Barry Kooser

Last updated

Barry R. Kooser
Barry Kooser.png
Born (1968-12-23) December 23, 1968 (age 55)
Alma mater Kansas City Art Institute
Occupation(s)Animator
Background artist, Disney
Painter, Kooser Gallery
Many Hoops Productions, Inc.
Website https://www.kooserstudios.com/

Barry R. Kooser is an American artist, painter, and educator who worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios between 1992 and 2003 as a background artist on films such as The Lion King , Pocahontas , Mulan , Lilo & Stitch , and as background supervisor on Brother Bear . After leaving Disney, he worked independently as a painter exhibiting and selling fine art in galleries around the US. While teaching animation and story-boarding at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, he met Worker Studio founder Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot, and became a partner at the Colorado animation studio. Barry has since left Worker Studio. He is the Founder, Executive Producer and Director at Many Hoops Productions. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Kooser grew up in the neighboring city of Arvada, where he graduated from Arvada West High School in 1987. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Kansas City Art Institute in 1991. After a summer internship at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios in Orlando, Florida, Kooser was hired at the studio as a background artist.[ citation needed ]

Influences

Early artistic influences include: Illustrators Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Dean Cornwell and Mark English. Fine Art Painting influences include: Edgar Payne, Joaquin Sorolla, John Singer Sargent and Richard Diebenkorn. Noting his film influences in an article, Kooser selected 5 production designs that continue to inspire him creatively. The selections include Disney's Lady and the Tramp , Tyrus Wong's work on Bambi , Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson's work on Road to Perdition , Ralph McQuarrie's work on Star Wars , and Dean Mitzner's work on Tron . [3]

Disney years

Kooser's first film at Disney Animation Studios was as an in between artist on the Roger Rabbit animated short, Trail Mix-Up in 1993. He continued to work as a background artist on projects at Disney's Orland, Florida Studio, including the features The Lion King , Pocahontas , Mulan , and Lilo & Stitch .

In 2001, as background supervisor on Brother Bear , Kooser and his team traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and studied with Western landscape painter Scott Christensen, where they learned to: "simplify objects by getting the spatial dimensions to work first and working in the detail later." [4]

Filmography

YearFilmCreditNotes
1993 Trail Mix-Up In-between artistShort film
1994 The Lion King Background artist
1994 Disney's Animated Storybook: The Lion King Background artistVideo game
1995 Pocahontas Background artist
1998 Mulan Background artist
2002 Lilo & Stitch Background journeyman
2003 Brother Bear Background supervisor
2009 Princess and the Frog Background artist

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Mulan</i> (1998 film) Animated film directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft

Mulan is a 1998 American animated musical coming-of-age fantasy-comedy-action-adventure drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation for Walt Disney Pictures. Based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, the film was directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft and produced by Pam Coats, from a screenplay by Rita Hsiao, Chris Sanders, Philip LaZebnik, and the writing team of Raymond Singer and Eugenia Bostwick-Singer, and a story by Robert D. San Souci. Ming-Na Wen, Eddie Murphy, Miguel Ferrer, and BD Wong star in the English version as Mulan, Mushu, Shan Yu, and Captain Li Shang, respectively, while Jackie Chan provided the voice of Li Shang for the Chinese dubs of the film. The film's plot takes place in China during an unspecified Imperial dynasty, where Fa Mulan, daughter of aged warrior Fa Zhou, impersonates a man to take her father's place during a general conscription to counter a Hun invasion.

<i>Lilo & Stitch</i> 2002 American animated science fiction comedy-drama film

Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 American animated science fiction comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was written and directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois and produced by Clark Spencer, based on an original story created by Sanders. It features Daveigh Chase and Sanders as the voices of the title characters and also features the voices of Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Jason Scott Lee, and Kevin Michael Richardson. It was the second of three Disney animated feature films produced primarily at the Florida animation studio in Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Sanders</span> American filmmaker and animator (born 1962)

Christopher Michael Sanders is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. His credits include Lilo & Stitch (2002) and How to Train Your Dragon (2010), both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with Dean DeBlois, The Croods (2013) with Kirk DeMicco, and The Call of the Wild (2020). He is also known for creating the story behind Lilo & Stitch and for creating and voicing its latter title character in the film and its franchise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dean DeBlois</span> Canadian filmmaker (born 1970)

Dean Allan DeBlois is a Canadian filmmaker and animator. He is best known for writing and directing the Oscar-nominated animated feature films Lilo & Stitch for Walt Disney Animation Studios, the How to Train Your Dragon film trilogy for DreamWorks Animation, and directing the documentary Heima about the Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

Ruben Azama Aquino is an American Disney animator who formerly worked at Walt Disney Animation Studios, his work has included the several Disney characters, including Maurice in Beauty and the Beast, Simba as an Adult in The Lion King, Chief Powhatan in Pocahontas, Li Shang and Fa Li in Mulan, Pleakly and David Kawena in Lilo & Stitch, Denahi in Brother Bear, Mildred and Mr. Willerstein in Meet the Robinsons and Eudora and James in The Princess and the Frog. His style is easily recognized by his powerful figures and his extremely geometric facial movements.

