Byron Howard Movies and Career Information

Byron P. Howard (born 1968) is an American motion picture director and story artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation, and is best known as the lead character animator on Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear and the director on Bolt and Tangled. Howard grew up in Issaquah, Washington, attending Issaquah High School (graduating in 1986) and attending The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Howard's career in animation began 15+ years ago when he followed his childhood dream to work for Walt Disney Animation Studios by writing for advice from one of Disney's Nine Old Men animators, Frank Thomas. Using Mr. Thomas's helpful letter, he structured his entire curriculum. Before the ink was dry on his diploma, he relocated to Orlando, Florida, where he worked as a tour guide for Disney’s animation tour at Disney MGM Studios. After 4 portfolio submissions, he began the Disney animation internship, and was hired in 1994. He went from inbetweener to animator to supervising animator in just 5 years. Since relocating to the California studios in 2004, he has worked as story artist, character designer and director on Disney's 48th animated feature film, Bolt. Already involved in the project as