Brenda Chapman

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Brenda Chapman was born and raised in Illinois. Late in high school and early in college, she began to consider animation as a career. After getting serious about pursuing animation, she called up Disney asking how to get into animation and they told her about CalArts. Chapman studied animation at CalArts for three years and during her summer breaks, she began her professional career working in television animation.

After graduating with a BFA in Character Animation, she was a story trainee on the animated hit The Little Mermaid. She moved on to be one of several key story artists on Beauty and the Beast. For her next project, The Lion King, Chapman was head of story, overseeing both writers and artists. She was rewarded with an Annie Award for her work as story supervisor on The Lion King. Other Disney projects included The Rescuers Down Under, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Fantasia 2000..

After eight years at Disney, Chapman left to help launch a new animation studio DreamWorks Feature Animation. There she co-directed the 1998 release The Prince of Egypt, which marked the first time a woman directed an animated feature film for a major Hollywood studio.

A longtime friend of Joe Ranft, from their time together at Disney finally convinced Brenda to leave L.A. and come to Pixar and work on Cars in 2003. Brenda grew up near Route 66 and Joe’s passion for the Cars characters finally won Brenda over.

Next up for Brenda is Holiday 2011′s The Bear and the Bow. It’s Pixar’s first fairy tale set in Scotland. It will be released in Disney Digital 3-D.

Filmography

  • Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats (1984) TV Series (lip sync checker)
  • Rock ‘n’ Wrestling (1985) (character designer)
  • Dennis the Menace (1986) TV Series (lip sync checker)
  • The Real Ghostbusters (1986) TV Series (animator: pre production)
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) (additional animation)
  • The Little Mermaid (1989) (storyboard artist)
  • The Rescuers Down Under (1990) (storyboard artist)
  • Beauty and the Beast (1991) (original story)
  • The Lion King (1994) (story supervisor)
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) (original story)
  • The Prince of Egypt (1998) (director)
  • Fantasia 2000 (1999) (original story)
  • The Road to El Dorado (2000) (additional storyboard artist)
  • Chicken Run (2000) (additional story)
  • Cars (2006) (original story)
  • The Bear and the Bow (2011) (director)

Tidbits

Brenda is married to Disney veteran, Kevin Lima (Tarzan, Enchanted)

Chapman is only the third woman ever to direct an animated film (Lotte Reiniger of The Adventures of Prince Achmed, and Arna Selznick of The Care Bears Movie).