TOP 10 Animators of All Time

Animation brings our fantasies to life, makes us smile, and entertains us. We grew up in the company of incredible characters whose adventures taught us more than our school teachers. 

It’s time to find out who brings these drawings to life. Today we are going to talk about remarkable animators. Here at Okolo Kino we have chosen our top ten representatives of this magical profession. Let’s begin. 

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Transcript

From Gertie the Dinosaur to Toy Story. From Betty Boop to Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. Who almost overthrew the Disney empire? How can you bring clay to life and what was wrong with King Kong’s fur? This is “The Hidden Heroes”, a series in which I will finally shed light on the people who create these masterpieces.

Animation brings our fantasies to life, makes us smile, and entertains us. We grew up in the company of incredible characters whose adventures taught us more than even our school teachers. It’s time to find out who brings these drawings to life. Today we are going to talk about remarkable animators. Here at Okolo Kino we have chosen our top ten representatives of this magical profession. Let’s begin. 

10. Émile Cohl and Winsor McCay

Cave paintings are considered to be the ancestors of animation. Prehistoric man portrayed movement through a series of figures in different poses. This method was preserved for several millennia until at the dawn of the 19th century illusionists invented the thaumatrope. Two parts of an illustration were drawn on a round piece of paper, tied to a rope, and quickly twisted. The quick flipping of the paper combined the images into one. This simple innovation gave way to dozens of complex mechanisms. The first animators entertained viewers with the help of phenakistiscopes, zoetropes, and praxinoscopes. At the same time, the world was shaken by the Lumière brothers and Thomas Edison. The camera awakened the magic of thousands of artists. The first magicians quickly exchanged documenting reality for fictional stories and imaginary landscapes. At the beginning of the 20th century, John Stuart Blackton unlocked the secret of stop-motion. Every turn of the camera handle brought a new image. Thanks to this trick Blackton made the first hand-drawn cartoon. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces was an important starting point in the genre but Blackton failed to see its full potential. Animated films started appearing a year later, when the French caricaturist Émile Cohl added something special to the moving images, a plot. The man who fought with the hat from Fantasmagorie enamored audiences during theater entr’actes, which led to Cohl signing a contract for dozens of animated films. He worked for the Gaumont film company and then transferred to its American chapter in New Jersey. In 1910 Blackton once again took the helm of the industry. This time as a mentor when he taught animation to Winsor McCay. Winsor was working as a cartoonist for The New York Herald and brought his trademark style to his first film. Before it began, the character warned the viewer to “watch his movement”. McCay deftly twirled the figures and added depth to the flat scenes. His following work is considered the foundation for the separate genre known as animated film. Before Gertie the Dinosaur animation was considered to be a special effect, like explosions or actors disappearing. Gertie was the first popular cartoon character that inspired a whole generation of animators. Winsor created cartoons for decades afterward, but never repeated his initial success. The same goes for Émile Cohl who, after WWI ended, lost his job at Gaumont and lived out his last days in a shelter for the poor. So though success and glory evaded these two animation pioneers, their efforts sparked the flame which would go on to warm the hearts of billions. 

9. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks VS Max Fleischer 

Let’s transport ourselves to the 20s. Animation was winning more viewers and had turned into a business. The era of Cohl and McCay had passed. The stick man and Gertie gave way to Felix the Cat, and artists more often chose to work for film studios rather than drawing for newspapers. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks left Kansas and made their way to Hollywood. At the same time, World War 1 veteran Max Fleischer rented a basement in Manhattan where he installed his invention: the rotoscope. The machine projected film frame by frame onto glass. Then the images were traced onto paper. The rotoscope made animation more fluid and realistic and Fleischer was hired to make dozens of short animations under the general title “Out of the Inkwell”. This series captivated viewers and Fleischer’s studio expanded and was on its way to becoming the industry leader. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Disney and Iwerks were releasing modern interpretations of fairy tales. The first rays of fame shone on the team after the release of the film Alice’s Wonderland where animation was combined with smiling actors. The funny stories enchanted viewers and over the next three years, Walt released over 50 short films about Alice’s adventures. However, they were eclipsed by Felix the Cat’s success. Walt dreamt of having a similar character, and in 1928 Mortimer the Mouse was born. The hero was created by Disney, but his appearance and animation were the work of Ub Iwerks. A year later Steamboat Willie comes to the big screen. Walt would add sound to the picture and give the character his own voice. The big-eared chap would be renamed Mickey Mouse. Soon the mouse would eclipse his competitors and his popularity would spread across the ocean where he would captivate European audiences. Max Fleischer’s company was losing to Disney on every front and badly needed a new hero. Where Walt was trying to entertain children, Max targeted the adult audience. While Mickey enchanted children, Fleischer was releasing films about the Theory of Relativity and Evolution. The studio was saved by a personified dog. She briefly appeared in one of Max’s cartoons in 1930 and was well received. The artist Grim Natwick helped turn the heroine into a sexy girl with a huge head. The show was renamed in her honor and Paramount ordered a whole season of the adventures of Betty Boop. The show was filled with crude jokes, grim satire, and of course, jazz. The cartoon contained stars of the New York stage and world-famous personalities such as Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong. It was, after all, 1930, and black artists in film were considered a bold affront to supporters of segregation. A year later, Fleischer’s studio was joined by Popeye the Sailor Man. Max bought the rights to the comics and turned it into the best comedy of the era. Besides humor and music, these cartoons brought new technical innovations to the industry. Betty Boop sauntered across 3D backdrops and Popeye flexed his muscles in technicolor. They almost became more popular than Mickey Mouse but Fleischer was about to get sucker punched. At the end of the 30s filmmakers created the Hays Code. The code forbade nudity, sexual innuendo, and humor relating to controversial social or religious themes. Betty was stripped of her mini dress and garter and clothed in a long dress. Her whip was replaced with a broom and her musical repertoire was reduced to housecleaning blues. Within a few years, the sex symbol lost her fan base and faded into obscurity. Walt Disney was not bothered by the Code. In 1937 he dealt his competitors a fatal blow. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated film in the US. His company spent 6 years and one-and-a-half million working on it. The drawings were the works of the famous Nine Old Men who took animation to a new level. Hollywood’s elite praised it at the premiere and in a few days, they were joined by hundreds of thousands of viewers. Disney’s studio outstripped its opponents by creating the most expensive and complex animated reel in history. Over the next 6 months, Snow White brought Walt eight million dollars and making twice as much as its rivals, crowned the list of highest-grossing films of the year. Paramount immediately told Fleischer to do the same. He lured dozens of animators from Disney and was given a budget of one million dollars. After a year and a half, Max presented Gulliver’s Travels.  Audiences warmly received the reel, but no one debated its mediocrity in comparison to Walt’s film. Then in the early 40s Pinocchio and Dumbo solidified his reputation as the greatest animation magnate on the planet. The “Old Men’s” animation style and character’s appearance would become the standard. And though Fleischer fought back, the popularity of the Superman film series could not compete with his opponent’s success. In the 40s Max and Paramount had a falling out and its lawyers took his studio. For the rest of his career Fleischer dedicated himself to educational films where he firmly hid away his talents. As for Disney, even a full-length film could not tell of the scope of his exploits. Internationally acclaimed films, documentaries, amusement parks, the receiver of the most academy awards ever, and an incredibly lucrative business. In a fitting epilogue, in 1956 Walt hired Fleischer to work for him. Their meeting was like a high school reunion, as they were joined by dozens of the best animators in the world who had the chance to work for these two giants. It was a poetic finale to a feud which took animation to a completely new level. 

8. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera

Disney and Fleischer feuded for fifteen years, but the battle had no casualties. They actually trained more animation soldiers in the process. The young illustrator Joe Barbera went to a movie theatre to avoid the fall chill one evening in 1922. Before the movie they showed Disney’s The Skeleton Dance. The bones and skulls mesmerized Joe with their dancing. After the show Barbera decided to become an animator himself. Half a year later he was already cleaning celluloid film at Fleischer’s studio and soon he was entrusted with drawing filler frames. The main animators drew the key poses of the characters and Joe would fill in the frames in between. In 1937 Metro Goldwyn Mayer started their own animation department. Producers seduced many talented artists from their rivals’ studios. Barbera ended up in this young ambitious team as a storyboard artist. His crude sense of humor attracted the attention of Bill Hanna, an experienced animator who headed up the department. Before MGM Bill worked on Looney Tunes and dreamt of drawing his own stars. The success of Fritz Freleng, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones inspired a whole generation. Barbera and Hanna joined forces and created an entertaining short about the rivalry between Jasper the cat and Jinx the mouse. Puss Gets the Boot was nominated for an Oscar and the studio ordered a sequel immediately. The heroes were renamed, and over the next seventeen years, Tom and Jerry won seven Academy Awards. The cartoon was shown before films at the movie theater. Crowds of fans would stand for hours in line to see Tom torturing Jerry and leave the hall before the feature film started. Once Jerry even surpassed his famous older brother. Mickey Mouse was supposed to dance with Gene Kelly but Walt feared that the actress would eclipse his little friend, so her producers went to Bill and Joe. This success helped the duo to orchestrate the dream sequence from Dangerous When Wet where their heroes swam together with Esther Williams. But even the worldwide renown of Tom and Jerry couldn’t save the MGM animation department. The close of the 50s saw a steep decline in movie going audiences. It was the era of television and the animation industry moved to the American living room. Hanna and Barbera lost their jobs, while the rights to the cat and mouse stayed with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. The artists tried to adapt to the times. They created the animation studio Hanna-Barbera and a year later Huckleberry Hound was entertaining kids through their TV screens. The friends invented a simplified animation process to fit their deadlines and budget. Plots based on movement and visual humor were exchanged for dialogue, repeating backgrounds and a camera which remained static. It was enough. Every Sunday morning, Huckleberry captivated young audiences. However, the naïve stories did not attract adults. Bill and Joe fixed this problem within the year. In 1960 the ABC channel aired the pilot episode of The Flintstones, the first animated prime-time show. The sitcom glued both children and adults to the screens. Its incredible success led to many job offers from dozens of American TV channels. It also allowed Hanna-Barbera to test the limits of their fantasy. Over the next 30 years they created more than a hundred animated shows from Yogi Bear to Scooby Doo whose ratings beat even those of the Flintstones.  In addition they were entrusted with the adaptation of the Adams Family comics and MGM even gave them back creative control over Tom and Jerry for a time. Joe and Bill managed hundreds of talented artists and in time took the producer’s chair. The company, though named for them, changed owners several times. As it moved to larger corporations it acquired amusement parks and took its current form in the end of the 90s. Warner Brothers Studio bought Hanna-Barbera, combined it with its animation department and created the Cartoon Network channel, which to this day holds exclusive rights to the legacy of these great artists. 

7. Yuri Norstein 

While Hollywood animators were fighting for box office profits and prime-time spots, on the other side of the globe Yuri Norstein was erecting a temple to the visual arts. He finished a course in animation from Soyuzmultfilm in 1961 and got a job at the studio assisting the legendary Ivan Ivanov-Vano who, during the forty years in the field, created the better half of all the classic soviet cartoons. Together they worked on Lefty, The Battle of Kerzhenets, and Seasons. Norstein animated Boniface’s Vacation and was the puppeteer for Cheburashka, Shapoklyak, and 38 Parrots, but he became world-famous thanks to his directing. His debut was with the film The 25th, The First Day. Yuri combined the works of avant-garde artists and captured the spirit of the first years of the October Revolution. Six years later Norstein created one of the most important philosophical parables in the history of animation. Hedgehog in the Fog mesmerized viewers not with action or twisting plots, but by looking deep into the soul. This time the author was inspired by the works of Andrei Rublev. The icon ‘Spas’ inspired the appearance of the main character, and the finale revealed it in full color. The naïve childlike energy of these scenes brings memories flooding back. Twenty years later it will be dubbed the greatest animated film of all time at the international animation festival in Tokyo. His next work was greeted with similar success. The Tale of Tales was compared to Tarkovsky’s Mirror. The metaphorical and abstract adventure was combined with incredible visual language. The grey wolf was just as cute as the hedgehog and the symbolically loaded details and musical accompaniment hypnotized viewers. Norstein has been working on his next project for forty years already.

