Ellen Woodbury Explained

Ellen Woodbury (born August 10, 1962) is an American stone sculptor, former Disney directing animator and character animator who worked at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Woodbury grew up in Corning, New York, and she earned a BFA in Film and Art from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University.[1] [2] She attended the Experimental Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts under the mentorship of Jules Engel.

Animator at Disney

Woodbury worked for over 20 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation where she worked as an animator on films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King where she supervised the creation of the hornbill Zazu.[3] She was Disney's first female directing animator.[4]

Full-time sculptor

She moved to Loveland, Colorado in 2005 to become a full-time sculptor.[5] She taught Character Animation at the Art Institute of Colorado from 2010 to 2014, and ran a character animation workshop along with her class each week. In 2019, the National Sculpture Society presented Woodbury with the 2019 Marilyn Newmark Memorial Grant.

Filmography

Year[6] TitleCreditsCharacters
1983 The Christmas Tree Train (TV Movie short) Assistant Animator
1985 He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword Animator
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (TV Series) Animator - 32 Episodes
(TV Series) Animator - 65 Episodes
(TV Movie short) Animator
1986 The Great Mouse Detective Assistant Animator
1987 Sport Goofy in Soccermania (TV short) Additional Animator
1988 Oliver & Company Animating Assistant
1989 The Little Mermaid Character Animator
1990 The Rescuers Down Under Character Animator
1991 Beauty and the Beast Animator Maurice
1992 Aladdin Animator Abu
1994 The Lion King Supervising Animator Zazu
1995 Pocahontas Additional Animator
1996 The Hunchback of Notre Dame Additional Animator
1997 Hercules Supervising Animator Pegasus
1999 Tarzan Additional Animator
2000 Fantasia 2000 Animator - Segment "Rhapsody in Blue"
2002 Treasure Planet Supervising Animator Captain Long John Silver's Pirate Crew
2005 The Zit (Short) Animator
Chicken Little Animator
2006 Independent Lens (TV Series documentary) Animator - 1 Episode
2007 Meet the Robinsons Animator [7]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Ellen Woodbury - Colorado Stone Sculptor . 14 July 2022 . Raitman Art Galleries . en.
  2. Web site: Pultorak . Sarah . 9 June 2020 . Artist Spotlight: Former Disney Animator & Sculptor Ellen Woodbury . 14 July 2022 . Denver Life Magazine . en-US.
  3. Web site: 25 May 1994 . The Lion King: Film Notes . 14 July 2022 . www.lionking.org.
  4. Web site: Bajgrowicz . Brooke . 26 August 2020 . How Disney's forgettable 2000s movies helped shape its contemporary classics . 16 March 2022 . Mashable .
  5. Web site: Ellen Woodbury . 14 July 2022 . National Sculpture Society . en-US.
  6. Web site: Ellen Woodbury . 14 July 2022 . IMDb.
  7. Book: Animated Performance: Bringing Imaginary Animal, Human and Fantasy Characters to Life. AVA Publishing. 2010-09-15. 2015-05-09. 9782940373819. en. Nancy. Beiman. Lynn. Johnston. 100.