What is your name and your current occupation?
Brenda Chapman – Director/writer Pixar Animation Studios, co-owner, director, writer, illustrator at Chapman Lima Productions.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Walking beans (walking through soy bean fields and cutting the weeds out), working in the kitchen of a retirement home (it’s horrifying what you find in coffee cups after breakfast!), stuffing envelopes for an insurance company (paper cuts!), working the service desk at Kmart (Blue Light Specials!) – ALL were crazy for OH so many different reasons.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
THE LITTLE MERMAID – my first job as a story artist, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST – trying to make Belle a stronger Disney heroine than the ones of the past, THE LION KING – taking the ‘B’ movie and working hard to make it an ‘A+’, all at Disney… PRINCE OF EGYPT – trying to create the first animated movie at DreamWorks – but then ANTZ jumped in before us – it was great putting together all the right people and creating a new studio… and BRAVE at Pixar – creating the first female main character heroines at that studio, completely inspired by my relationship with my daughter, my love of adventure, faerie tales and Scotland! – a true labor of love.
How did you become interested in animation?
I loved to draw all the time when I was a little girl. I watched Bugs Bunny and other Warner Bros. cartoons everyday after school, loved the old Disney films… When I realized Continue reading