24:27 YURI NORSTEIN

“Here are the houses, we’re going to backlight them as we film, the windows will glow, there’s going to be street lamps here. And it’s going to be Christmassy.”

 The screen adaptation of Gogol’s The Overcoat is officially believed to be the longest project in the history of animation and has received a few awards already even though Mr. Norstein has shown only fragments at festivals. All one can do is wait for the next revelation from this genius who popularized Soviet animation and whose name belongs with the likes of Tarkovsky, Stravinksy, and Chekhov. 

25:10 YURI NORSTEIN

“I think that animation is something special in cinematography, and I don’t even know what to expect from it, to be honest.”

6. Willis H. O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen

As soon as the conversation tends towards difficult, truly complex animation, the names of Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen appear in bold print. Let’s talk about stop-motion. This technique animates static objects. Every minute adjustment is photographed and then the frames are combined. This simple idea was used even by Émile Cohl who brought to life flies, mice, and porcelain figures. Ladislas Starevich even put bugs in a human city where they read newspapers, drew pictures, and … loved each other. Willis O’Brien was not a part of the first experiments. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he was jumping from one job to another. He worked as a barman, a farmer, a steelworker, and a cowboy but was brought into animation thanks to paleontology. He would give dig tours to paleontologists and in his spare time, drew and made dinosaur figures. Thanks to his hobby and artistic talent he started working as an illustrator for the sports column of a newspaper. His first attempt to animate his clay dinosaurs attracted the attention of Tomas Edison. He hired O’Brien to work at his studio where the artist made a few short films. His method was based on making a wire skeleton and building a soft clay figure around it. A similar technique is used to this day. The screen adaptation of The Lost World became his first full-length film. The author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was so impressed with the frames containing dinosaurs that he used them to play jokes on his friends. After watching, he would convince his friends that his book was in fact a work of non-fiction. But O’Brien truly won the world over in 1933. King Kong became one of the most popular figures in film and caused a revolution in the industry. The two-foot-tall gorilla model came to life in Willis’ hands, though in fact, he thought that he had ruined the film. As he re-watched the reel the artist realized that he had made a huge mistake. If you look closely you can see handprints on the fur. This causes the fur to move between frames. Before showing the finished product Willis was sure he was going to be fired. After the premiere, the producer ran up to him and shook his hand. He was amazed by Willis’ attention to detail and thought that he had moved the fur on purpose to make it look like it was fluttering in the wind. The Academy seemed to be of the same opinion since it nominated Willis for an Oscar for the technical effects. The artist demanded that the Oscar be given to every member of his team. The ceremony representatives not only rejected his request but spoiled O’Brien’s reputation. Members of the Academy spread rumors about his nasty personality and lack of participation in the final scenes of the picture. As a result, he only received two work proposals in the next decade. The film itself saved RKO Pictures from bankruptcy and was in the top three grossing films of the year, but most importantly caused the thirteen-year-old Ray Harryhausen to fall in love with animation. The boy became so interested in stop-motion and with Willis’ work that he sent his hero his own short films, and in ’49 finally became his assistant. Mighty Joe Young was O’Brien’s comeback to the movie world and set the bar for frame-by-frame animation. This time Willis did not reject the award, though it was Ray who actually animated the main character of the picture. Through facial expressions, the young prodigy was able to give the gorilla a personality filled with depth while the action scenes are still considered to be world-class. Not to mention the seamless weaving of cowboys and puppets where the lasso magically switches to a stop motion wire. In some frames the puppets replaced actors. As for the fire scene in the orphanage, the children turned into figures and the gorilla interacted with people and decorations. The animation took fourteen months after which Joe Young fetched O’Brien an Oscar and Harryhausen kickstarted a grand career. Soon he moved on from his teacher’s methods. He made the wire figures more complex and combined them with real backgrounds instead of miniature sets. Thanks to this innovation Ray brought to life monsters and magical creatures for dozens of cult films. His greatest achievement was the fantasy Jason and the Argonauts. The awakening of Talos, the seven-headed hydra, the harpies, and of course the fight against the skeletons. The scene combining puppets with actors is still considered to be one of the most difficult in history. Every frame required moving thirty-five bone soldiers so that they perfectly aligned with the movement of the actors. Ray remained scrupulous with every detail in all his pictures, personally working through every frame of every film he ever made. The works of Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen are still inspiring. Thanks to them the magical worlds of Tim Burton and Henry Selick came to life, Nick Park sent Wallace and Gromit on adventures, Laika Studio introduced us to Kubo and Wes Anderson saved The Island of Dogs. 

