Doug will be participating in our Industry Day where he will be giving a talk on Journey Thru Studios: Cultures and Creative Processes. 

Doug Frankel has been in the animation industry for over 35 years.  

After getting degrees in Art and Psychology at Brown University in Rhode Island, he attended Calarts, just north of Los Angeles, California.  He started his animation career in 1986 as a freelance assistant animator for a Disney production called “Sport Goofy Soccermania”, and then went on to New York City to work at Broadcast Arts, animating commercials as well as the movie titles for Madonna’s movie “Who’s That Girl.”  

While still in New York, Doug produced and directed animation for the New York Mets motivational video “Think Big”.  From there he went to Indiana to establish and manage the Midwest Animation Unit for Garfield the Cat’s prime time animated specials.  During that time, Doug directed parts of the Special “Garfield’s Nine Lives”, receiving an Emmy Nomination for that work.  

While in Indiana, Doug also co-directed commercials and animation for MTV.   In 1990, Doug headed back to California to animate Mickey Mouse for Disney’s big screen release “The Prince and the Pauper”, and co-lead the animation of Crysta for “FernGully The Last Rainforest”.   That was followed by many years in the Los Angeles area, animating Scar for “The Lion King”, Ratcliffe for “Pocahontas”, Quasimodo for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, and Chicha for “Emperor’s New Groove”.  

Also during that time Doug animated a Grammy commercial and timing directed the Ren and Stimply episode “Rubber Nipple Salesmen”.   Doug finally found himself at Pixar, animating Mr. and Mrs. Incredible for “The Incredibles”, Remy for “Ratitouille”, Wall-e for “Wall-e”, McQueen for the “Cars” movies, Carl and Russel for “Up”, Princess Merida for “Brave”, and Woody for “Toy Story 4”.  

Also during his time at Pixar, Doug animated on the shorts “Jack Jack Attacks,” “Lifted”, and “Day and Night”.   

Doug did some things outside of animating while at Pixar as well.  Among these were conceiving the cooks, including Colette, for the cast of Ratitouille, co-launching the Pixar animation department’s home website, and serving as directing animator for the Pixar short “Your Friend the Rat”, which won the Annie for Best Short of the Year.