A background artist or sometimes called a background stylist or background painter is one who is involved in the process of animation who establishes the color, style, and mood of a scene drawn by an animation layout artist. The methods used can either be through traditional painting or by digital media such as Adobe Photoshop. Traditional methods involved painting entire production scenes for a television program or film. Current methods may involve painting primarily background keys or the establishing shot while production background artists paint the corresponding background paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorgen Klubien</span> Danish animator, storyboard artist, and writer

Jorgen Klubien is a Danish animator, storyboard artist, writer and musician. He has worked on Disney films, including The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), The Lion King (1994), A Bug's Life (1998), Cars (2006) and Frankenweenie (2012).

Armand Serrano Armand is a Filipino American visual development artist who is known for his works in animated feature film studios such as Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, and Skydance Animation. He has been in the animation industry for more than three decades. Armand is currently working as a production designer and art director. He is also known as a lecturer in the field of animation and design and conducts workshops and demos internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disney Renaissance</span> Period of Disney animated films, 1989–1999

The Disney Renaissance was a period from 1989 to 1999 during which Walt Disney Feature Animation returned to producing critically and commercially successful animated films. These were mostly musical adaptations of well-known stories, similar to the films produced during the era of Walt Disney from the 1930s to 1960s. The resurgence allowed Disney's animated films to become a powerhouse of successes at the domestic and foreign box office, earning much greater profits than most of the Disney films of previous eras.

Mark Alan Henn is an American animator and film director. His work includes animated characters for Walt Disney Animation Studios films, most notably leading or titular characters and heroines. He served as the lead animator for Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), Belle in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Jasmine in Aladdin (1992), young Simba in The Lion King (1994), the title character in Mulan (1998), and Tiana in The Princess and the Frog (2009). He directed the short film John Henry (2000). Henn spent a total of 43 years at Walt Disney Animation Studios, from 1980 until his retirement in 2023.

William Silvers is an American painter and illustrator, best known for his work in the field of wildlife art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pres Romanillos</span> American animator

Priscillano "Pres" Antonio Romanillos was an American animator with DreamWorks and Walt Disney. His work included animated characters such as the Native American Little Creek in DreamWorks' Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Pocahontas, and the villainous Hun Shan-Yu in Disney's Mulan.

Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot is a director, animator and has held a variety of roles as a visual effects artist in major Hollywood films. Since 1996, Hemschoot has worked on films such as Mars Attacks!, What Dreams May Come, The Matrix, Hollow Man, Black Hawk Down, Minority Report and National Treasure.

Michael Disa is an American film director, screenwriter, and animator. He began working as an animator at Disney in the mid-1990s, where he was involved with several films up until the late-2000s. During this time, he also worked on non-Disney animated films, including Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and Barnyard. He made his directorial debut with The Origin of Stitch, Disney's 2005 direct-to-DVD short sequel to Lilo & Stitch. At one point he was attached to direct an animated prequel to Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but he dropped out due to creative differences, and the project was cancelled. After growing disillusioned with Disney, Disa left the studio to become an independent filmmaker. His first feature film, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil was released in 2011. Disa followed this with Postman Pat: The Movie, which was released in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worker Studio</span> American animation studio

Worker Studio is an American animation and visual effects company based in Centennial, Colorado, founded in 2009 by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot. The company has provided visual effects for a number of short films including Angela Bettis' segment E is for Exterminate in the horror anthology film The ABCs of Death. In 2013, the studio began developing an animated adaptation of Phil Hartman's comedy album, Phil Hartman's Flat TV, which was posthumously released in 2002 after he performed and recorded it in 1978. The studio is also the production company behind the animated documentary John Ross: American, based on the life of World War II pilot John H. Ross.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Lawrence Finney</span> American animator and painter

Christine Lawrence Finney was an American animator and painter.

Pam Coats is an American film producer. In 1999, she became the senior vice president of creative development, the highest-ranking woman at Walt Disney Animation Studios, a position she held until 2004.

Aaron Blaise is an American painter, animator, film director and art instructor. He is known for his work on Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and Brother Bear (2003). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Brother Bear with Robert Walker.

Wonderful World of Animation is a nighttime show at Disney's Hollywood Studios. The show is a celebration of all Disney animation, beginning with Mickey Mouse. It premiered on May 1, 2019, as part of the park's 30th anniversary celebration, replacing Disney Movie Magic.

Wondrous Journeys was a projection mapping and fireworks show at Disneyland that debuted on January 27, 2023. It premiered alongside World of Color: One as part of the Disney 100 Years of Wonder celebration to commemorate the centennial of The Walt Disney Company. The show contains a large assortment of songs and characters from the entirety of the Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film canon.

References

  1. Gangelhoff, Bonnie (March 16, 2012). "Emerging Artists | Barry Kooser". F+W Media, Inc. Retrieved June 20, 2013.
  2. Porter, Steve (May 9, 2013). "Worker Studio makes moving messages to help companies tell their stories". InnovatioNews. Retrieved June 20, 2013.
  3. Cangialosi, Jason. "Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Designs". Yahoo!. Archived from the original on February 3, 2014. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  4. Dercksen, Daniel E. "nature calls: creating a naturalistic look". Daniel E. Dercksen/ The Writing Studio/ The Write Agency. Archived from the original on November 8, 2007. Retrieved June 20, 2013.