Industry professional: Brad Bird
Brad Bird is a director, producer, screenwriter, actor and initially an animator, he has worked on movies such as Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille and has directed and acted as the creative consultant on shows like the Simpsons.
Bird was first inspired to become an animator after a tour at Walt Disney studios tour when he was 11 after that he dedicated his life to animation with the goal of becoming part of the Disney animation team, eventually he made his 15 minute short film which impressed the Disney staff. At the age of 14 he was taken and mentored by Milt Kahl (one of Disney’s nine old men) who helped Bird and critiqued his work and showed him how to improve.
Upon graduating Cal-arts Bird began a shot career with Disney where he helped make the movie ‘The Fox and the Hound and leaving shortly after that when he went on to television and worked as a writer, director and co producer on episodes of Family Dog and then co- wrote the screenplay for the film Batteries not included, with this success he continued to work in TV and joined shows like the Simpsons, Rugrats, The Critic and King of the Hill.
Eventually he pitched his idea for an animated movie (The Iron Giant).
Due to Iron Giants moderate box office success attracted the attention of his college friend and fonder of Pixar John Lasseter and together created the award winning movies The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
Brad bird has then gone on as a director and writer and has recently co-written the film Tomorrowland.
(This information was gathered and paraphrased from Wikipedia and Imdb)
As Bird progressed in his career he became a director, which meant taking on a bigger and harder role in the making of a film he said being a director is like “getting hit from a million different angles with a barrage of questions” his role as a director means he has to give to explain his vision of the movie to every department in the studio, “Everyone wants the answers at the same time and I must give everything equal weight.” As a director everyone looks to you to know what to do and if they it was done correctly, “Everyone wants to do their job and you and you want them to do their job as best as possible.” The Directing role of a movie is a very high-pressure job especially when it comes the reviewing process where they could make the decisions on where scenes need to be re-done or cut are long hours of work, “ Everyone just want you to say approved and you know it not what you wanted it to be in the bigger picture and they all hate you at that moment” the director must fight for what they envisioned the movie to look and feel, “part of your role is to disappoint people for the right reasons.”
(This information was collected and quoted from Pixar Talk – Director)
Mo's amazing blog 