TONY BANCROFT
Tony Bancroft (born July 31, 1967) is an American animator and film director who frequently collaborates with Disney. He is founder and owner of the faith-driven animation company Toonacious Family Entertainment. Tony currently serves as the Executive VP Creative Development and Production for DivideNine Animation Studios.A native Californian, Bancroft grew up in Orange County. After a two-year stint at Cypress College, he enrolled in the character animation program at CalArts. This led to a summer job as a production assistant with filmmaker Ralph Bakshi and ultimately to an internship in California with Disney Feature Animation followed by a full-time position at the new Florida animation facility. Bancroft (along with his twin brother Tom) was selected to be among the first group of animators to work at the Disney-MGM Studios. During his one-year stay in Florida, he had his first official assignment as an assistant clean-up animator on Roger Rabbit in Roller Coaster Rabbit (1990). This was followed by a credit as animating assistant on The Rescuers Down Under (1990) working on the character of "Frank the frill-necked lizard".In 1990, he returned to California and worked as a character animator on Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992) before being promoted to supervising animator role on The Lion King (1994). After working on the character design and some preliminary animation for the gargoyle characters in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), he was tapped to join Barry Cook as a director on Mulan (1998).
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BARRY COOK
Cook was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1958/1959. He made his first film when he was ten years old. Cook interned as an assistant animator at the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, where he contributed to the pilot episode of the 1981 TV series The Smurfs. In 1981, Disney hired Cook as an effects animator for Tron (1982). Cook subsequently animated or supervised effects for various films including The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Aladdin (1992). He became the supervisor for the special-effects animation department at Disney. In 1992, he directed the animated short film Off His Rockers, which was about a child and his rocking horse. Peter Schneider, then president of feature animation, saw potential in Cook's film and supported its production. Off His Rockers drew the attention of director Randal Kleiser, who requested for the short to open his feature film Honey, I Blew Up the Kid in 1992. In 1993, Cook directed another animated short, Trail Mix-Up, which featured the cartoon character Roger Rabbit. His directing experience with Off His Rockers and Trail Mix-Up led him to the opportunity to direct Mulan with Bancroft. Following a five-month sabbatical break after directing Mulan, Cook began developing ideas for his second animated feature, and arrived at an idea he developed years earlier titled The Ghost & His Gift, adapted from Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost. In 2000, Cook pitched his idea to Michael Eisner and Thomas Schumacher who agreed the idea showed potential, although Eisner deterred about the simplicity while Schumacher felt the project was "too human" and more appropriate for a live action film. Following the pitch, Cook began reconstructing the idea, and added seven folk art characters into the story. During another pitch for the revised film, Cook proposed producing the film with 70 percent computer animation and 30 percent traditional animation, in which My Peoples was green-lighted with a budget of $45 million. The project underwent a series of titles such as Angel and Her No Good Sister, Elgin's People, and Once in a Blue Moon before settling on A Few Good Ghosts, and included a voice cast of Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Hal Holbrook, and Charles Durning.
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