Brad Bird facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Brad Bird
Bird at the 2009 Venice Film Festival
Born	Philip Bradley Bird (1957-09-24)September 24, 1957 (age 67) Kalispell, Montana, U.S.
Alma mater	California Institute of the Arts (BFA)
Occupation	Film director screenwriter producer animator voice actor
Years active	1979–present
Employer	Walt Disney Animation Studios (1978–1984) Amblin Entertainment (1985–1989) Gracie Films (1989–1996) Warner Bros. Feature Animation (1997–2000) Pixar Animation Studios (2000–2018, 2024–present) Skydance (2010–2011, 2021–present)
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Canney ​ (m. 1988)​
Children	3
Awards	Academy Award for Best Animated Feature The Incredibles (2004) Ratatouille (2007)

Philip Bradley Bird (born September 24, 1957) is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He has worked in both animation and live-action movies for over forty years.

Bird was born in Montana and grew up in Oregon. He became interested in animation very early. By age 14, he had finished his first short film. He sent this film to Walt Disney Productions. This led to him learning from Disney's famous Nine Old Men. He later studied at the California Institute of the Arts in the late 1970s. After that, he worked for Disney.

In the 1980s, Bird worked on film ideas for different studios. He helped write Batteries Not Included (1987). He also created two episodes of Amazing Stories for Steven Spielberg. One of these led to the animated show Family Dog. Later, Bird became a creative consultant for eight seasons of The Simpsons. He directed the animated movie The Iron Giant (1999). It was highly praised but did not make much money at the box office.

Bird then moved to Pixar. There, he wrote and directed two very successful animated films: The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). These movies earned him two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature. He also received nominations for Best Original Screenplay. He then directed the live-action film Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), which was also very successful. After that, he directed Disney's Tomorrowland (2015). He returned to Pixar to make Incredibles 2 (2018). This film became one of the highest-grossing animated films ever. It also earned him another Academy Award nomination.

Bird is known for paying close attention to every detail in his projects. He believes in creative freedom and the amazing things animation can do. He has often said that animation is an art form, not just a type of entertainment for children.

Brad Bird's Early Life and Learning

As a teen, Bird was awarded an internship to learn from Walt Disney's Nine Old Men at their California headquarters.

Philip Bradley Bird was born on September 24, 1957. He was the youngest of four children. His family lived in Kalispell, Montana. Brad Bird became fascinated with making films when he was very young. He started drawing at age three. His first cartoons clearly showed he was trying to tell stories in order. He especially loved animation after seeing The Jungle Book (1967). A family friend who had taken animation classes explained how it worked.

Bird's father found a used camera that could shoot one frame at a time. He helped Brad set it up to make films. Brad started animating his first short film at age 11. That same year, a family friend helped him get a tour of Walt Disney Productions in Burbank, California. Bird met the Nine Old Men. These were the famous animators who made Disney's earliest and best features. Bird told them he would join them one day.

Bird's parents were very supportive of his interests. His mother once drove two hours in the rain to a theater. It was the only place playing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs again. She wanted him to learn from it. After two years, Bird finished his first short film. It was fifteen minutes long and based on The Tortoise and the Hare. His parents told him to "start at the top." So, he sent his film to Disney. The studio invited Bird to visit anytime he was in town. This led to him visiting Disney's California headquarters many times. This chance to learn, like an "unofficial apprenticeship," was very rare. He worked closely with Milt Kahl, who he looked up to. He started another film, which was bigger and in color. But the work was too much. Instead, Bird focused on other things in high school. He enjoyed dating, sports, and photography. He later said, "Animation is the illusion of life. You can't create that illusion well if you haven't lived it." His family moved to Corvallis, Oregon. He graduated from Corvallis High School in 1975.

That year, Disney gave him a scholarship. It was to attend the new California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California. Bird joked that he was a "retired" animator by then. He thought about studying acting instead. But after a three-year break, Bird chose CalArts. His classmates included future famous animators like John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Henry Selick. Like many students, they were amazed by the special effects in Star Wars (1977). Lasseter and Bird both believed these effects were possible in animation too. First-year students met in room A113. It was a small classroom with no windows. Bird later used A113 as an Easter egg in his films. It has become a common hidden detail in movies made by CalArts graduates. The first time A113 was used was in the pilot episode for the TV show Family Dog (1993). This episode was part of the series Amazing Stories (1985–1987). It aired on February 16, 1987, and was called "Family Dog." He used it for the license plate number on a van.

