Brad Bird Biography

Phillip Bradley Bird (born September 24, 1957) is an American director, screenwriter, animator, producer and occasional voice actor.

Bird developed a love for the art of animation at an early age and was mentored by Milt Kahl, one of Disney's legendary Nine Old Men. He was part of one of the earliest graduating classes of the California Institute of the Arts alongside John Lasseter and Tim Burton. Afterwards, Bird worked as an animator for Disney and wrote the screenplay for Batteries Not Included (1987). Bird served as a creative consultant on The Simpsons during its first eight seasons, where he helped develop the show's animation style. Afterwards, Bird left to direct his first animated feature, The Iron Giant (1999), which fared poorly at the box office but came to be regarded as a modern animated classic. He rejoined Lasseter at Pixar in 2000, where he would develop his second picture, The Incredibles (2004), and his third picture, Ratatouille (2007). Both films place among Pixar's highest-grossing features and gave Bird two Academy Award for Best Animated Feature wins and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nominations.

In 2011, Bird directed his first live-action film Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which became the highest-grossing and best reviewed film of its franchise. His second live-action film, Tomorrowland, starring George Clooney, was released in May 2015.

Early life

Bird was born in Kalispell, Montana, the youngest of four children of Marjorie A. (ne Cross) and Philip Cullen Bird. 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. On a tour of the Walt Disney Studios at age 11, he announced that someday he would become part of its animation team, and soon afterward began work on his own 15-minute animated short. Within two years, Bird had completed his animation, which impressed the cartoon company. By age 14, barely in high school, Bird was mentored by the animator Milt Kahl, one of Disney's legendary Nine Old Men. Bird recalls Kahl's criticisms as ideal: Kahl would point out shortcomings by gently delivering thoughts on where Bird could improve. After graduating from Corvallis High School in Corvallis, Oregon in 1975, Bird took a three-year break. 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.

Career

Upon graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, Bird began working for Disney. His tenure with Disney was brief, and he left the company shortly after working on The Fox and the Hound in 1981.

He next worked on animated television series, with much shorter lead times. He was the creator (writer, director, and co-producer) of the Family Dog episode of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories. In addition, Bird co-wrote the screenplay for the live-action film Batteries Not Included. 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 1990, he directed the episode "Krusty Gets Busted" (which marked the first speaking role of Sideshow Bob) and co-directed the Season Three episode "Like Father, Like Clown." He served as an executive consultant for the show for its first eight seasons. Also while at Klasky Csupo, he was one of the animators of the Rugrats pilot "Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing." He worked on several other animated television series, including The Critic and King of the Hill, before pitching Warner Brothers to write and direct the animated film The Iron Giant. Despite receiving near-universal acclaim from critics, it failed at the box office due to lack of marketing and promotion from warner bros. The film impressed his old friend John Lasseter, founder of the computer-animation pioneer Pixar. Bird pitched the idea for The Incredibles to Pixar. In the finished picture, Bird also provides the voice of costume designer Edna Mode. As an inside joke, the character Syndrome was based on Bird's likeness (as was Mr. Incredible) and according to him, he did not realize the joke until the movie was too far into production to have it changed. The film became both a major critical and financial success. As a result, Bird won his first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and his screenplay was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

In the middle of 2005, Bird was asked by the Pixar management team to take over Ratatouille from its previous director Jan Pinkava. This change was announced in March 2006, during a presentation at a Disney shareholders meeting. The film was released in 2007; like The Incredibles, the film was another critical and box office success. In January 2008, Ratatouille won the Best Animated Feature award at the Golden Globes; it was also nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay. On February 24, 2008, Ratatouille won Bird his second Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

Bird has spoken passionately about animation as an art form. When Bird and producer John Walker recorded the Director's Commentary for The Incredibles DVD, he jokingly offered to punch the next person that he heard call animation a genre instead of an art form. Bird believes animation can be used to tell any kind of story - drama or comedy, for an adult audience or children.

Before he was sidetracked by Ratatouille, Bird began work on a film adaptation of James Dalessandro's novel 1906, which would be his first live-action project. In March 2008, Bird resumed work on the film, which is a co-production between Pixar and Warner Bros. The novel, narrated by reporter Annalisa Passarelli, examines police officers battling corruption in the government that causes the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to turn into such a disaster. The script was co-written by John Logan. Blogger Jim Hill suggested the film has been on hold due to Disney / Pixar and Warner Bros.' nervousness over the projected $200 million budget. In May 2010, with 1906 apparently still stalled, Bird signed on as the director of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, produced by Tom Cruise and J. J. Abrams. The collaboration was suggested by Tom Cruise following the release of The Incredibles, and was created with the help of J.J. Abrams, who sent Bird a late night text message saying "Mission?". The film was an international hit, grossing almost $700 million.

Bird directed and co-wrote Disney's science fiction film Tomorrowland (2015), whose screenplay was co-written with Damon Lindelof. Bird is writing and directing the sequel to The Incredibles, which is planned for a June 2018 release.

Personal life

Bird's son Nicholas was the voice of Squirt in Finding Nemo. Nicholas and Bird's other son Michael voiced kids in The Incredibles.

