Born: Phillip Bradley Bird
Birthday: September 24, 1957
Location: Kalispell, MT, U.S.
Alma mater: California Institute of the Arts
Occupation: Animator, Writer, Director
Years active: 1978-present

Born Philip Bradley Bird in Kalispell, Montana, Brad grew up in Oregon. He started drawing at age three and an interest in the art of animation soon followed. Brad was enamored by The Jungle Book when he was ten. A family friend who’d taken some classes on the subject, explained how animation worked. Bird’s parents were supportive of his interests. His father found a used movie camera capable of shooting single frames and set it up for making films and Brad began animating his first short.

A friend of a another family friend arranged for a tour of Walt Disney Productions in Burbank, California where Bird met the Nine Old Men. Brad boldly proclaimed he would join them someday.

He completed his first short by age 14, after two years of work. Bird sent his fifteen-minute adaption of The Tortoise and the Hare to Walt Disney Productions. Impressed, the studio offered Brad an open invitation to stop by whenever he was in Burbank. He made several visits there over the following years, working closely with his hero, Milt Kahl.

Bird began another more ambitious film, but the intense workload couldn’t compete with other interests during his teenaged years. Nevertheless, when he graduated from high school in 1975, Disney awarded him a scholarship to attend California Institute of the Arts. At the time, he was planning to attend Ashland University’s acting program. After some deliberation and a three-year break from animating, he chose CalArts became classmates with other future animators like John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Henry Selick.

Brad accepted a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions after only two years at CalArts. Over the next two years; he worked on The Small One and The Fox and the Hound. He also provided uncredited animation for Mickey’s Christmas Carol and The Black Cauldron.

The Disney studio in a state of change during Bird’s tenure: many of the original artists were retiring, leaving the decision-making to middle-managers. The new generation of artists coming in chafed over their lack of creative control, and Bird was no exception. Feeling he was defending the studio’s original principles, Bird openly criticized its leadership, accusing senior managers of an unwillingness to take risks. His passionate stance got him fired by animation administrator Edward Hansen in 1979.

He relocated to the Bay Area, spending several years trying to adapt Will Eisner’s The Spirit comic book to feature animation. Brad briefly worked with Edwin Catmull on a computer-animated film at Lucasfilm. Bird spent some time as an animator on The Plague Dogs before the film’s director, Martin Rosen fired him.

Bird moved back to Los Angeles and joined Steven Spielberg’s anthology television series Amazing Stories. He co-wrote the show’s second episode The Main Attraction. Spielberg liked the script enough to invite Brad to pitch other ideas. Bird storyboarded a segment based on his CalArts test reel, Family Dog for an episode of Amazing Stories. Family Dog would eventually be spun-off into a sitcom, against Bird’s urging and without his input. Continuing as a writer, Brad co-wrote the screenplay for Batteries Not Included also helped with Captain EO, a 3-D short film starring Michael Jackson for Disney theme parks.

The Simpsons producers James L. Brooks and Sam Simon invited Brad to join Klasky Csupo as an executive consultant for the show. Bird oversaw the script-to-animation pipeline of the series for its first eight seasons, designed Sideshow Bob, and directed the Krusty Gets Busted and Like Father, Like Clown episodes. He also contributed to The Critic and the first season of King of the Hill in the ‘90s, following the Simpsons format.

In December 1996, he signed on with Warner Bros. to direct The Iron Giant. He co-wrote the screenplay with Tim McCanlies. Bird successfully assembled a team and completed the film against a tight deadline. While earning rave reviews from critics, The Iron Giant did poorly at the box office since Warner neglected to promote the movie.

Brad briefly directed the Curious George adaptation for Universal before pitching several story ideas to his old classmate John Lasseter at Pixar. The pitch led to a multi-film contract for Bird. His first picture for the studio was The Incredibles; a critical and financial success. Earning Brad an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. The film was also the first animated feature to win a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Pixar next asked Bird to take over Jan Pinkava’s Ratatouille and turn the project around in a short timeframe. Most of the design work had already been completed when Brad took the reins, but he rewrote the script entirely. Interestingly, Brad’s old The Simpsons crew tried to recruit him to direct their feature film, but he’d been was too busy with Ratatouille at the time. Ratatouille was another box office hit for Pixar and it won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature in 2008. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two for Best Original Screenplay and Best Animated Feature.

Bird then made the unusual shift from animation to live-action filmmaking, directing Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol at the request of Tom Cruise. Cruise had been impressed by The Incredibles. Brad’s Mission: Impossible film became the highest-grossing film in the series up to that point and the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011.

He turned down an offer to direct Star Wars: The Force Awakens to focus on work for Disney’s sci-fi film Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland received mixed reviews and lost $120–150 million for Disney.

Returning to animation, Brad wrote the screenplay for Incredibles 2. The feature was completed on an accelerated production schedule, bringing in $182.7 million on its opening weekend, setting a record for the best animated film debut. The National Board of Review named Incredibles 2 the Best Animated Film of 2018, and it was nominated for Best Animated Feature at both the 76th Golden Globe Awards and 91st Academy Awards.