Brad Bird's Career Journey

Early Work and Collaborations

Within two years, Bird got a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions. Bird arrived when the studio was changing. Many of the original artists were leaving, and new artists were taking over. Bird felt that the studio's leaders were not willing to take risks. This led to him being fired. He left Disney after only two years. He worked on The Small One (1978) and The Fox and the Hound (1981). He also worked without credit on Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) and The Black Cauldron (1985).

Bird was unhappy with the animation industry in America. He thought leaving Disney meant the end of his love for animation. Still, he gathered money to make A Portfolio of Projects. This was a collection of ideas for animated projects. He hoped to get money from other studios. But he was frustrated by how Hollywood worked. He said in 2018, "for every good project I've made, I've got equally good projects that are sitting [un-produced by] various studios." He moved to the Bay Area. He wanted to be part of the growing film scene there. He tried for years to make a movie based on Will Eisner's comic book The Spirit. But studios said no, because Disney was so dominant. He briefly tried to make a computer-animated film at Lucasfilm with Edwin Catmull. This was before his later work with Pixar. Alvy Ray Smith said Bird "had all these ideas for making animated movies, but he didn't have a technical bone in his body." Bird's next credit was as an animator on the animated drama The Plague Dogs (1982). He was also fired by that film's director, Martin Rosen.

Early in his career, Bird collaborated with director Steven Spielberg

One idea from his test reel, Family Dog, caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg. Family Dog was about a pet's view of its family. Bird had hoped to make it into short films for theaters. But that market no longer existed. Instead, Bird moved back to Los Angeles. He joined Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. He worked on Spielberg's TV show Amazing Stories, which started in 1985. He helped write the script for "The Main Attraction." Spielberg liked the script and asked Bird for more ideas. Bird drew storyboards for another Family Dog segment. It became an episode of Amazing Stories. The episode aired in 1987 and was very popular. Bird found the experience exciting. He said, "Not only was Steven one of my favorite filmmakers, but he was powerful enough to clear space that allowed us creative freedom." Family Dog later became its own spin-off sitcom. Bird did not want this and was not involved. He felt the idea would not work as a full show.

He also helped write the movie Batteries Not Included (1987). This was a comic sci-fi film based on an Amazing Stories idea. The film did well at the box office, making $65.1 million. Bird also helped with Captain EO, a 3-D short film starring Michael Jackson. It was shown at Disney theme parks. These successes gave Bird more chances. But he spent many years stuck in "development hell" with studios. He got annoyed with notes from middle managers. He felt they would "dictate everything you'd need to do to make it 'more pleasing to an audience'." He thought this only made stories smaller and more like everything else. In 1988, he married Elizabeth Canney, who was an editor on Batteries Not Included. In 1989, Bird's sister Susan passed away. This was a very difficult time for Bird. He felt emotionally "kind of gone in that period." He had enough money to rest for a while. He said, "I just kind of didn't do anything."

The Simpsons and The Iron Giant

Brad Bird's visual storytelling in Family Dog was new for TV animation. Most TV shows at the time used simple camera work. Bird, however, used more movie-like techniques. He used extreme angles, long panning shots, quick camera cuts, and pushed perspective. Bird's work on Family Dog caught the attention of producers James L. Brooks and Sam Simon. They were creating The Simpsons with Matt Groening. This was the first prime time animated sitcom in decades. In 1989, Bird was asked to join the show. He worked as an "executive consultant." This meant he oversaw the process from script to animation. He worked 2–3 days a week. His first credited episode was "There's No Disgrace Like Home".

Bird worked on The Simpsons for its first eight seasons. His last credited episode was "Treehouse of Horror VIII" (1997). He directed the episodes "Krusty Gets Busted" (1990) and "Like Father, Like Clown" (1991). He also designed the character Sideshow Bob. Bird encouraged the show's artists to think of episodes as small movies. He took inspiration from directors like Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles. In the 1990s, he also worked on other animated sitcoms. These included The Critic and the first season of King of the Hill. Bird called his work at The Simpsons a "golden opportunity." He found the work very rewarding. The show's staff hoped Bird would direct The Simpsons Movie (2007). But he was busy with Ratatouille, which came out the same year.

