Kirk Wise | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Film director, animator, screenwriter, producer |
Years active | 1985–present |
Kirk Wise (born August 24, 1963) is an American film director, animator and screenwriter best known for his work at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Wise has directed Disney animated films such as Beauty and the Beast , The Hunchback of Notre Dame , and Atlantis: The Lost Empire . He also directed the English-language translation of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away . He frequently works with Gary Trousdale and Don Hahn.
Wise graduated from Palo Alto High School and went on to study character animation at California Institute of the Arts. Early in his career, Wise worked as an animator on Disney's Sport Goofy in Soccermania (1987), The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and The Brave Little Toaster (1987), as well as Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories episode "Family Dog".
Returning to Walt Disney Feature Animation, he began work on The Great Mouse Detective (1986) as an assistant animator, but eventually joined the story department, where he was reunited with former CalArts classmate, Gary Trousdale.
After working as storyboard artists on The Rescuers Down Under and The Prince and the Pauper , Wise and Trousdale were responsible for helming the celebrated Beauty and the Beast (1991), the first animated feature to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Title | Year | Role |
---|---|---|
The Great Mouse Detective | 1986 | Assistant animator |
Amazing Stories | 1987 | Principal animator (1 episode) |
Sport Goofy in Soccermania | Animator | |
The Brave Little Toaster | Animation director (development) | |
Oliver & Company | 1988 | Writer, animating assistant |
Cranium Command | 1989 | Voice of Hypothalamus, opening sequence director |
The Rescuers Down Under | 1990 | Storyboard artist |
The Prince and the Pauper | ||
Beauty and the Beast | 1991 | Director, creative consultant (uncredited) |
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey | 1993 | Executive producer |
The Lion King | 1994 | Additional story material |
The Hunchback of Notre Dame | 1996 | Director |
Atlantis: The Lost Empire | 2001 | Director, story |
Spirited Away | 2002 | Director, ADR Director (U.S. production) |
Open Season | 2006 | Special thanks |
Oceans | 2009 | Executive Producer: Disneynature |
Waking Sleeping Beauty | Himself, caricaturist | |
2012 Disney History Connections: Colonial America | 2012 | Director (short) |
Chimpanzee | Creative consultant | |
Aldabra: Once Upon an Island | 2015 | |
Beauty and the Beast | 2017 | |
Bobbleheads: The Movie | 2020 | Director |
Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank | 2022 | Additional voices |
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated musical romantic fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is based on the 1756 fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, in turn an abridged version of the 1740 story by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. The film also incorporates ideas from the 1946 French film directed by Jean Cocteau. The film was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn, from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton.
The Great Mouse Detective is a 1986 American animated mystery adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is based on the children's book series Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus and Paul Galdone, and was written and directed by John Musker, Dave Michener, Ron Clements, and Burny Mattinson in their feature directorial debuts. Featuring the voices of Vincent Price, Barrie Ingham, Val Bettin, Susanne Pollatschek, Candy Candido, Diana Chesney, Eve Brenner, and Alan Young. The film's plot follows Basil of Baker Street, a mouse detective who undertakes to help the young mouse Olivia find and save her father from Basil's sworn enemy the criminal mastermind Professor Ratigan.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 American animated musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is loosely based on the 1831 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The film was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise and produced by Don Hahn, from a screenplay written by Tab Murphy, Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and the writing team of Bob Tzudiker and Noni White. Featuring the voices of Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Tony Jay, and Kevin Kline, the film follows Quasimodo, the deformed and confined bell-ringer of Notre Dame, and his yearning to explore the outside world and be accepted by society, against the wishes of his cruel, puritanical foster father Claude Frollo, who also wants to exterminate Paris' Roma population.
Howard Elliott Ashman was an American playwright, lyricist and stage director. He is most widely known for his work on feature films for Walt Disney Animation Studios, for which Ashman wrote the lyrics and Alan Menken composed the music. Ashman has been credited as being a main driving force behind the Disney Renaissance. His work included songs for Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Tim Rice took over to write the rest of the songs for the latter film after Ashman's death in 1991.
