Byron Howard
Byron P. Howard (born December 26, 1968) is an American animator, character designer, story artist, film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He is best known as the director of the Walt Disney Animation Studios films "Bolt" (2008), "Tangled" (2010), "Zootopia" (2016), and "Encanto" (2021). Early life and education. Howard was born in Misawa, Japan, and raised in both the outskirts of Philadelphia and Issaquah, Washington, United States, in a middle-class family. He attended Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Career. Howard began his career at Disney in 1994, working as an animator on films including "Pocahontas", "Mulan , Lilo & Stitch" and "Brother Bear". He was nominated for a 2003 Annie Award for Character Animation for "Brother Bear". The first film Howard directed was the animated Disney film "Bolt", which was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In his role as co-director of the film with Chris Williams, Howard focused on character design and animation. Howard went on to direct the animated Disney films "Tangled" (2010, co-directed with Nathan Greno) and "Zootopia" (2016, co-directed with Rich Moore). He and Greno also co-directed and wrote the animated short "Tangled Ever After", which  features supporting characters from "Tangled" and showed in theaters before the 2012 3D re-release of "Beauty and the Beast". After "Zootopia", Howard worked with Lin-Manuel Miranda on "Encanto". Howard co-directed the film, alongside "Zootopia" co-director Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith, while Miranda wrote songs for the project, which centered on a girl from a magical Colombian family who lacks magic herself. In 2009, Howard became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Personal life. In the Fusion documentary "Imagining Zootopia", Howard mentioned he is openly gay and has been married since 1988