5. Satoshi Kon 

And now, to hell with objectivity. Satoshi Kon is the best anime creator of the twenty-first century. His films are an inexhaustible stream of inspiration for Hollywood containing editing tricks and illusions which could be a separate art form in and of itself. Satoshi grew up on the works of the Godfather of anime Osamu Tezuka and as a teenager inhaled the comics, or rather manga, of Katsuhiro Otomo. He published his first manga Toriko after he had just turned twenty. At the presentation he met Katsuhiro Otomo. The experienced artist was impressed by Satoshi’s talent and hired him as his assistant. Under Otomo’s tutelage, Kon drew the manga Akira and later worked on its screen adaptation. The fantasy action amazed with its detail and visual effects and Satoshi’s efforts promoted him from assistant to partner. So, in the early 90s, Katsuhiro was working on the anthology Memories. The picture was built on three stories. Two of the screenplays were written by Otomo while the third was entrusted to Kon. Magnetic Rose greatly pleased his mentor. The story of a space station filled with the memories of a once-famous opera singer became the first segment. At the same time, Katsuhiro was asked to adapt the novel Perfect Blue for the screen but he convinced the producers to go with Kon instead. The new director reordered the script and filled the picture with complex editing tricks. Bloodthirsty frames and a jagged plotline showed how fantasy destroys lives. The next reel, on the other hand, glorified the world of dreams. The visual language of Millennium Actress was rich with metaphors and allusions to film history, from costumed dramas and noir to science fiction. He continued to perfect his craft both in Tokyo Godfathers where he imitated the Hollywood-style Christmas story and in the mini-series Paranoia Agent where he tried his hand at fantasy. But his main achievement remains Paprika. Its plot and frames inspired Christopher Nolan’s Inception. The tale of an invention which invades the dreams of others combined in itself the best of Satoshi’s skills. His drawings exploded with bright colors, he constantly broke the fourth wall and filled the frames with references to cult films. And of course match-cuts, match-cuts, and more match-cuts… Paprika is the pinnacle of contemporary art which showed Kon was up to par with the greatest animators. This made the news of his death all the more tragic four years later. The artist passed into the next life at only forty-six. He died six months after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. An unfathomable loss for the world of anime, animation, and cinematography. All we can do is remember him and enjoy the inheritance which he left to us. 