Glen Keane is an American animator, director, author and illustrator. As a character animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios for 38 years (1974–2012), he worked on feature films including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan and Tangled. He received the 1992 Annie Award for character animation and the 2007 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to the field of animation. He was named a Disney Legend in 2013, a year after retiring from the studio.
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 Disney and Roy O. Disney after the closure of Laugh-O-Gram Studio, it is the longest-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.
Tony Anselmo is an American voice actor and animator. He has been the official character voice of Donald Duck since 1985 following the death of the original voice actor, Clarence Nash. He has also provided voices for Donald's triplet nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
Cranium Command was an attraction at the Wonders of Life pavilion at Walt Disney World Resort's Epcot theme park. The show was a humorous presentation on the importance of the human brain.
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.
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.
Walt Disney Classics was a video line launched by WDTNT to release Disney animated features on home video. The first title in the "Classics" line was Robin Hood which was released towards the end of 1984. This was followed by 19 other titles until early 1994, with The Fox and the Hound. Disney followed up on the "Classics" series by porting over the released titles to the "Masterpiece Collection" line, while continuing to use the "Classics" moniker in countries outside North America until 2007. Starting in the 2010s these videocassettes also dubbed "Black Diamond" became highly sought-after due to a public misconception about their rarity and actual value.
Donald Paul Hahn is an American film producer who is credited with producing some of the most successful animated films in history, including Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.
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. The ten feature films associated with this period are The Little Mermaid (1989), The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), and Tarzan (1999).
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). Since all these characters except Simba became Disney Princesses, he came to be known as the "princess guy" around the studio. He directed the short films John Henry (2000) and D.I.Y. Duck (2024). Henn spent a total of 43 years at Walt Disney Animation Studios, from 1980 until his retirement in 2023.
Walt Stanchfield was an American animator, writer and teacher. Stanchfield is known for work on a series of classic animated feature films at Walt Disney Studios and his mentoring of Disney animators.
Waking Sleeping Beauty is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Disney film producer Don Hahn and produced by Hahn and former Disney executive Peter Schneider. The film documents the history of Walt Disney Feature Animation from 1984 to 1994, covering the rise of a period referred to as the Disney Renaissance.
Disney's Nine Old Men were a group of Walt Disney Productions' core animators, who worked at the studio from the 1920s to the 1980s. Some of the Nine Old Men also worked as directors, creating some of Disney's most popular animated movies from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Rescuers. The group was named by Walt Disney himself, and they worked in both short and feature films. Disney delegated more and more tasks to them in the animation department in the 1950s when their interests expanded, and diversified their scope. Eric Larson was the last to retire from Disney, after his role as animation consultant on The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. All nine members of the group were acknowledged as Disney Legends in 1989 and all would receive the Winsor McCay Award for their lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation.
Mel Shaw was an American animator, design artist, writer, and artist. Shaw was involved in the animation, story design, and visual development of numerous Disney animated films, beginning with Bambi, which was released in 1942. His other animated film credits, usually involving animation design or the story, included The Rescuers in 1977, The Fox and the Hound in 1981, The Black Cauldron in 1985, The Great Mouse Detective in 1986, Beauty and the Beast in 1991, and The Lion King in 1994. He was named a Disney Legend in 2004 for his contributions to The Walt Disney Company.
"Human Again" is a song originally written for and later restored to the 1991 Disney animated musical Beauty and the Beast. With music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman, "Human Again" was replaced during production of the original 1991 version of the film by "Something There", but retained and revised by Menken and new lyricist Tim Rice for the 1994 stage musical adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. A newly produced sequence featuring "Human Again" was added to the Beauty and the Beast animated film for its 2002 IMAX Special Edition and subsequent DVD, VHS, and Blu-ray home releases.