Ellen Woodbury is an American sculptor, former Disney directing animator and character animator, who worked at Walt Disney Animation Studios from 1985 to 2005.
Born in 1962, 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. Later she attended the Experimental Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts under the mentorship of Jules Engel. Her student films won national and international awards as well as a jump start in her career where she served as an animator both He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra: The Princess of Power.
Joining Disney in 1985, Woodbury began as an assistant before eventually being promoted to Directing Animator, the first woman to achieve this promotion. During her 20-year tenure, she brought to life many well-known characters, including Maurice in Beauty and the Beast, Abu in Aladdin, Zazu in The Lion King, and Pegasus in Hercules. By the mid-2000s, Woodbury grew disillusioned by the company's switch from traditional to computer animation which led her to resign in 2005.
She moved to Loveland, Colorado to become a full-time sculptor. She is a signature member of Artists For Conservation, a Signature member of The Society of Animal Artists, and an Associate member of the National Sculpture Society. 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 2011, Woodbury's sculpture. "See Through Other Eyes: Spotted Owl", won the 2011 People's Choice Award in Loveland, CO, as part of the Arts Advocacy Project during a Sculpture in the Park exhibition. In 2019, the National Sculpture Society presented Woodbury with the Marilyn Newmark Memorial Grant. She applies many animation principles to both her design and sculpting processes. She says, "I find stone sculpture to be a logical extension for much of what I learned as an animator. One medium is the illusion of three dimensions and the other is the reality of three dimensions."
Filmography[]
| Year | Film | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1986 | The Great Mouse Detective | Assistant Animator |
| 1987 | Sport Goofy in Soccermania | Additional Animator |
| 1988 | Oliver & Company | Animating Assistant: Oliver |
| 1989 | The Little Mermaid | Character Animator |
| 1990 | The Rescuers Down Under | Character Animator: Mice and Koala |
| 1991 | Beauty and the Beast | Animator: Maurice Lead Animator: Sultan |
| 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 |
| How to Haunt a House | Animator | |
| Fantasia 2000 | Animator: Segment "Rhapsody in Blue" | |
| 2002 | Treasure Planet | Supervising Animator: Long John Silver's Pirate Crew |
| 2004 | Home on the Range | Animator: Mrs. Calloway |
| 2005 | Chicken Little | Animator |
| 2007 | Meet the Robinsons | Animator |
Gallery[]
External links[]
Ellen Woodbury on Wikipedia- Ellen Woodbury on IMDb
- America's Women Magazine Interview
- Influential Animators: Ellen Woodbury