Filmography

Feature film

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Animator	Voice actor	Role
1980	Animalympics
1981	The Fox and the Hound (uncredited)
1982	The Plague Dogs
1985	The Black Cauldron (uncredited)
1987	Batteries Not Included						Executive producer
1999	The Iron Giant						Singer: Duck and Cover sequence; animator on Hogarth when he's hyper on espresso
2004	The Incredibles						Edna Mode
2007	Ratatouille						Ambrister Minion
2011	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
2015	Tomorrowland						Also designer of logos
	Jurassic World						Monorail announcer, special thanks
2018	Incredibles 2						Edna Mode

Short films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Other	Role
1979	Doctor of Doom					Voice actor: Don Carlo, Bystander
1988	Technological Threat					Special thanks
2005	Jack-Jack Attack
	Mr. Incredible and Pals					Commentary edition, executive producer
	Vowellett - An Essay by Sarah Vowell					Executive Producer, archived appearance
	The Making of The Incredibles (bonus featurette)					Executive producer, himself
	More Making of The Incredibles (bonus featurette)
2006	One Man Band					Executive producer
	Madison's Rsum					Special thanks
2007	Your Friend the Rat					Executive producer
2009	Partly Cloudy					Special thanks
	Calendar Confloption
2010	Payback in Bolts					Special thanks for inspiration
	Pinched					Special thanks

Unmade projects

• The Spirit, an animated feature Bird developed with Jerry Rees and producer Gary Kurtz, based on Will Eisner's acclaimed comic strip. The studios they pitched it to liked the script, but were unwilling to take the gamble on an animated feature for the adult audience.
• Ray Gunn, a project that he was working on at Turner Feature Animation before he got pulled for The Iron Giant and TFA merging with Warner Feature Animation. A script has been made with Matthew Robbins but was never animated. Even though lost, Bird has expressed interest in resurrecting the project.
• The Incredible Mr. Limpet, a project that is still in development hell. Bird was attached to direct at one point but was replaced by Mike Judge and many others.
• Curious George, wrote a draft of the film at one point, but his script was not used in the produced version.
• The Simpsons Movie, the crew from The Simpsons including Matt Groening and James L. Brooks were hoping to get Bird to direct, but was too busy with Ratatouille at the time. David Silverman, who was also working at Pixar at the time and quit his job after finishing work on Monsters, Inc., became the film's director.
• 1906, a collaborative project from Warner Brothers and Pixar (which could have been their first live-action project), in association with Walt Disney Pictures, where Bird would have directed. Pixar and Disney left the project in 2012 in development limbo at Warner Bros. due to delays in the film's several planned releases, several rejected scripts were not picked up, and going over budget ($200 million).
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Bird was on a shortlist of directors to direct the seventh Star Wars film. But he passed on the project in favor of Tomorrowland and was replaced with J. J. Abrams

Television

Year	Title	Notes
1985-1987	Amazing Stories	Writer producer director (Family Dog segment)
1989-1998	The Simpsons	Creative Consultant director executive consultant
1991	Rugrats	Animator
1993	Family Dog	Creator writer Animation producer
1994-1995	The Critic	Executive consultant
1997	King of the Hill	Creative consultant storyboard artist
2000	The Making of 'The Iron Giant'	Himself, special thanks
2013	Toy Story of Terror	Extra special thanks

Other

Year	Title	Notes
1990	Do the Bartman	Director storyboard artist (music video)
2004	The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie	Special thanks
2006	Friz on Film
2009	Up	Senior creative team (Pixar)
2010	Toy Story 3
2012	Brave
2013	Monsters University
2015	Inside Out
2016	Zootopia (uncredited)	Special thanks
	The Giant's Dream: The Making of the Iron Giant	Himself, documentary
2017	Cars 3	Special thanks
	Coco	Senior creative team (Pixar)

Critical reception

Critical response to films Bird has directed:

Film	Rotten Tomatoes	Metacritic
The Iron Giant	96%	85
The Incredibles	97%	90
Ratatouille	96%	96
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	93%	73
Tomorrowland	50%	60
Average	86%	81

Accolades

In addition to his Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Saturn Award wins, Bird holds the record of the most animation Annie Award wins with eight, winning both Best Directing and Best Writing for each of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille, as well as Best Voice Acting for The Incredibles. His eighth Annie was the 2011 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to animation.

Year	Award	Category	Film	Result
1999	Annie Award	Best Animated Feature	The Iron Giant
		Directing in an Animated Feature Production
		Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production Shared with Tim McCanlies
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award	Best Animation
2000	BAFTA Children's Award	Best Feature Film Shared with Allison Abbate, Des McAnuff and Tim McCanlies
	Hugo Award	Best Dramatic Presentation Shared with Tim McCanlies and Ted Hughes (Based upon the book)
	Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Award	Best Script
2004	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award	Best Animation	The Incredibles
2005	Academy Award	Best Animated Feature
		Best Original Screenplay
	Annie Award	Best Animated Feature
		Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production
		Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production
		Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production
	Hugo Award	Best Dramatic Presentation
	London Critics Circle Film Awards	Screenwriter of the Year
	Online Film Critics Society Award	Best Screenplay, Original
	Saturn Award	Best Writing
	Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Award	Best Script
2006	Hugo Award	Best Dramatic Presentation	Jack-Jack Attack
2007	Boston Society of Film Critics Award	Best Screenplay	Ratatouille
	Chicago Film Critics Association Award	Best Screenplay, Original
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award	Best Animation Shared with Jan Pinkava
2008	Academy Award	Best Animated Feature
		Best Original Screenplay Shared with Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco
	Annie Award	Best Animated Feature
		Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production
		Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production
	BAFTA Film Award	Best Animated Film
	Golden Globe Award	Best Animated Feature Film
	Online Film Critics Society Award	Best Screenplay, Original
	Saturn Award	Best Writing
2012		Best Director	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

See also

• A113