Alice Project - Artist: Don Bluth

Don Bluth

Don Bluth is an animator for several successful films and an ex-animator of Disney.
Bluth attended Brigham Young University in Utah for one year and after got a job at The Walt Disney Company. He started in 1955 as an assistant to John Lounsbery for Sleeping Beauty. In 1957 Bluth left Disney only two years after being hired. Afterwards Bluth spent two-and-a-half years in Argentina on a mission for the LDS Church. He returned to the United States where he opened the Bluth Brothers Theater along with his younger brother Fred, though he occasionally worked with Disney. Bluth returned to college where he got a degree in English Literature from Brigham Young. Bluth returned to animation business and joined Filmation in 1967 where he worked on layouts for The Archies and other projects. He returned full-time to Disney in 1971 where he worked on Robin Hood (Which happens to be one of my favorite Disney films from my childhood.), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, The Rescuers and directing animation on Pete's Dragon. His last involvement with Disney was the 1978 short The Small One. Then he went on to make and produce his first short, Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979), which takes place in his hometown Payson, Utah during the 1940s as Banjo travels to Salt Lake City to find the urban world.

Here is a list of his work:

·         Sleeping Beauty (1959, assistant animator, uncredited)

·         Popeye the Sailor (1960-1962, animation director (Jack Kinney), uncredited)

·         The Sword in the Stone (1963, assistant director, uncredited)

·         Fantastic Voyage (1968, TV series, layout artist)

·         Archies and His New Pals (1969, TV special, layout artist)

·         Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down (1970, TV series, layout artist)

·         Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies (1970, TV series, layout artist)

·         Robin Hood (1973, character animator)

·         Journey Back to Oz (1974, layout artist)

·         Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974, short film)

·         The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977, directing and character animator)

·         The Rescuers (1977, directing animator)

·         Pete's Dragon (1977, animation director)

·         The Small One (1978, short film)

·         Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979, short film)

·         Xanadu (1980, animated sequence unit, animator)

·         The Fox and the Hound (1981, animator)

·         The Secret of NIMH (1982)

·         Dragon's Lair (1983, video game)

·         Dragon's Lair (1983, TV series)

·         Space Ace (1984, video game)

·         Space Ace (1984, TV series)

·         An American Tail (1986)

·         The Chipmunk Adventure (1987, animation style)

·         The Land Before Time (1988)

·         All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

·         The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (1990, ride)

·         Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (1991, video game)

·         Rock-a-Doodle (1992)

·         Jungledyret (1993, animation style)

·         Thumbelina (1994)

·         A Troll in Central Park (1994)

·         The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)

·         Anastasia (1997)

·         Bartok the Magnificent (1999)

·         Titan A.E. (2000)

·         Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (2002, video game)

·         Mary by the Scissor Sisters (2004, animated segments of music video)

·         Tapper World Tour (2010, video game)

                                              
One of the last animated films Don Bluth worked on was 20th Century Fox’s Titan A.E (Which is also one of my favorite movies of all time.), but unfortunately, the film did poorly in the box office (Only earning back $37M of the $70M budget.) and causing the company Bluth was employed under to be shut down in Titan A.E’s wake and no longer developed 2D features.

Since 2000, Bluth has been anything but idle, as he has been working on smaller projects, like music videos and video games and also hosting a website where he teaches budding artists the art of animation.
He also plans to do a brand new animated feature entirely 2D in the coming future thanks to overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Blu-Ray re-release of Anastasia.

He has described his interest in animation as “An attraction to the beauty of how the drawn characters come to life.”