VOICES IN RATATOUILLE MOVIE SERIES
In 1989, Bird joined Klasky Csupo, where he helped to develop The Simpsons from one-minute shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show into a series of half-hour programs. In addition, Bird co-wrote the screenplay for the live-action film Batteries Not Included. He was the creator (writer, director, and co-producer) of the Family Dog episode of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories. He next worked on animated television series, with much shorter lead times. During the middle of production of The Fox and the Hound, Bird was fired by animation administrator Ed Hansen. There, he would vocally criticize the upper management for not taking risks on animation and playing it safe. While animating at Disney, he became a part of a small group of animators who worked in a suite of offices inside the original animation studio called the "Rat's Nest", which was pejoratively dubbed by animator Don Bluth during production of The Small One. He worked as an animator on The Small One (1978), The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Black Cauldron (1985) albeit uncredited. Upon graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, Bird began working for Disney. He was then awarded a scholarship by Disney to attend California Institute of the Arts, where he met and befriended another future animator, Pixar co-founder and director John Lasseter. After graduating from Corvallis High School in Corvallis, Oregon in 1975, Bird took a three-year break from animation.
By age 14, barely in high school, Bird was mentored by the animator Milt Kahl, one of Disney's Nine Old Men. Within two years, Bird had completed his animation, which impressed Disney. Soon afterward he began work on his own 15-minute animated short. On a tour of the Walt Disney Studios at age 11, he met Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston and announced that someday he would become part of Disney's animation team. His father worked in the propane business, and his grandfather, Francis Wesley "Frank" Bird, who was born in County Sligo, Ireland, was a president and chief executive of the Montana Power Company. It went on to become Pixar's highest grossing film and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, but lost to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.īird was born in Kalispell, Montana, the youngest of four children of Marjorie A. In 2018, Bird returned to animation with Incredibles 2. His second live action film, Tomorrowland, starring George Clooney, was released in 2015, to mixed reviews and less commercial success. In 2011, Bird directed his debut live action film, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which was a critical and commercial success. Both films place among Pixar's highest-grossing features and earned Bird two Academy Award for Best Animated Feature wins and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nominations. He rejoined Lasseter at Pixar in 2000, where he developed the films The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Although it fared poorly at the box office, it came to be regarded as a modern animated classic. In 1999, Bird directed his debut animated feature film, The Iron Giant. He also served as a creative consultant on The Simpsons during its first eight seasons, where he helped develop the show's animation style. Afterwards, Bird began his career as an animator for Disney in the films The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron and wrote the screenplay for Batteries Not Included.
He was part of one of the earliest graduating classes of the California Institute of the Arts with John Lasseter and Tim Burton.
He has directed the animated feature films The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, its sequel Incredibles 2, and Ratatouille as well as the live-action films Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Tomorrowland.īorn in Kalispell, Montana, Bird developed a love for the art of animation at an early age and was mentored by Milt Kahl, one of Disney's renowned Nine Old Men. Phillip Bradley Bird (born September 24, 1957) is an American animator, film director, screenwriter, producer, and voice actor.