4. John Lasseter

John Lasseter was addicted to animation from childhood. Instead of schoolbooks, he studied The Art of Animation. The author talked about the history of Disney and the technical aspects of Sleeping Beauty and John copied the drawings from the book at home, and even scribbled during Sunday church. At eighteen he applied to CalArts and became a part of the first Character Animation Program. His mentors were none other than some of the aforementioned Nine Old Men. This group had been helping Walt Disney from the time the studio was founded and had trained up worthy replacements. The course was filled with half of the future stars of the animation industry from Brad Bird to Tim Burton. In 1979 every student of the program got a job at the Disney studio. John had landed the job of his dreams but for the next four years, not a single one of his projects was accepted. John started to dabble in computer graphics but his bosses weren’t convinced of its potential. He was fired in ’83. That same year the talented animator met Ed Catmull. The trailblazing programmer was the head of the computer department at Lucasfilm and constantly badgered the patent bureau with new innovations in the CGI sphere. Catmull asked John to join a team of artists which was working on the first 3D animation in history. He agreed and helped animate The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. Six months later Lasseter was hired by Lucasfilm where he created a knight made of stained glass for The Young Sherlock Holmes. In another six months, George Lucas sold his CGI department to Steve Jobs. John was offered to stay, but he followed Ed Catmull. The company was renamed Pixar and Jobs turned it into a money-making machine. They provided program support for 3D modeling and animation, and Lasseter went into advertisement. The new company supported his experiments. Luxo Jr. stole the show across festivals in ’86 and on the way turned into part of the Pixar logo. His next achievement Tin Toy became the first CGI project to win an Oscar for best animated short. The statuette symbolized the acceptance of 3D animation as an art form, not just something used in technical fields limited only to tech conference presentations. This success caused Disney to notice Lasseter again. They offered to finance and release three feature films with Pixar. The rest is history… the release of Toy Story, the animation revolution, incredible box office profits, and an Oscar for Special Achievement. Pixar’s next pictures consistently stayed on top at the box office, received standing ovations from critics, and collected awards. Lasseter directed A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, and Cars. He controlled the creative process for every project and after Disney bought out Pixar, John and Ed Catmull were made Creative Directors of the animation department. Lasseter triumphantly returned to his home studio and played a part in its new golden era. He finally incorporated CGI into Disney, got his star on the Walk of Fame, and a place in history among the greatest animators. The perfect time for ovations, bows and “curtain!” But the story was ruined by John’s bad habits. In 2017 he took a leave of absence because of sexual misconduct. Lasseter was accused of not respecting personal space and hugging and kissing without consent. A year later he was fired from Disney for a second time. John found a new post at Skydance Studios which had started an animation department and hired him as its director in 2019. This move caused heated criticism but the board of directors defended him, even after Emma Thompson broke her contract to voice over a Skydance film when she found out John was joining. Apple TV is planning to release two full feature projects overseen by Lasseter. Based on his previous works we wait with bated breath for more incredible films and for news that Disney has reclaimed its alumni once again. 

