Traditional Animation Gallery

Kirk Wise was born on August 24, 1963 in San Francisco, California. He graduated from Palo Alto High School onto studying character animation at the California Institute of the Arts. In his earlier career, he worked for the Walt Disney Animation Studio and worked on numerous projects such as the Sport Goofy in Soccermania (1987), and The Brave Little Toaster (1987), and then working with Steven Spielberg in the Amazing Stories episode "Family Dog". During his time at the Walt Disney Animation Studios, he eventually join a position in the story department and reunited with his old former Cal Arts classmate, Gary Trousdale.

 

Later in his career, Wise became a director and creative consultant Beauty and the Beast (1991) while Trousdale was the co-director. The film received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Beauty and the Beast was animated with the use of  a computer animation software called CAPS. CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) combined hand-drawn art with CGI (computer-generated imagery). The software is notable in the waltz sequence of the movie because Belle and the Beast are not actually dancing on a 2D plane. The ballroom they dance in is generated through CGI and is simulated into 3D space.

 

Wise also directed The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996 and Atlantis: The Lost Empire in 2001. While both films were considered to be successful in the box office, it did not recieve the same acclaim as Beauty and the Beast. He also worked on the English production of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away in 2002 as the director and ADR director. 

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Wise continues to work for the Walt Disney Animation Studio to this day. He is currently working as the director on an untitled animated project.