Born: Randy Haycock
Birthday: April 29, 1968
Location: Rangely, CO, U.S.
Alma mater: California Institute for the Arts
Occupation: Animator, Storyboard, Director
Years active: 1990-present

Randy Haycock always loved to draw, but it wasn’t until he saw the Disney animated film “Fantasia” when he was 15, that he decided to become an animator. The Chernabog sequence was particularly inspiring to him.

Haycock’s first animation box was built for him in lieu of pay for a job painting a new sign for the front of a craft store. The box was constructed according to the designs from the back of the Preston Blair animation book.

After high school, Randy studied film and illustration at Brigham Young University. When Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” was released, He was moved by Glen Keanes’ animation. Randy determined he needed to move to California to be closer to the Disney studio and study at CalArts. Taking a year off from his BYU studies, Haycock worked and saved for the planned move to the West Coast. He applied for and got accepted to CalArts.

Living in California during the fall of 1990 while studying at CalArts quickly proved more expensive than he had anticipated. Desperate for work to earn more money, Randy asked one of his instructors, Glenn Vilppu, if his art was strong enough to get a job. Glenn, working as a layout artist for Warner Bros. Television Animation at the time agreed it was good enough.

Vilppu invited Haycock to the studio and introduced me to several directors, showing them Randy’s portfolio. Two weeks later, Randy was a Character Layout artist on “Tiny Toon Adventures” at Warner Bros.

At Warner’s Randy met a director that knew Haycock’s idol, Glen Keane. The director passes along Glen’s phone number to Randy. Haycock called Keane and they arranged to meet for lunch to look at Randy’s work.

Meeting at the Disney studio, Glen gave Randy a brief tour of the animation building and then examined his work. Keane told Haycock there was nothing in the portfolio that would land a job at Disney, but he also counseled the young animator on what he should include to improve it; more drawings from life. Glen invited him to call again in six months once he’d strengthened his work.

Randy spent every spare moment drawing from life. Six months later, he called Glen again to look at his portfolio. This time Keane was more impressed. He told Haycock to apply to Disney’s as a “Rough Inbetweener,” and a few months Randy was hired to be one of Glen’s Animation Assistants on “Aladdin.” Even though Randy learned much about animation from inbetweening, his goal was to become a full animator. On lunchbreaks and after work, he worked on his own animation tests, showing them to Keane for feedback.

As the “Aladdin” production neared completion, Haycock was called to the producer’s office. Entering the office, he was met by the producer, the film’s directors, and Glen. Based on Glen’s recommendation, they invited Randy to animate some of the hero’s scenes in the film. Randy Haycock had become an animator. He’s remained at the studio ever since, serving as a traditional animator, a storyboard artist, a visual development artist, and briefly as a director.