Jill Culton | |
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 Culton in 2010 | |
| Alma mater | California Institute of the Arts |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1993–present |
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| Notable work | Monsters Inc Open Season Abominable |
Jill Culton is an American animator, storyboard artist, director, and screenwriter. With her directorial debut on Sony's first animated film, Open Season , she became the first female principal director of a big budget, computer-generated feature. [1]
Previously, she studied at the Character Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts, where she later taught animation.
She was also a storyboard artist for various Pixar films such as Toy Story , Toy Story 2 , A Bug's Life and also co-wrote the original treatment for Monsters, Inc. , and continued to become the Head of Development.
She animated on Toy Story and served as a Directing Animator at Turner Features for the film Cats Don't Dance .
Along with Anthony Stacchi, she helped to develop Curious George while working at Industrial Light & Magic. [2] [3]
In 2003, Culton joined Sony Pictures Animation, which launched a year before to produce CG animated films. [4] During her years at Sony, Culton, along with directing Open Season and executive producing Open Season 2 , also developed Hotel Transylvania .
As of 2010, Culton was at DreamWorks Animation. [5] For some time, she was writing and directing an animated film (now titled Abominable ) about a little girl and a Yeti, tentatively titled Everest, [6] [7] but by 2016, she had left the project. [8] However, in 2018, she came back to the project to write and direct once again. [9]
In June 2024, it was announced that Culton would serve as the co-director of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation's adaptation of Oh, the Places You'll Go! . [10]
Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn, Mary Gibbs, and Jennifer Tilly, the film was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and produced by Darla K. Anderson, from a screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Daniel Gerson. The film centers on two monsters, the hairy James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (Goodman) and his one-eyed partner and best friend Mike Wazowski (Crystal), who are employed at the titular energy-producing factory Monsters, Inc., which generates power by scaring human children. However, the monster world believes that the children are toxic, and when a little human girl, Boo (Gibbs), sneaks into the factory, she must be returned home before it is too late.
Conrad Vernon is an American voice actor, director, writer, and storyboard artist best known for his work on the DreamWorks animated film series Shrek as well as other films such as Monsters vs. Aliens, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, and Penguins of Madagascar. He also co-directed non-DreamWorks animated films such as Sony Pictures' Sausage Party and MGM’s The Addams Family.
DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA) (also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios or simply DreamWorks) is an American animation studio owned by Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The studio has released a total of 48 feature films, including several of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, with Shrek 2 (2004) having been the highest at the time of its release. Its first film, Antz, was released on October 2, 1998, and its latest film, Kung Fu Panda 4, was released on March 8, 2024. They have an upcoming theatrical slate of films, which includes The Wild Robot on September 27, 2024, Dog Man on January 31, 2025, The Bad Guys 2 on August 1, 2025, and Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie on September 26, 2025.
Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. The studio is based in Culver City, California. Most of the studio's films are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label, while direct-to-video releases are released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
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.
Kelly Adam Asbury was an American film director, writer, voice actor, and illustrator. He was best known for directing animated films, including Shrek 2, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Gnomeo & Juliet, Smurfs: The Lost Village, and UglyDolls.
Cody William Cameron is an American voice actor, film director and storyboard artist best known for directing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. He voiced many animated characters, including Pinocchio and the Three Little Pigs in the Shrek series and Mr. Weenie in the Open Season franchise.
Open Season is a 2006 American animated adventure comedy film directed by Roger Allers and Jill Culton and co-directed by Anthony Stacchi, from a screenplay by Nat Mauldin and the writing team of Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman, and a screen story by Culton and Stacchi, based on an original idea by Steve Moore and John B. Carls. Produced by Sony Pictures Animation and Columbia Pictures, the film features an ensemble voice cast starring Martin Lawrence, Ashton Kutcher, Gary Sinise, and Debra Messing. Its plot follows Boog, a domesticated grizzly bear, who is let go into the woods, and teams up with a one-antlered mule deer named Elliot to return back to his old home before open season starts.
Eric Darnell is an American animator, storyboard artist, director, screenwriter, songwriter and occasional voice actor best known for co-directing Antz with Tim Johnson, as well as co-directing and co-writing Madagascar, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted with Tom McGrath, as well as the spin off Penguins of Madagascar (2014) with Simon J. Smith.
Peter A. Ramsey is an American illustrator, storyboard artist, and filmmaker. He is best known for directing DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians (2012), becoming the first African American to direct a major American animated film, and co-directing Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). For Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, he became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
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).
Victoria Jenson is an American film director of both live-action and animated films. She has directed projects for DreamWorks Animation, including Shrek, the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, giving rise to one of Hollywood's largest film franchises.
Doug Sweetland is an American animator and filmmaker. He wrote and directed the Pixar short film Presto (2008), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Walter Dohrn is an American writer, director, animator, musician, and actor. He performed the voice of Rumpelstiltskin in Shrek Forever After, as well as various characters in Shrek the Third. Dohrn has also worked as writer, director, and storyboard director in Season 2 of SpongeBob SquarePants, and he also worked on 2 episodes from Season 3. He co-directed the film Trolls and directed its sequels, and voiced various characters in the franchise. In 2020, Dohrn signed a deal with DreamWorks Animation.
Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi are twin French artists, painters, illustrators, animators, and film directors.
Alessandro Carloni is an Italian film director, writer, animator, and art director, best known for his work with DreamWorks Animation in general, particularly the Kung Fu Panda films. He co-directed Kung Fu Panda 3, alongside Jennifer Yuh Nelson.
Fergal Reilly is an Irish film director, storyboard artist, voice actor and animator best known for directing the animated film The Angry Birds Movie.
Abominable is a 2019 animated adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation, Pearl Studio, and Zhong Ming You Ying Film. Written and directed by Jill Culton and co-directed by Todd Wilderman, the film stars the voices of Chloe Bennet, Albert Tsai, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Paulson, and Tsai Chin. The film follows a teenage girl named Yi (Bennet) who encounters a young Yeti on the roof of her apartment building in Shanghai, names him Everest and embarks on an epic quest to reunite the magical creature with his family at the highest point on Earth along with her mischievous friends Jin (Trainor) and Peng (Tsai), but the trio of friends will have to stay one-step ahead of Burnish (Izzard), a wealthy man intent on capturing a Yeti, and zoologist Dr. Zara (Paulson) to help Everest get home.
The Yeti is an ape-like creature purported to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range in Asia. In Western popular culture, the creature is commonly referred to as the Abominable Snowman. It has regularly been depicted in popular culture of the region as well as in films, literature, music, video games pertaining to the region.
Later, Universal -- concerned about a budget that topped $100 million -- scrapped plans to enlist ILM in making an animated adaptation of the children's classic "Curious George."
We have a project tentatively titled Everest, but that's a temp title. It's about a little girl and a Yeti, and the writer-director is Jill Culton.
Culton, who made her directorial debut with Sony's Open Season, is currently writing and directing a film about a young girl and a Yeti for DWA with the working title Everest.
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