Mark Osborne (filmmaker)

Mark Randolph Osborne (born September 17, 1970) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and animator. He is best known for directing the animated films (2008) and (2015), the former of which was nominated for the . He also directed the stop-motion short film (1998), which was nominated for .
==Biography==
Born in , Osborne grew up in until at age 14 he moved to and graduated from in 1988. He began his career by studying Foundation Art at in New York before receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Experimental Animation from the in June 1992. His thesis film, Greener, won numerous awards and was screened at more than 40 film festivals worldwide. He has received two nominations, including one of Best Animated Feature of the year for the 2008 critically acclaimed which he directed alongside . Kung Fu Panda has netted more than $630 million worldwide to-date. The action-comedy was Osborne's first major studio project. It also won him and Stevenson the for Directing in an Animated Feature Production.
Osborne's other most well-known work to date, the award-winning animated short , has been screeners at over 150 film festivals worldwide It was the first animation film to ever be nominated for an (1999). More garnered an nomination for Best Animated Short, Special Jury Prize for Short Films at the (1999), The SXSW Best Animated Short (1999), the ResFest Grand Prize (1999), the Critics Week selection for CANNES (1999), among many others.
Osborne has also directed a majority of the live-action material for the popular animated TV series SpongeBob SquarePants feature Patchy the Pirate, as well as all of the live-action sequences for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, featuring David Hasselhoff. He was classmates with the television show's creator, Stephen Hillenburg, while a student at CalArts. He worked as director on SpongeBob episodes such as "The Sponge Who Could Fly" and "SpongeBob B.C."
His other live-action credits include his independent feature film Dropping Out, which premiered at the in 2000 and has developed a cult following. Bachelor Pad was also a short live-action comedy Mark made with his brother Kent along with Dylan Haggerty in the late 1980s. Parts of Bachelor Pad can be seen in the unaired second episode of Taterhole, which was a spin-off of in 1997. The entire episode can be viewed here. His short film Greener was broadcast on 's Rudy and Gogo's New Year's Eve Flaming Cheese Ball special on New Year's Eve (1995-96).
For a while, Osborne taught stop-Motion at his alma mater, CalArts. He later left to pursue his professional aspirations. In 2004, Osborne was awarded the to assist in the production of another personal stop-motion short film, The Better Half. Between 2010 and 2015, Osborne was directing an animated film, . In November 2016, it was reported that Osborne had been hired to direct and co-write an animated film adaptation of 's comic books, .
In April 2017, and announced they would produce , an animated film adaptation of Adam Kline's fantasy book of the same title, with Osborne set to direct and co-write the script with Kline, and Jinko Gotoh producing the film along with Osborne. However, in November 2018, acquired the film rights and Melissa Cobb joined the production team. As of August 2023, the film was wrote the first issue of the and still hopes to turn the album into a film.
==Personal life==
Osborne is the brother of TV writer and producer Kent Osborne. Osborne's son, Riley, voiced the Little Prince in the 2015 film , which was directed by Osborne.
==Filmography==
===Film===
*The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) - sequence director
Category:People
Category:1970s births
Category:SpongeBob SquarePants
Category:Directors