Brad Bird

Phillip Bradley Bird, better known as Brad Bird (born on September 11, 1957), is the two-time Academy Award-winning American director of Disney/Pixar's critical and box office hits The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). He also wrote and directed the 1999 Warner Bros. film The Iron Giant. Reviewing the Ratatouille DVD, Eye Weekly offered this characterization of Bird's work: "It’s hard to think of another mainstream American director with a comparably fluid visual style or such a vise-grip on storytelling mechanics." Bird was born in Kalispell, Montana. On a tour of the Walt Disney Studios at age 11, he announced that someday he would become part of its animation team, and soon afterward began work on his own 15-minute animated short. Within two years, Bird had completed his animation, which impressed the cartoon company. By age 14, barely in high school, Bird was mentored by the animator Milt Kahl, one of Disney’s legendary Nine Old Men. Bird recalls Kahl's criticisms as... full article at wikipedia