
Born: Russell H. Edmonds
Birthday: October 11, 1961
Location: New York City, NY, U.S.
Alma mater: California Institute for the Arts
Occupation: Animator, Storyboard, Director, Producer
Years active: 1986–present
Russ Edmonds began as a self-taught artist working as an engineer at the Three-Mile Island nuclear power plant. Ready for a change, he wrote Disney Feature Animation asking about work at the studio, and they suggested he look into the California Institute of the Arts.
Edmonds applied, was accepted, and studied CalArts’ Program in Character Animation. Shortly after graduation, he was working as an animator on Brad Bird’s “Family Dog” for Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories.”
Eventually hired at Disney Feature, Russ’ first assignment was animating Oliver and Dodger in “Oliver & Co.” The studio was so pleased with his work that Edmonds found himself working on more four-legged characters.
Over the course of 10 feature films at Disney, he served as a character animator, an animator, a supervising animator, a lead animator, and a final line animator, but was one of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ quadruped specialists. He supervised the sheepdog Max in “The Little Mermaid,” the lioness Sarabi in “Lion King,” the ape Kala in “Tarzan,” and an abundance of horses in “Home on the Range.”
Russ still have some opportunity to animate characters with less than four legs as seen in his work on Phoebus in “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and the Genie in “Aladdin.” Additionally, he used his talents on other films including “The Rescuers Down Under,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Atlantis,” “Winnie the Pooh,” and “The Princess and the Frog.”
Leaving Disney, Russ was employed at DreamWorks and other studios.
Along with his wife, Angela, He has also owned and operated his independent animation studio, Edmonds Studios, where he directed commercials and collaborated with other studios on various smaller projects.
Edmonds served as an animation instructor at CalArts and UCLA. He focuses his efforts on pre-production, working on storyboarding, character design, visual development, and story development.
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