Brad Bird

Biography

Date of Birth

11 September 1957, Kalispell, Montana, USA

Birth Name

Phillip Bradley Bird

Spouse

Elizabeth Canney

(1988 - present) 3 children

Trade Mark

Use of the letter/number sequence A113, his classroom number at Cal Arts

Trivia

Started training as an animator at 14.

Trained as a Disney animator.

Graduated from Corvallis High School (Corvallis, Oregon), 1975.

His son is Nicholas Bird who did the voice of "Squirt" in Finding Nemo (2003) and "Little Boy on the Tricycle" in The Incredibles (2004).

His oldest son is Michael Bird, and he provided the voice of "Tony Rydinger" in The Incredibles (2004).

Personal Quotes

When I write things, often at the moment I'm writing, I'm thinking of camera angles; it's not a separate part of the process, it kind of comes out all at the same time. So I have really strong opinions about how things are presented, but at the same time I'm thinking about things that I want to present. It's like when somebody speaks, they assemble words in a certain way, but it's not always that conscious, it just comes out. That's the way film is for me.

Well, I like superheroes, but I'm not one of those guys who knows what issue 437 is of "Whatever." And I think people assume that because The Incredibles is about superheroes, that I know all that stuff. I kind of got it second-hand, from the movies. I'm happy to hear from anybody that does know that stuff, but I'm fairly oblivious to that really large volume of comic book lore that's been generated.

I think there's a tendency [among some animators] to wink at the audience so much that you feel that you're above the world that you're presenting-like the filmmaker doesn't really believe in the world that he's putting on screen. And there's a safety in that, because if you try to make the audience feel something besides comedy, like if you try to make them feel moved, you risk looking really silly if it doesn't work.

I love, love, love the medium of film. But that is the strange dichotomy of film, is that the medium is so unbelievably magical and wonderful, and the business is so--UGH! It's kind of the price you pay. Some friend of mine said you're not getting paid to work in the medium; you'd almost do that for free. But you're getting paid to suffer all the, you know-[Laughs].

There is a contingent of the digital-effects community to whom that is the holy grail - to create photographically real humans. To me that is the dumbest goal that you could possibly have. What's wonderful about the medium of animation isn't recreating reality. It's distilling it.

"Really, really little kids should not see this movie. They should wait till they get older. We're getting some reactions from people who were disappointed that their four-year-old was a little freaked out by it. Well, I don't want to compromise the intensity in order to please a four-year-old." [on 'Incredibles, The']

"I reject that whole point of view - that animation is a children's medium. The way people talk about it is, well, hey, it's a good thing I have kids, because now I get to see this. Well, hey, no, man! You can just go and see it. There's no other art form that is defined in such a narrow way. It's narrowminded, and I can't wait for it to die."

(About Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs at Pixar): "I refer to those guys as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Ed, who invented this cool medium and is the designer of the human machine that is Pixar, is the Father. John, its driving creating force, is the Son. And you-know-who is the Holy Ghost."

People think of animation only doing things where people are dancing around and doing a lot of histrionics, but animation is not a genre. And people keep saying, "The animation genre." It's not a genre! A Western is a genre! Animation is an art form, and it can do any genre. You know, it can do a detective film, a cowboy film, a horror film, an R-rated film or a kids' fairy tale. But it doesn't do one thing. And, next time I hear, "What's it like working in the animation genre?" I'm going to punch that person! [From the audio commentary on the DVD for The Incredibles (2004)]