Mark Andrews (filmmaker)

Mark Elliott Andrews (born September 12, 1968) is an American filmmaker, animator, and storyboard artist. He is best known for directing (alongside Brenda Chapman) the 2012 Pixar feature film Brave. He was the story supervisor for The Incredibles and Ratatouille, directed the short film One Man Band and co-wrote the short films Jack-Jack Attack and One Man Band.

Born

Mark Elliott Andrews

September 12, 1968 (age 57)

Los Angeles County, California, U.S.

EducationBachelor of Fine Arts (1993)^[1]

AlmamaterCalArts

Occupations

Film director
screenwriter
animator
storyboard artist

Quick facts Born, Education ...

Mark Andrews
Andrews at the 66th British Academy Film Awards
Born	Mark Elliott Andrews (1968-09-12) September 12, 1968 (age 57) Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Education	Bachelor of Fine Arts (1993)^[1]
Alma mater	CalArts
Occupations	Film director screenwriter animator storyboard artist
Years active	1994–present
Employer	Pixar Animation Studios (2000–2018)^[2]
Spouse	Patricia Gatz^[2]^[3]^[4]
Children	4^[5]
Relatives	Bryan Andrews (brother)
Awards	Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Brave (2012)

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Career

Andrews studied animation at the Character Animation Program at CalArts. After that he was one of five who got a Disney internship, but was fired after three months.^[6] He is also considered to be Brad Bird's "right-hand man".^[who?] Some of his student films have been featured at MOMA's exhibition TOMORROWLAND: CalArts in Moving Pictures. Unlike most other CalArts alumni, he was not a huge fan of Disney films, and claimed he was a bigger fan of anime such as Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer, and Robotech.^[7]

He is the father of Maeve Andrews, who voiced Jack-Jack Parr in The Incredibles.^[8] Andrews replaced Brenda Chapman as director of Brave (2012).^[9] Both were credited as directors, and they won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.^[10]

On January 13, 2013, it was announced that Andrews was writing and directing another original feature film at Pixar.^[11] Having now directed an animated film, Andrews found the storyboarding phase on Brave to be a frustrating and overly time-consuming process since a 2-D context was being used to convey a 3-D film and it left little room for change later on. This contrasted with his experience on John Carter just before where that film was always being made in the context of the live-action medium and changes could be made in real time.^[12] Andrews pitched to Pixar Presidents Ed Catmull and Jim Morris his idea to make his next film at Pixar using mo-cap instead of storyboards for sketching ideas. Andrews' intention for using mo-cap was to be in a 3-D context earlier in the process of making a 3-D film, which was approved.^[12] Andrews ultimately left Pixar in 2018 with the understanding that the studio no longer wanted to make the film, which he described as a "big action-adventure fantasy epic".^[12]

Since leaving Pixar, Andrews has been a vocal proponent of implementing tools such as Unreal Engine to work in 3-D animation in context with significantly fewer financial and creative constraints while producing significantly more content.^[12] Andrews served as director and executive producer of the Netflix original animated series Super Giant Robot Brothers, which was released on August 4, 2022.^[13] The series was made using Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games in collaboration with Reel FX Animation.^[14]

In October 2021, it was announced that Andrews was attached to write and executive-produce an animated fantasy drama for Fox Entertainment and Bento Box Entertainment titled Hawkmaster.^[15] In July 2024, Andrews was also attached as the showrunner of a "post-apocalyptic samurai dinosaur" series for animation and VFX studio Floating Rock titled Kyōryū.^[16]