Black Animators
I’ve been on a hunt to find black animators (especially because female coloured animators were definitely hard to find). I have noticed that it’s rare that black animators win awards. Why is that?
I did a poll on instagram to see if anyone knew of any black animators... it’s safe to say that there are no well known black animators because all the responses were people saying that I am the only one they know of.
A. that is so bias. And B. I’m not famous...yet!
Floyd Norman was the first black animator at Disney studios. Though he never saw it as a big thing, to some of us, it is! Floyd E. Norman (born June 22, 1935) is an American animator, writer, and comic book artist. Over the course of his career, Norman has worked for a number of animation companies, among them Walt Disney Animation Studios, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Ruby-Spears, Film Roman and Pixar.
Frank C. Braxton, Jr. (1929–1969) was a pioneering African-American animator and director. Braxton started his animation career at Warner Bros. Cartoons in the 1950s as an assistant to Ben Washam and was one of the very first African-American animators with any Hollywood studio. He stayed at Warner Bros. for two years. Allegedly Washam went to his boss and essentially demanded the hiring of Braxton at Warner Bros. Cartoons. With no prior animation experience Braxton was brought on as an "inbetweener" with one or two other new hires, but his talent rapidly propelled him up to being an "assistant animator", and to none other than master animator Ben Washam, in the already legendary Chuck Jones unit at Warners. Thus many of the incredible Jones cartoons of the mid-1950s contain substantial amounts of Braxton's work. Later, he worked under animation director Bill Hurtz and briefly managed a cartoon studio in Barcelona, Spain. Braxton died of cancer in 1969. He is interred at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles. his last animated project is A Boy Named Charlie Brown that came out in 1969
Dan Haskett (born 1952) is a veteran animator who designed the character Belle for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, as well as Ariel for The Little Mermaid and Tod as an adult for The Fox and the Hound.
Haskett was the main designer of the characters Minerva Mink for Steven Spielberg's Animaniacs and Radio AAHS' mascot disc jockeys Ozzie and Kazoo. Haskett also has credits for Toy Story, The Prince of Egypt, Sesame Street and The Simpsons.
Here’s an interesting interview with him: https://cedricstudio.com/2010/04/interview-with-character-designer-dan-haskett/
Now this next animator is definitely an inspiration to me! All my childhood favourite films, Bruce worked on them!
Bruce Wayne Smith (born September 6, 1961 in Los Angeles, California) is an American character animator, film director, and television producer. He was the creator of Disney Channel's The Proud Family, as well as the supervising animator of Kerchak in Tarzan, Pacha in The Emperor's New Groove, Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog, and Piglet, Kanga, and Roo in Winnie the Pooh.
Smith studied animation in the Character Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts. He joined the Walt Disney Studios an animator on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and various other Roger Rabbit shorts that the studio produced. Soon after, Smith was handpicked by producer/director Reginald Hudlin (House Party, Boomerang) to direct the Paramount Pictures animated film Bébé's Kids.
Smith also served as co-director on the Warner Bros. live action/animated film Space Jam before returning to Disney as supervising animator on such films as Tarzan (Kerchak and Baboons) and Emperors New Groove (Pacha).
While working animation on the feature film side, Smith started feeding into his love of television animation and created The Proud Family for the Disney Channel. He co-founded Jambalaya Studio for the production of the series and crafted over 50 episodes of the hit series along with The Proud Family TV movie. Smith then rejoined the Walt Disney Studios and Duncan Studio Production to supervise animation on The Princess and the Frog (Dr. Facilier) and the Winnie the Pooh Movie (Piglet, Kanga and Roo) and as the lead animator on the short Tangled Ever After. Smith's knack for unique character design led him into the visual development of other projects at the studio such as Wreck-it-Ralph and Frozen.
Jim A. Simon is an artist and animator. With his animation company, Wantu Studios, he created animations for Sesame Street and other shows. After graduation, Simon began working as an animation background artist at Paramount Pictures' animation studio. It closed four months after he joined, but his time there had allowed him to join the animators' union. A Paramount colleague then brought Simon in as an assistant animator on the 1960s Spider-Man animated series. After a year-and-a-half, Simon left in order to freelance, recalling in 1975 that, "I was turning out so much work, they had to promote me, because I was earning more money than some of the full-fledged animators. But it got to the point that I was just too excited about the things going on inside my own head, which I could not release while working for someone else." Circa 1972, he formed Wantu Animation Inc., initially based in New York City and then Los Angeles. Simon's clients included the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company, for which his first short film, "Hey Diddle Diddle", won an award at the International Animated Film Association's 1975 Animation Awards Festival; WNET's children's educational series Vegetable Soup; Sesame Street; the Black Psychiatrists of America; and the New York Public Library.
LeSean Thomas was born 1975 in The South Bronx, New York City) is an American television animation producer, director, animator, comic book artist, writer, character designer, and storyboard artist, based in Los Angeles.
His recent, notable projects include the TV series, Black Dynamite, Legend of Korra for Nickelodeon Animation, Aaron McGruder's The Boondocksfor Sony Pictures Television, "Children of Ether" on Crunchyroll & the upcoming Netflix anime original series Cannon Busters and Yasuke.