Christopher McDonald, Bird and Eli Marienthal in 2012 at an Iron Giant screening.

Animation became very popular in the U.S. in the 1990s. Hollywood studios wanted to repeat the success of Disney's The Lion King (1994). Bird kept trying to get his film ideas made. But he was frustrated by not being able to direct a feature film. He was briefly set to direct a live-action comedy, Brothers in Crime. But it did not happen. Also, his growing family brought new worries. He worried about balancing meaningful work and time with his family. He put these feelings into a script for The Incredibles. He started pitching it to studios in 1992. He also developed a sci-fi film called Ray Gunn. It was about a private detective in a futuristic world with humans and aliens. Bird signed a deal with Turner Feature Animation in January 1995. But the studio thought Ray Gunn would be too intense for young children. The next year, Turner merged with Time Warner.

Warner executives met with Bird. They made it clear they were not interested in Ray Gunn. Instead, they offered Bird other projects. One was a musical version of Ted Hughes' novel The Iron Man. Bird read the novel and loved it. He was drawn to why Hughes wrote the story. It was to comfort his children after his wife passed away. Bird connected with its themes, relating it to his sister's death. He changed the story to focus on a question: "What if a gun had a soul?" Warner leadership liked the idea. Bird signed the contract to direct The Iron Giant in December 1996. Bird wrote the script with Tim McCanlies. It is about a young boy named Hogarth Hughes. He finds and befriends a giant alien robot during the Cold War in 1957.

He had to quickly put a team together with little time. Most big animated films took years to make. Bird only had two. Bird also often disagreed with the film's co-producer, Allison Abbate. But the crew had a lot of creative freedom. Bird sometimes got suggestions from executives to make the film more kid-friendly. The film scored well in test screenings. But Warner did not promote it much. They were busy promoting Wild Wild West instead. The Iron Giant opened in August 1999. Critics loved it, but ticket sales were very low. Theater owners stopped showing it after only a few weeks. The movie made $31.3 million worldwide, but its budget was $50 million. This was a big loss for Warner. When it came out on home video, the film gained a cult following. Bird was sad about Giant's failure. He visited many movie theaters but saw the film in empty rooms. After this, he was briefly set to direct a Curious George movie for Universal. But he decided to aim for another animation studio: Pixar.

Success with The Incredibles and Ratatouille

Bird, far left, with Pixar's senior creative team in 2009.

In the late 1990s, Bird reconnected with his old friend John Lasseter. Lasseter worked for Pixar, a company that made computer hardware and had recently started making animated films. Pixar released the first fully computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, in 1995. Bird was amazed by the movie. In 1997, he and Lasseter began talking about Bird joining Pixar. In March 2000, Bird visited Pixar's Emeryville, California, campus. He pitched his ideas, including The Incredibles, to Lasseter. The studio announced a multi-film contract with Bird in May of that year. This made Bird the first outside talent to join the studio. Before this, artists usually had to work their way up within Pixar. He was happy to return to the Bay Area. He bought a home in Tiburon, across the bay from Pixar's headquarters. He felt comfortable in Pixar's "creative and supportive" environment. It was different from many L.A. studios he had worked for. He convinced a core team of artists to join him. These included Tony Fucile, Teddy Newton, and Lou Romano. They had all worked on early ideas for The Incredibles for many years.

