Andrew Stanton has been a major creative force at Pixar Animation Studios since 1990, when he became the second animator, and ninth employee, to join the company’s elite group of computer animation pioneers. Stanton made his directorial debut on the record-shattering Finding Nemo after serving as co-writer, co-director, executive producer, and story artist on all four previous acclaimed Pixar films, which were presented by Walt Disney Pictures. Finding Nemo was awarded an OscarÒ for Best Animated Feature Film of 2003, the first such honor Pixar Animation Studios has received for a full-length feature.
Stanton was one of the four screenwriters to receive an Oscar® nomination in 1996 for his contribution to Toy Story and went on to receive credit as a screenwriter on every subsequent Pixar film - A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. Additionally, he served as co-director on the 1998 Walt Disney Pictures presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios film, A Bug’s Life, and was the executive producer of the 2001 Oscar®-nominated hit Monsters, Inc.
A native of Rockport, Massachusetts, Stanton earned a BFA in character animation from California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts), where he completed two student films: A Story (a tale of a boy named Melvin, a dinosaur named Ted, and a killer clown with a goon squad named Randy) and Somewhere in the Arctic. In the 1980s, he launched his professional career in Los Angeles animating for Bill Kroyer’s Kroyer Films studio, and writing for Ralph Bakshi’s production of Mighty Mouse, The New Adventures (1987). In 1990, he joined John Lasseter at his fledgling commercial production company, Pixar, and served as directing animator and director on numerous commercials.
Stanton and John Lasseter co-directed the Luxo, Jr. shorts Surprise and Light and Heavy for Sesame Street before beginning preproduction on Toy Story in the early 1990s.
