Phil Nibbelink (born June 3, 1955) is an American animator and film director as well as comic book writer and illustrator known for his work on films as the Academy Award-winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the 1991 cult animated sequel An American Tail: Fievel Goes West .
Nibbelink worked for ten years at Disney and was a directing animator on Who Framed Roger Rabbit . [1] Then he spent ten years working under Steven Spielberg as an animation director, working on films such as An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (which he co-directed with Simon Wells) and Casper as animation director. [2] He also directed an animated adaptation of the children's book We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story for Amblimation. [3] He was originally scheduled to co-direct Balto with Wells, but production on We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story was incomplete, so Wells advised Nibbelink to continue working on We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, while he set to work on Balto. Afterwards, Nibbelink began working with Dick and Ralph Zondag (with whom he and Wells had co-directed We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story) on the upcoming movie, Cats, until it was cancelled after Amblimation's founder and owner, Steven Spielberg, closed the studio in 1997 and co-founded DreamWorks Animation.
Nibbelink later turned his attention to independent filmmaking, producing three full-length animated features single-handedly. These films included Puss in Boots (1999) and Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss (2006). [4] He is the founder and owner of his company, Phil Nibbelink Productions. His most recent project is as storyboard artist on Wolverine and the X-Men .
Donald Virgil Bluth is an American filmmaker, animator, and author. 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.
Amblin' Entertainment, Inc., formerly named Amblin Productions and Steven Spielberg Productions, is an American film production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg, and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1980. Its headquarters are located in Bungalow 477 of the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City, California. It distributes all of the films from Amblin Partners under the Amblin Entertainment banner.
An American Tail is a 1986 American animated musical adventure comedy-drama film directed by Don Bluth and written by Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss from a story by David Kirschner, Freudberg and Geiss. The film stars the voices of Phillip Glasser, John Finnegan, Amy Green, Nehemiah Persoff, Dom DeLuise, and Christopher Plummer. It is the story of Fievel Mousekewitz and his family as they emigrate from Russia to the United States for freedom, but Fievel gets lost and must find a way to reunite with them.
Puss in Boots is a 1999 American animated adventure comedy film directed by Phil Nibbelink. It is based on the fairy tale of the same name.
The Land Before Time is a 1988 animated adventure film directed and co-produced by Don Bluth from a screenplay by Stu Krieger and a story by Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss; it is executive produced by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall. The film stars the voices of Gabriel Damon, Candace Hutson, Judith Barsi, and Will Ryan with narration provided by Pat Hingle. It is the first film in The Land Before Time franchise.
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is a 1991 American animated Western musical film directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells, with producer Steven Spielberg for Amblin Entertainment and animated by his Amblimation animation studio and released by Universal Pictures. A sequel to 1986's An American Tail, the film follows the story of the Mousekewitzes, a family of Russian-Jewish mice who emigrate to the Wild West. In it, Fievel is separated from his family as the train approaches the American Old West; the film chronicles him and Sheriff Wylie Burp teaching Tiger how to act like a dog.
Amblimation was the British animation production subsidiary of Amblin Entertainment. It was formed by Steven Spielberg in May 1989, following the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and after he parted ways with Don Bluth, due to creative differences. It was stationed in what was originally the D. Napier & Son factory in Acton, London and had 250 crew members from 15 different nations. It only produced three feature films: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), and Balto (1995), all three of which were composed by James Horner and distributed by Universal Pictures. The company's mascot, Fievel Mousekewitz, appears in its production logo.
Balto is a 1995 animated adventure film directed by Simon Wells, produced by Amblin Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is loosely based on the true story of the eponymous dog who helped save children infected with diphtheria in the 1925 serum run to Nome. The film stars the voices of Kevin Bacon, Bridget Fonda, Phil Collins, and Bob Hoskins. Though primarily an animated film, it uses a live-action framing device that takes place in New York City's Central Park and features Miriam Margolyes as an older version of one of the children. This was the third and final film to be produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, before the studio's closure in 1997.
Simon Finlay Wells is an English film director of animation and live-action films. He is the great-grandson of author H. G. Wells, and is best known for directing The Prince of Egypt with Brenda Chapman and Steve Hickner.
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story is a 1993 animated adventure comedy film directed by Dick Zondag, Ralph Zondag, Phil Nibbelink, and Simon Wells from a screenplay by John Patrick Shanley. Based on the 1987 Hudson Talbott children's book of the same name, it tells the story of three dinosaurs and one pterosaur who travel to the present day and become intelligent by eating a "Brain Grain" cereal invented by scientist Captain Neweyes. The film was produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation studio and features the voices of John Goodman, Felicity Kendal, Charles Fleischer, Walter Cronkite, Jay Leno, Julia Child, Kenneth Mars, Yeardley Smith, and Martin Short.
Nancy Beiman is a director, character designer, teacher, animator, author and comic strip creator. She attended the Character Animation program at CalArts.
Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss is a 2006 American animated romantic fantasy comedy-drama film loosely following the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The film is about two star-crossed sea lions, Romeo and Juliet, who fall in love against the wishes of their warring families. It was released in Spain in mid-2006 and on October 27 in the United States.
Eric "Bibo" Bergeron is a French animator and film director. His work includes The Road to El Dorado (2000), Shark Tale (2004) and A Monster in Paris (2011).
Ralph Zondag is a Canadian animator, storyboard artist, and director.
David Bowers is an English animator, storyboard artist, film director, screenwriter and voice actor.
Nicholas "Nick" Fletcher is a Welsh film editor of animation. He edited the 1998 American film The Prince of Egypt by DreamWorks. He joined DreamWorks in 1995 as a supervising editor on animated features The Prince of Egypt and Shark Tale. He also worked as an editor on Bee Movie. He also worked on Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Trolls World Tour.
Universal Animation Studios LLC is an American animation studio and a division of Universal Pictures, which is a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast. It has produced direct-to-video sequels to Universal-released feature films, such as The Land Before Time, An American Tail, Balto, and Curious George, as well as other films and television series.
Kristof Serrand is a French animator. He is a supervising animator of Netflix.
Steve Hickner is an American animator and director at DreamWorks Animation. He is best known for directing DreamWorks animated films such as The Prince of Egypt and Bee Movie. He won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Animated Feature and was also nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature for his work on The Prince of Egypt.