3. Pete Docter 

The closing trio is headed up by another computer animation genius. Pete Docter studied on the same course with John Lasseter. After graduating in 1990 he didn’t start work at Disney, but was invited to join a team of animators working on The Simpsons. This was the perfect job for the young artist both financially and artistically. Pete still doesn’t understand how he turned it down in favor of a job at a studio that was doing strange CGI shorts. He joined Pixar as the tenth employee and as the first who knew nothing of computer graphics. Over the next five years, he drew dozens of characters for Toy Story including Buzz Lightyear who he based on himself. He also animated action scenes and helped with the storyboard during the famous company brainstorming sessions. The Pixar brainstorms are considered the main reason for its success. They would occur weekly around a round table where each employee would get to share his ideas or suggestions, criticisms, and change drafts or add jokes. Docter’s contributions impressed Lasseter and the director kept giving him more responsibility. Pete was responsible for the plot and characters in the sequel about the adventures of Buzz and Woody, and after the picture’s release, made his first directing debut. He had been writing the screenplay for Monsters Inc. since 1994 but Disney only financed the project in 2000. Mike Wazowski, Sully, and Boo took the audience on an emotional roller coaster that would become a trademark of Docter’s movies. Besides the script, the reel was memorable because of its technological innovations. Sully’s fur and Boo’s shirt moved thanks to a specially written simulation program and the scene with the door depot required that Pixar crank up its computing capability. It took twice as much computing power to render than Toy Story and A Bug’s Life combined. Monsters Inc. was released in 2001, received an Oscar nomination, and closed out the top three highest-grossing films of the year. Pete’s next film made it to the screen eight years later. The screenplay reflected his friendship with the three Disney veterans: Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Joe Grant. The sad scenes of farewell made it into the picture because none of the three lived to see the premiere. Carl Fredricksen was the incarnation of the trio and his appearance was based on Spencer Tracy. Ten thousand balloons, a talking dog and the missing badge brought Pete a statuette from the Academy. Besides an Oscar for Best Animated Film, Up was nominated for Best Film. It was only the second time in history that a cartoon had been nominated: the first being Beauty and the Beast. Apart from his directing and screenwriting work, Docter was mentioned in the credits of every Pixar project, and his next project became Inside Out. This story was inspired by his teenage daughter and memories of moving as a kid. The inside world pushed the limits of visualization. From the memory reservoir to Bingo-Bongo. Each detail reflected a psychological concept. The color and shape of each emotion are associated with anger, disgust, fear, sadness, or joy. And yes, similar techniques have been employed by animators from the start but Inside Out contained more complex concepts. The room of abstract thoughts, Imagination Land, the dream studio, and the cave of subconscious fears. That journey would have been the envy of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Docter once again wrapped a deep concept in a colorful wrapper which brought him a second Oscar. The director spent five more years on his next film. During preparation for the musical Soul, John Lasseter was fired, and Pete took his place as Creative Director. Usually, when you’re entrusted with a job like that in a multi-billion dollar corporation, personal projects take a backseat, but Docter completed his story about life, destiny, and death. The design for the characters was inspired by Ronald Searle’s illustrations and their adventures were accompanied by magical jazz compositions. New York was depicted from the vinyl covers of the 60s and the afterlife was presented in a minimalistic abstract style. This choice allowed the film to avoid religious allusions and focused the attention on the main questions of the reel. Once again, Docter conveyed deep meaning through simple and good-natured story-telling. And yes, he has already announced that he will take a break from directing, but it’s comforting to know that now his vision will extend to all future Pixar and Disney projects.

2. Glen Keane

It’s hard to know where to begin. Glen Keane guided us through our childhood. His drawings, design, and animation come to mind when we hear the word cartoon, and for Disney, his appearance was marked by two golden ages. Glen arrived at the studio in ’74. Under the tutelage of animation veteran Ollie Johnston, he oversaw the design and animated the characters of The Rescuers, Pete’s Dragon, and The Fox and the Hound. At the end of the 80s, he was made Ursula’s animator in the new adaptation of The Little Mermaid but Keane insisted on doing Ariel. The character contained the expressions and character of actress Alyssa Milano and the floating hair of astronaut Sally Ride. Hair will take on an important role in all of Keane’s work. In The Little Mermaid, the way it changes under the water and on land symbolizes the heroine belonging to another world. In his next work, the fur of the Beast reminds the character of his curse. The same goes for Tarzan, whose dreds symbolize the conflict between his aristocratic roots and true home in the jungle. The wind played with Pocahontas’ hair as though whispering dreams of uncharted worlds and John Smith. In the 2000s Glen even made hair one of the main characters. The cartoon Tangled took seven years of preparation. Initially, Keane was the director. The studio had been impressed by his work in CGI and 2D animation in Treasure Planet where the artist gave John Silver a robotic hand. However, another artist did the actual animation. Despite thirty years in the industry, Glen had never used a computer. Attempts to teach him how gave way to a quote which the Tangled animators put in the hall of their daily meetings. “You guys work so long just to make something look bad”. Yeah, not the best motivation but his perfectionism and the help of John Lasseter and Ed Catmull allowed the employees of Disney to adapt their two-dimensional animation experience for 3D. As for the heroine’s hair, programmers simulated its behavior for several years but the result did not satisfy the director. He fixed the problem by giving it a character of its own. In each frame, one hundred and fifty thousand hairs submitted to their own rhythm whirled and pranced reflecting the inner world and conflicts of the heroine. In 2008 Keane left the director’s post because of a heart attack. The cartoon finished without him. After getting better the artist left Disney. He was exhausted after forty years of deadlines and corporate pressure. He dedicated the next seven years to his artistic ambitions. Multimillion-dollar projects gave way to pure art. A three-minute penciled melodrama Duet introduced viewers to Keane’s inner world for the first time. These rough sketches told a touching story containing all the riches of half a decade of animation experience. His next short brought Glen an Oscar. It was a goodbye letter to basketball from Kobe Bryant, which came to life on hundreds of pieces of paper. In 2019 he agreed to work on another 3D cartoon. Keane shared the director’s chair for Over the Moon with John Kahrs and oversaw the visual aspect of the picture. Glen once again used bright colors to create magical worlds. But his work on the series Trash Truck is special because of its continuity. Glen voiced over the characters together with his grandson, and his son directs and animates the fun adventures of this strange couple. As per his father’s advice, Max Keane continues to follow the main rule of animation. Animate what a character is feeling, not what he is doing.