Bird won Academy Awards for both The Incredibles and Ratatouille

Bird's first film at Pixar was The Incredibles. It is about Bob (Craig T. Nelson) and Helen Parr (Holly Hunter). They are superheroes who hide their powers because the government told them to. They try to live a normal life with their three children. Bob's wish to help people leads the family into a fight. They face Syndrome, a vengeful fan who became a foe. Bird also provided the voice of the costume designer Edna Mode. He had planned for Lily Tomlin to voice her, but she convinced him to do it. As a joke, the character Syndrome was based on Bird's looks (like Mr. Incredible). Bird said he did not realize the joke until the movie was too far along to change it. The animation team had to create computer animation's first all-human cast. This meant creating new technology. It was needed to animate detailed human bodies, clothes, and realistic skin and hair. Michael Giacchino composed the film's orchestral score. This was the first of many times they worked together. The Incredibles was Bird's first big hit with both critics and audiences worldwide. It made $631.4 million. It was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2004. Bird won his first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. His script was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. It was also the first animated film to win the important Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Bird's next project was Ratatouille (2007). It is about a rat named Remy. He dreams of becoming a chef. He tries to reach his goal by working with a garbage boy at a Parisian restaurant. The film was first developed by Jan Pinkava. He worked on the idea for many years. When the project was ready for animation, Pixar leaders worried it was not ready. Bird was hired in July 2005 to fix the problems and get the project ready quickly. He did not like taking over Pinkava's project. He later said, "It was a rough position to be in because I always come down on the side of the creator." But he was also part of Pixar's "brain trust." This was a group of people who helped each other with ideas. So, he felt the role was natural. When Bird took over, much of the design work was done. But Bird wrote a completely new script. It removed much of the original dialogue. Giacchino returned to compose the Paris-inspired music for the film. When it was released, Ratatouille was another huge hit for Pixar. The film made $623.7 million and received great reviews. It won the Best Animated Feature award at the 2008 Golden Globes. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Animated Feature, which it won.

Live-Action Films and Return to Animation

In the mid-2000s, Bird was set to direct a movie based on James Dalessandro's novel, 1906. This book tells the story of the big earthquake that hit San Francisco a century before. Because the project was so big, three studios were going to pay for it: Pixar, Disney, and Warner Bros. But the project stopped. He paused when Pixar asked him to take over Ratatouille. He returned to 1906 afterward. He tried to rewrite 1906 to fit into a movie's length, but it was hard. Instead, Bird directed Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. This was an action spy series movie starring Tom Cruise.

Bird's move to directing live-action films after a big career in animation was unusual. Cruise was impressed by Incredibles' style and storytelling. He told Bird to contact him if he ever wanted to direct live-action. Bird was challenged by the idea of combining a popular movie series with more artistic ideas. He signed on to direct in May 2010. In the movie, Cruise plays Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt. He and his team race to find a nuclear extremist who gets access to Russian nuclear launch codes. Ghost Protocol was filmed partly in Dubai. It has a famous scene where Cruise climbs the Burj Khalifa. When it was released in December 2011, it became the highest-grossing film in the series so far. It made $694 million worldwide. It was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011. It was also the second-highest-grossing film starring Cruise.

Bird was asked to direct Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But he turned it down to focus on his new project. This was the sci-fi film Tomorrowland. It was named after the futuristic themed land at Disney theme parks. Bird co-wrote the script with Damon Lindelof. In the film, a disappointed genius inventor (George Clooney) and a teenage science fan (Britt Robertson) go to an interesting alternate dimension called "Tomorrowland." Their actions there directly affect their own world. The film did not make much money. It lost Disney $120–150 million. It also received mixed reviews from critics.

Return to Pixar and Future Projects

Over the years, Bird talked about making an Incredibles sequel. An official sequel was announced in 2014. Bird started writing its script seriously the next year. He tried to make the script different from all the superhero movies released since the first film. He focused on the family's relationships rather than just the superhero action. The story follows the Incredibles as they try to make people trust superheroes again. They also balance their family life. They fight a new enemy who wants to turn people against all superheroes. The film was planned for release on June 21, 2019. But it was finished faster. It was ahead of Toy Story 4, which needed more work. So, the two films swapped release years. Incredibles 2 came out in theaters on June 15, 2018. Giacchino returned to compose the music.

