June 5 - Stephen J. Anderson

Image courtesy wikipedia.com

On this day, in 1970, Stephen John Anderson was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Stephen, like so many others in the animation industry, studied character animation at the CalArts School of Film and Video. When he graduated in 1991, he went to work for Hyperion Animation Company. Hyperion was founded by Thomas L. Wilhite, a former head of production at Disney, and is best known for the Brave Little Toaster series. Stephen was an animator on Rover Dangerfield (basically a vanity project written, produced and starring Rodney Dangerfield) and Bebe’s Kids (a box office flop based on the standup of the late Robin Harris). He was also able to cut his directing teeth at Hyperion on the USA Network series The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

In 1999, Stephen became part of the Walt Disney Company as a story artist on Tarzan. A story artist is not to be confused with a storyboard artist who is responsible for drawing the series of sketches that show what a scene might look like as the film develops. A story artist is a screenwriter who makes contributions to the script but not enough to share in a screenplay by or story by credit. By the very next year, Stephen had moved up to the Story Supervisor position for The Emperor’s New Groove. He then continued in that role for 2003’s Brother Bear.

Image copyright Disney

In 2007, Stephen got to step up to the plate and take another swing at directing for Disney's 47th animated feature, Meet the Robinsons. As has become de rigueur, he also provided the voices for several of the film's characters including the villain, Bowler Hat Guy, Grandpa Bud and Cousin Tallulah.  The film garnered mostly positive reviews, but failed to take in much more than its $159 million budget. Personally I think it's one of the vastly underrated Disney films of the modern era.

Image copyright Disney

Stephen followed Robinsons up by providing additional voices for Bolt and as an animator and additional story man on Tangled. He was tapped for a co-director, with Don Hall, for the 2011 Winnie the Pooh feature. The newest adventure in the Hundred Acre Wood was a critical success but not particularly a financial one. It wasn't a flop by any means, making $50 million on a $30 million budget, but opening the same weekend as the final Harry Potter movie didn't do it any favors. Stephen then added additional story elements to the juggernaut known as Frozen as well as voicing Kai, Anna and Elsa's loyal steward. His last feature credit was as an additional story artist on Zootopia. He is reportedly working on a new project as director, but there is no word on what that film might be. What ever it is, we look forward to seeing it and hope it becomes the box office success that Stephen deserves.

December 26 - Byron Howard

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On this day, in 1968, Byron P. Howard was born in Misawa, Japan. Byron grew up in Issaquah, Washington, a small city about 15 miles east of Seattle. He graduated from Issaquah High School in 1986 and moved on to Evergreen College in Olympia. His dream had always been to be an animator for Disney and to help achieve that dream he wrote Frank Thomas, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, for advice. The letter he got back was treated like a roadmap to success and it clearly worked (or I wouldn’t be talking about him today).

To help speed up his goals, Byron moved to Orlando, Florida after his college graduation and began submitting his portfolio in an effort to get hired. While he was waiting to check that box, he figured why not and took a job at the Disney-MGM Studios as a guide on the animation tour. In 1994, after four submissions, Byron was selected to be a part of the internship program. He began as an inbetweener on Pocahontas. He then became a full-fledged animator for Mulan and by Lilo and Stitch, a mere five years after being hired, he was the supervising animator for the character of Cobra Bubbles. He continued that role with Brother Bear as supervisor for Kenai. After the release of Brother Bear (and the collapse of the Florida animation department), Byron relocated to Southern California and enjoyed another promotion.

Image copyright Disney

In 2008, Byron co-directed Disney’s 48^th animated feature, Bolt, with Chris Williams. Bolt was only moderately successful at the box office but signaled a turnaround in Disney’s commitment to story and quality in its animated offerings. Byron and Chris’ efforts earned them an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature (they would lose to Disney’s other feature that year, WALL*E). Byron followed his freshman picture with the even more successful Tangled. He co-directed the Rapunzel tale with Nathan Greno (and it strangely did not get nominated for the Oscar).
 
As they sometimes say, the third time’s the charm. In 2016, Byron teamed up with Rich Moore to direct the mega-hit Zootopia. This time out, Byron’s work became the fourth animated film to rack up over $1 Billion in worldwide box office receipts (which still only made it the fourth highest grossing film of the year) and put several little golden statues on his mantle including an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Critic’s Choice Award and an Annie. As a follow up to Zootopia, Byron is reportedly working on a new story with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who we all now know as Jack from Mary Poppins Returns (I think he also did some sort of historical piece on Broadway).