ROLE: Production Manager
This short film was based on the villain from Brave, the mythic beast, Mor’Du. In Brave, the legend had it that Fergus, Merida’s father, had lost his leg in a duel with the horrific bear, and since then, he had haunted the forests around their village.
This tale was floating around the story room for years while we worked on Brave (I remember some being totally absurd and hilarious renditions of what happened to him). Once the story team had disbanded, Brian Larsen (director), Steve Purcell (writer), Scott Morse, Louis Gonzales, and I worked on bringing this story to life. It started as more of a passion project (as the studio didn’t know we were doing it), and we worked on it after hours and on weekends. After storyboarding it in Pixar’s proprietary storyboarding software, Pitch Docter (named after Pete Docter), the shots were fleshed out and colorized in Photoshop with layered PS files to give it that comic look. Later we brought on Andrew Jimenez, a brilliant After Effects artist, to do the camera work and 2D animation. Once the studio saw how amazing this short looked, it was approved for us to move forward with it. We were able to add the bookended 3D-animated scenes with the Witch (voiced by Julie Andrews) to tie up the narrative. This was Pixar’s first short that told the backstory of a villain - new territory for them - but it was rendered beautifully. Music by Patrick Doyle. It was released on the Brave DVD.