Incredibles 2 made $182.7 million on its first weekend. This set a record for the best opening for an animated film. It made over $1.2 billion worldwide. This made it the second-highest-grossing animated film at the time. It was also the highest-grossing Pixar film. And it was the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. Incredibles 2 was named the Best Animated Film of 2018 by the National Board of Review. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 76th Golden Globe Awards and 91st Academy Awards. But it lost both awards to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Bird has said he is interested in making an animated Western or horror film. However, Bird returned to his old project Ray Gunn at Warner Bros. Feature Animation. Later, John Lasseter asked him to produce it for Skydance. In 2022, it was announced that Bird had signed a deal with Skydance the year before. He brought back frequent collaborators like Michael Giacchino, Teddy Newton, and Tony Fucile for the film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film's cost was estimated to be $150 million. This led to Skydance ending its distribution deal with Apple TV+. They later partnered with Netflix.

In August 2024, at the D23 Expo, Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter announced Incredibles 3 was being developed. Bird returned to write and be an executive producer for Incredibles 3. But he did not direct it because of his work on Ray Gunn. Peter Sohn was chosen by Bird and Docter to direct the film instead.

Brad Bird's Style and Themes

Bird says he was influenced by many filmmakers. He mentioned early moviemakers like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd. He also named directors from the mid-twentieth century like David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney, and Akira Kurosawa. More recent directors like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Hayao Miyazaki, and the Coen brothers have also inspired Bird. His passion for film was clear even in college. His friend John Lasseter remembered, "Brad would hang out all night talking about Scorsese and Coppola and how he could do what they did in animation." Bird himself has said his career was "very long, very delayed and full of disappointment." This was mainly because he aimed for very high goals he set for himself.

He is known for being very controlling and paying great attention to detail. His "demanding, often punishing" way of directing has made some people think he is difficult to work with. Bird speaks strongly about the potential of animation as an art. He has asked the public not to call his films "cartoons." In the audio commentary for The Incredibles home release, Bird joked he would fight the next person who called animated movies a "genre" instead of an art form. He also does not like it when modern animated films are only seen as being for children or families. He thinks this is unfair and makes animation seem less important. He loves hand-drawn animation and wishes it was still more common in the industry.

Some critics have suggested that Bird's films show ideas from novelist Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy. But Bird has strongly denied this. He said, "Me being the Ayn Rand guy is a lazy piece of criticism." Critic A.O. Scott first said that The Incredibles seemed to have a "feverish immersion" in "the philosophy of Ayn Rand." This was because the hero, Bob Parr, complains about society's "celebration of mediocrity." But Scott also noted that the film's ending, where Bob and his family learn to use their talents to help society, would go against this idea. Some critics later pointed to Tomorrowland. In that film, a group of geniuses form a society hidden from the rest of the world. They said this was like Atlas Shrugged and its Galt Gulch area. David Sims at the Atlantic has suggested Bird's films are actually "stories about the frustrations of unbridled creativity." He added, "In each film, there's an indelible recurring image: the frustrated genius, locked away in a dusty closet, obsessing over the talents he has to hide."

Personal Life

Brad Bird and his wife Elizabeth married in 1988. They have three sons. Nicholas voiced Squirt in the Pixar film Finding Nemo and Rusty the bike boy in The Incredibles. Michael voiced Tony Rydinger in The Incredibles and its sequel. Their third son is Jack. Bird owns homes in Tiburon, California, and Los Feliz, California.

Filmography

Awards and Nominations

Brad Bird has won many awards. These include Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Saturn Award wins. He holds the record for the most animation Annie Award wins with eight. He won Best Directing and Best Writing for The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. He also won Best Voice Acting for The Incredibles. His eighth Annie was the 2011 Winsor McCay Award for his lifetime work in animation.

Frequent Collaborators

Brad Bird has often worked with the same actors and crew members.

	The Iron Giant	The Incredibles	Ratatouille	Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol	Tomorrowland	Incredibles 2
Frank Thomas	N	N
Ollie Johnston	N	N
Craig T. Nelson		N				N
Holly Hunter		N				N
Samuel L. Jackson		N				N
Teddy Newton		N	N	N	N	N
Eli Fucile		N				N
Maeve Andrews		N				N
Lou Romano		N	N
Sarah Vowell		N				N
Michael Bird	N	N				N
Himself	N	N	N			N
Kimberly Adair Clark		N				N
John Ratzenberger		N	N			N
Nicholas Bird		N				N
Peter Sohn		N	N

See also

In Spanish: Brad Bird para niños

• A113
• Directors with two films rated A+ by CinemaScore