Snow Bear: Workshop with Aaron Blaise
Description
Aaron Blaise is a living legend in animation, capturing the beauty and complexities of the natural world in his work for more than 30 years. From the start of his career at Walt Disney Feature Animation, he brought to life iconic characters in films that include Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Lion King (1994), and Pocahontas (1995). He made his feature directorial debut with Brother Bear (2003), a film that displayed his special bond with animals and received a Best Animated Feature Oscar® nomination. For the last 12 years, he has shared his wisdom with the next generation of artists and storytellers at his renowned online art school, Creature Art Teacher. Snow Bear, a gorgeous 2D hand-drawn passion project that he created over three years almost entirely on his own, is Aaron’s latest project. Along with screening the short, he will also offer a behind-the-scenes look at his filmmaking process, answer questions, and lead us in a drawing activity inspired by the film. —Keith Zwölfer
Attendee Information
Be sure to bring paper and pencils to draw along. Recommended for ages 7 and up.
IN COLLABORATION WITH
Aaron Blaise has been a professional artist for over 35 years. For 21 of those years, he was with Walt Disney Feature Animation where he helped to create some of the greatest animated films ever made. During that time he worked as an animator, supervising animator & character designer on Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), Mulan (1998), and more. In 2003 he was a co-director of Brother Bear for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film.
After Brother Bear, he helped to develop several more projects but ultimately left Disney to pursue other opportunities, including founding one of the world’s top online schools for art & animation—CreatureArtTeacher.com. Aaron recently returned to storytelling roots and completed his first entirely independent animated short film, Snow Bear. He spent 3 years working every day on the hand-drawn film and handled all of the animation, backgrounds, effects, storyboards, and editing personally.
He was recently named as the 2025 recipient of the Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award in animation by ASIFA-Holywood and was presented the award at the 2025 Annie Awards.
Film Details
LanguageEnglish
Year2024
Runtime11
CountryUSA
ProducerNicholas Burch
WriterAaron Blaise, Nicholas Burch
EditorAaron Blaise
CinematographerAaron Blaise
MusicMark Mancia, Marlon E. Espino
Closed CaptionsClosed Captions are confirmed for this film
Audio DescriptionAudio Descriptions are not currently confirmed for this film
American Sign Language (ASL) InterpretationAmerican Sign Language Interpretation is not currently scheduled for this film
