Ellen Woodbury (born August 10, 1962) is an American stone sculptor, former Disney directing animator and character animator who worked at Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Woodbury grew up in Corning, New York, and she earned a BFA in Film and Art from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. [1] [2] She attended the Experimental Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts under the mentorship of Jules Engel.
Woodbury worked for over 20 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation [1] where she worked as an animator on films like The Little Mermaid , Beauty and the Beast , Aladdin, and The Lion King, where she supervised the creation of the hornbill Zazu. [2] [3] [4] She was Disney's first female directing animator. [5]
She moved to Loveland, Colorado in 2005 to become a full-time sculptor. [6] She taught Character Animation at the Art Institute of Colorado from 2010 to 2014, and ran a character animation workshop along with her class each week. In 2019, the National Sculpture Society presented Woodbury with the 2019 Marilyn Newmark Memorial Grant. [6]
Year [3] | Title | Credits | Characters |
---|---|---|---|
1983 | The Christmas Tree Train (TV Movie short) | Assistant Animator | |
1985 | He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword | Animator | |
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (TV Series) | Animator - 32 Episodes | ||
She-Ra: Princess of Power (TV Series) | Animator - 65 Episodes | ||
He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special (TV Movie short) | Animator | ||
1986 | The Great Mouse Detective | Assistant Animator | |
1987 | Sport Goofy in Soccermania (TV short) | Additional Animator | |
1988 | Oliver & Company | Animating Assistant | |
1989 | The Little Mermaid | Character Animator | |
1990 | The Rescuers Down Under | Character Animator | |
1991 | Beauty and the Beast | Animator | Maurice |
1992 | Aladdin | Animator | Abu |
1994 | The Lion King | Supervising Animator | Zazu |
1995 | Pocahontas | Additional Animator | |
1996 | The Hunchback of Notre Dame | Additional Animator | |
1997 | Hercules | Supervising Animator | Pegasus |
1999 | Tarzan | Additional Animator | |
2000 | Fantasia 2000 | Animator - Segment " Rhapsody in Blue " | |
2002 | Treasure Planet | Supervising Animator | Captain Long John Silver's Pirate Crew |
2004 | Home on the Range | Animator | Mrs. Caloway |
2005 | The Zit (Short) | Animator | |
Chicken Little | Animator | ||
2006 | Independent Lens (TV Series documentary) | Animator - 1 Episode | |
2007 | Meet the Robinsons | Animator | [7] |
The Lion King is a 1994 American animated musical coming-of-age drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff and produced by Don Hahn, from a screenplay written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. The film features an ensemble voice cast that includes Matthew Broderick, Moira Kelly, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Rowan Atkinson, and Robert Guillaume. Its original songs were written by composer Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice, with a score by Hans Zimmer. Inspired by African wildlife, the story is modelled primarily on William Shakespeare's stage play Hamlet with some influence from the Biblical stories of Joseph and Moses, and follows a young heir apparent who is forced to flee after his uncle kills his father and usurps the throne. After growing up in exile, the rightful king returns to challenge the usurper and end his tyrannical rule over the kingdom.
The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa is an American animated buddy comedy television series created by Walt Disney Television Animation. It was based on Disney's 1994 animated feature film The Lion King, centering on Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog as they continue to live by their problem-free philosophy hakuna matata. Compared to most other The Lion King media, the tone of the series is more slapstick comedy-oriented.
Franklin Rosborough Thomas was an American animator and pianist. He was one of Walt Disney's leading team of animators known as the Nine Old Men.
Marc Fraser Davis was a prominent American artist and animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, the famed core animators of Disney animated films, and was revered for his knowledge and understanding of visual aesthetics. After his work on One Hundred and One Dalmatians he moved to Walt Disney Imagineering to work on rides for Disneyland and Walt Disney World before retiring in 1978.
Andreas Deja is a Polish-born German-American character animator most noted for his work at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Deja's work includes serving as supervising animator on characters in several Disney animated films, including the Disney villains Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, Jafar in Aladdin, and Scar in The Lion King, the titular character in Hercules, and Lilo Pelekai in Lilo & Stitch.
Robert Ralph Minkoff is an American director, animator, and producer. He is best known for co-directing The Lion King, and live-action films including Stuart Little (1999), Stuart Little 2 (2002), The Haunted Mansion (2003), and The Forbidden Kingdom (2008). In recent decades, he returned to feature animation with Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) and Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022). His wife, Crystal Kung Minkoff, was a cast member on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Roger Allers is an American film director, screenwriter, animator, storyboard artist, and playwright. He is best known for co-directing Disney's The Lion King (1994), the highest-grossing traditionally animated film of all time, and for writing the Broadway adaptation of the same name. He also directed Sony Pictures Animation's first feature-length animated film, Open Season (2006) and the animated adaptation of The Prophet.
Donald Paul Hahn is an American film producer who is credited with producing some of the most successful animated films in recent history, including Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.
Russell H. "Russ" Edmonds is an American Disney animator who has worked as a character animator, an animator, a supervising animator, a lead animator and a final line animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He worked on several Disney feature films, including Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Home on the Range, The Princess and the Frog, and Winnie the Pooh. He studied at the Program in Character Animation at the California Institute of the Arts. Along with his wife, Angela, Edmonds owns and directs the Edmonds Studios, an independent animation production studio in Red Bluff, California.
Randy Cartwright is an American animator.
Ralph Eggleston was an American animator, art director, storyboard artist, and production designer at Pixar Animation Studios. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for For the Birds.
Rubén Procopio is an American animation and comic book artist, animator and sculptor. Long affiliated with Walt Disney Feature Animation as an animator and sculptor, Rubén is credited with restoring the maquette process to feature animation film production in the early 1980s. He is the founder of Masked Avenger Studios, whose clients include Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network, Electric Tiki and DC Comics. He is known for his versatile sculpting and illustration style in both cartoony and realistic characters, with an emphasis on Disney characters, superheroes, and the masked heroes of yesteryear.
The Magic of Disney Animation was a show and tour located at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. A Disney animator would show guests how the characters in Disney animated films were chosen and designed. The attraction closed permanently on July 12, 2015. In December 2015, the building began to be used to house the Star Wars Launch Bay.
Burnett Mattinson was an American animator, director, producer, and story artist for Walt Disney Animation Studios, where he was employed from 1953 until his death in 2023.
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.
The Lion King is a Disney media franchise comprising a film series and additional media. The success of animated original 1994 American feature film, The Lion King, directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, led to a direct-to-video sequel and prequel, a live-action remake in 2019, a television film sequel, two spin-off television series, three educational shorts, several video games, merchandise, and the third-longest-running musical in Broadway history, which garnered six Tony Awards including Best Musical. The franchise is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The franchise as a whole has EGOT-ed, meaning it has won the four biggest awards of American show business.
Tom Sito is an American animator, animation historian and teacher. He is currently a Professor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts in the Animation Division. In 1998, Sito was included by Animation Magazine in their list of the One Hundred Most Important People in Animation.
Kathy Zielinski is an American character animator. She was recruited by Walt Disney Animation in 1981 after finishing her time in the Cal Arts animation program. Her beginnings at Disney started with working on Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Black Cauldron. After working on a series of other projects, including Ursula in The Little Mermaid, she progressed into the role of animation supervisor, working on Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Kent Melton was an American animation sculptor. He created sculptures and reference maquettes for The Walt Disney Company, Hanna-Barbera, and Warner Brothers.