1. Hayao Miyazaki 

It’s time to meet the leader, probably not for the first time. None other than Hayao Miyazaki. A visionary from Japan, a cosmopolitan, pacifist, and defender of nature whose fairytales are like lifeboats in the ocean of reality. Hayao was born in January of ’41. The war was hard on the heels of the Miyazakis. His father Katsuji was the director of a factory which made rudders for Mitsubishi fighter planes. They traveled the country running from bombings and three-year-old Hayao absorbed everything that was going on around him. Half a century later his work would depict the magic of flying, the horrors of war, and a father whose traits will pass to Jiro Horikoshi from The Wind Rises; a person who yearns for good but serves evil. Katsuji’s work captivated his son from a young age. He would redraw the details of the mechanisms and invent magical airplanes. Even the name of his future studio would come from the Italian fighter plane nicknamed Ghibli from the Arabic word which means warm desert wind. But at the end of the 50s Miyazaki was not even thinking about his own company. He finished university and became a manga artist. In ’63 he joined the ranks of anime artists. The moving figures tapped his potential and The Great Adventure of Horace: Prince of the Sun brought him Isao Takahata. Hayao oversaw the design of the characters and animation while Isao took the directing role. Having worked together once, they never parted ways. The screen adaptation of Lupin the Third and Future Boy Conan made them famous in Japan and allowed them to start their own projects. As Miyazaki himself said: “freedom is the greatest joy available to man” which seems embodied in the flight from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. This ode to ecology and peace was so loud that the whole world heard about Japanese animation. Before that, the boundary between kids’ anime and adult anime was thicker than the Berlin wall. Miyazaki took it apart brick by brick and on its ruins built Ghibli studios. Here, together with Isao Takahata, they would erect a temple to animation. His films would follow the rules of classic animation. Even on the brink of bankruptcy, they would reject new technology and a line of sequels. Each story was one full-length feature film. A universe beginning with the first second and ending with the final credits. Miyazaki does not write scripts, his plots develop with the sketches. On these pages, the realism of human routine battles the fairy tale plots and surroundings. The heroes’ emotions will equal those of film as opposed to typical anime style. But most importantly, his stories are not about good versus evil. The viewer is free to choose a side because the actions of the characters are ambiguous, like in real life. Hayao left genres behind long ago. His works are the revelations of a genius. It was with good reason that twelve years after his Oscar for Spirited Away he received another prestigious award from the Academy for the deep impact on world animation, inspiring a whole generation of artists to work in the field, and revealing its limitless potential. What’s more, his biggest fans in America are John Lasseter and Pete Docter who, for the last fifteen years, have been overseeing the dubbing of his pictures and reference him in their own cartoons. After The Wind Rises Miyazaki announced that he was retiring but in 2016 confirmed the rumors that he was working on a film. However, he said that he’s working on it in retirement so its release shouldn’t be expected for another three years at least. That’s ok, we’ll mark the year 2024 on our calendars and meanwhile, continue to enjoy the fruits we have already gathered from his limitless talent. 

Another story has come to an end. This list is not completely objective and we know we have missed an unforgivable number of great names. The world of animation is full of amazing genres and hundreds of geniuses since all the beauty of the world can easily fit in the head of one person.