Byron Howard

Byron Patrick Howard is a Japanese-born American animator, story artist, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and voice actor. He and Bush are the co-creators, co-directors, co-stars, and co-heads of story of the Disney franchise Zootopia. Howard grew up in Issaquah, Washington. Howard normally grew up watching cartoons and priorily Disney ones, attending Issaquah High School (graduating in 1986) and attending The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Howard's career in animation began 25 years ago when he followed his childhood dream to work for Walt Disney Animation Studios by writing for advice from one of Disney's Nine Old Men animators, Frank Thomas. Using Mr. Thomas's helpful letter, he structured his entire curriculum. Before the ink was dry on his diploma, he relocated to Orlando, Florida, where he worked as a tour guide for Disney's animation tour at Disney MGM Studios. After 4 portfolio submissions, Howard began the Disney animation internship and was hired in 1994. He went from in-betweener to animator to supervising animator in just five years. Since relocating to the California studios in 2004, he has worked as a story artist, character designer on Cobra Bubbles for Lilo & Stitch and Kenai for Brother Bear, and director on Disney's 48th animated feature film Bolt. He was recognized for an Annie Award Nomination in 2004 for Outstanding Character Animation on Brother Bear.

Howard started his career in 2008 as a director with the film Bolt. The other director of this film is Chris Williams, and the writers of the film are Dan Fogelman and Chris Sanders. It was released on November 21, 2008, and the cast of the film includes John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Malcolm McDowell, James Lipton, etc. He also directed the short film tied in with Bolts's DVD/Blu-Ray release called Super Rhino. Additionally, he directed Tangled with Nathan Greno.

In May 2013, it was reported that Howard, along with Rich Moore, and co-directed with Jared Bush was directing an animated animal comedy film for Walt Disney Animation Studios. A few months later, it was revealed that the film would be titled Zootopia, and was released on March 2016. The premise, plot, and film franchise itself is based on Howard and Bush's own childhoods taking vacations to many cities and growing up in their hometowns as they felt like they did not want to leave. Drawing open source from their childhood memories, Howard openly discussed his concept of compositional cities with mammals and how it contributed to his lifetime as a juvenile.

"We want these movies to be timeless. We want people to really engage with the characters and find something that they can emotionally connect with." —Byron Howard

In the Fusion documentary Imagining Zootopia, Howard declared he is gay and has been married since 1988. Bucky and Pronk Oryx-Antlerson were based on Howard and his wife too.

Feature Film Filmography[]

Year	Film	Position	Subsidiary
1995	Pocahontas	Inbetweener: Pocahontas	Walt Disney Animation Studios
1998	Mulan	Animator: Yao/Fa Family Ancestors
2002	Lilo & Stitch	Supervising Animator: Cobra Bubbles/Character Designer
2003	Brother Bear	Supervising Animator: Kenai
2005	Chicken Little	Additional Story Artist
2008	Bolt	Director/Additional Story Material
2010	Tangled	Director/Voice Actor (Guard 2 and Thug 2)
2016	Zootopia	Director/Story/Supervising Animator/Voice Actor (Travis and Bucky Oryx-Antlerson)
2019	Frozen II	Executive Producer
2021	Encanto	Director/Story
2024	Moana 2	Animation Director/Additional Story Artist
2025	Zootopia 2	Director/Animator/Voice Actor (Berthold Hufschmerz, Joel, and Bucky Oryx-Antlerson)

Animated Shorts Filmography[]

Year	Film	Position	Subsidiary
2000	John Henry	Supervising Animator	Walt Disney Animation Studios
2009	Super Rhino	Executive Producer
2012	Tangled Ever After	Writer/Director/Voice Actor (Lantern Wrangler and Chef)
2023	Once Upon a Studio	Special Thanks