Modern animation in the United States from 1987 to 2004 is referred to as the renaissance age or Silver Age of American animation. During this period, many large American entertainment companies reformed and reinvigorated their animation departments, following a dark age during the 1970s to mid 1980s. During this time the United States had a profound effect on global or worldwide animation.
Jeffrey Katzenberg is an American film producer and media proprietor. He became well known for his tenure as chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994. After departing Disney, he was a co-founder and CEO of DreamWorks Animation, where he oversaw the production of such animated franchises as Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon. He has since founded a new media and technology company called WndrCo and was the founder of Quibi, a defunct short-form mobile video platform which lost $1.35 billion in seven months.
Donald Virgil Bluth is an American filmmaker and animator. He is best known for directing the animated films The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), Anastasia (1997), and Titan A.E. (2000), for his involvement in the LaserDisc game Dragon's Lair (1983), and for competing with former employer Walt Disney Productions during the years leading up to the films that became the Disney Renaissance. He is the older brother of illustrator Toby Bluth.
Phillip Bradley Bird is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He has had a career spanning forty years in both animation and live-action.
Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company. The studio's current production logo features a scene from its first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928). Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy O. Disney, it is the oldest-running animation studio in the world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. Since its foundation, the studio has produced 62 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Wish (2023), and hundreds of short films.
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 division of Comcast. The studio has released a total of 47 feature films as of November 2023, 45 of which were theatrically released. Their catalogue includes several of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, with Shrek 2 (2004) having been the highest at the time of its release. The studio's first film, Antz, was released on October 2, 1998, and its latest film was Trolls Band Together on November 17, 2023; their upcoming slate of films includes the Netflix original film Orion and the Dark on February 2, 2024 and the theatrical film Kung Fu Panda 4 on March 8, 2024. Additionally, DreamWorks has reserved four release dates for animated films: September 20, 2024, January 31, 2025, August 1, 2025, and September 26, 2025.
Fox Animation Studios was an American animation production company owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Phoenix, Arizona. After six years of operation, the studio was shut down on June 26, 2000, ten days after the release of its final film, Titan A.E.. Most of the Fox Animation Studios library was acquired by Disney in March 2019. Anastasia is the studio's most critically praised and commercially successful film, as well as the most commercially successful film by Don Bluth.
Christopher Michael Sanders is an American filmmaker, animator, illustrator, 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.
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, is a cast member on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Gary Trousdale is an American animator, film director, screenwriter and storyboard artist. He is best known for directing films such as Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). He frequently works with Kirk Wise and Don Hahn.
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.
Don Bluth Entertainment was an Irish-American animation studio established in 1979 by animator Don Bluth. Bluth and several colleagues, all of whom were former Disney animators, left Disney on September 13, 1979, to form Don Bluth Productions, later known as the Bluth Group. This studio produced the short film Banjo the Woodpile Cat, the feature film The Secret of NIMH, a brief animation sequence in the musical Xanadu, and the video games Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. Bluth then co-founded Sullivan Bluth Studios with American businessman Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy and Morris Sullivan in 1985.
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.
Thomas McGrath is an American voice actor, animator and filmmaker. He is known for the DreamWorks animated film Madagascar, which he co-wrote and directed with Eric Darnell while voicing the character of Skipper the Penguin. The film spawned two direct sequels, along with a spin-off animated series and film based on the penguins in which McGrath reprised his role as Skipper. McGrath has also directed other DreamWorks animated films such as Megamind, The Boss Baby and its 2021 sequel.
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.
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.
Simon James Smith is a British animator, film director, and voice actor. He is best known for his work at DreamWorks Animation. Smith came to PDI/DreamWorks in 1997 as head of layout for the company's feature film division. A CG animation veteran with nearly 35 years of experience, Smith supervised the layout department on PDI/DreamWorks' first animated feature Antz, serving as the Head of Layout in Shrek. He then directed the Universal Studios Theatre experience Shrek 4-D, followed by the short Far Far Away Idol. His first feature film as a director was in 2007, with Bee Movie. He then directed another DVD short, Megamind: The Button of Doom, before co-directing, with Eric Darnell, the comedy/spy action spin-off from the Madagascar series, Penguins of Madagascar, the mini series "Baymax Dreams" for Disney, and is executive producer "Batwheels" for Warner Bros.
