-E, Partly Cloudy, Day & Night or One Man Band, it's rare that the company ever misses. One of my favorite shorts from over the years, however, has been Doug Sweetland's Presto. Featuring a hungry bunny and Looney Tunes-inspired hilarity, I can watch it repeatedly and never grow tired of it (consequently, I was also up-in-arms when it lost during the Oscars in 2009). Now, Sweetland is heading up to the big leagues.

THR reports that Sweetland will direct an adaptation of Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson's children's book The Familiars for Sony Pictures Animation. Sweetland worked at Pixar for sixteen years and worked on every feature film from Toy Story in 1995 to Cars in 2006. The book is about three young wizards who are captured by an evil witch and rely on their "familiars" (a.k.a. pets) to save them, namely an an alley cat, a blue jay and a tree frog.

While it's too bad that Sweetland won't be making the film for the company that trained him, I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do with a feature. For those unfamiliar (no pun intended) with Presto, I've posted the short below. Watch it and explain to me why Sweetland isn't an animation director we should be looking out for.