Kathy Zielinski

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Kathy Zielinski (born March 21, 1961)[1] is an American character animator. She was recruited by Walt Disney Animation in 1981[2] after finishing her time in the Cal Arts animation program.[3] Her beginnings at Disney started with working on Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Black Cauldron.[2] After working on a series of other projects, including Ursula in The Little Mermaid,[4] she progressed into the role of animation supervisor, working on Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.[3][5]

Afterward, she moved to DreamWorks and began working with them on projects in the early 2000s.[2] Zielinski has since moved to working on television series as a Character Animator with Encore on a series of super-hero shows[1][2][6] and, currently, with Fox Television[6] on the hit animated series The Simpsons.[1][2]

She won the California Institute of Arts Student Academy Award in Animation in 1982 and was nominated for Best Individual Achievement: Animation at the 1996 Annie Awards.[7] Zielinski has also played a part in the animation of multiple award-winning productions, including Academy Award winners[8][9][10] and nominees.[11][12][13]

Education and early career[edit]

Zielinski's early inspirations for her style and themes as an artist came from media with dark themes, focusing on the designs and characters of monsters and villains. Her first inspiration came from the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequences in Fantasia.[4] Having practiced artwork as a hobby, Zielinski took her first animation class in high school, where she was encouraged to continue into the Cal Arts animation program. She began her college education at Cal Arts in the Fall of 1979.[14]

During her two years at the animation program in Cal Arts, she won the Student Academy Award at the school for her short-film project "Guess Who's For Dinner?"[2] After her second year, she was recruited to work at Disney, where she later became the second woman at the company to supervise an animation project. She was initially slated to be the first, but at the time had left the studio and the role of supervising animation of LeFou in Beauty and the Beast and that barrier-breaking appointment instead went to Ellen Woodbury.[15] After returning, Zielinski later took a role as the second woman to supervise animation at Disney with her work on Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.[15] This work earned her a nomination for the Best Individual Achievement: Animation at the 1996 Annie Awards.[7]

Impact and career[edit]

Kathy Zielinski is responsible for returning darker styles of animation to the Disney portfolio.[15] In both theme and art style technique, Zielinski favors a style of animation closely resembling the Danse Macabre genre.[16] This style of animation was first introduced into this form of media in 1922 with the experimental silent film Danse Macabre at the Rialto Theatre in New York City.[17] Due to their technical similarities, the techniques used in animation and film making, as well as acting, are often interchangeable,[18][19] and much of the early influence from this Danse Macabre generation has been re-emphasised in Kathy's work.

As the industry changed and it began to become less common to stay in the same studio for prolonged periods,[14] Zielinski left Disney to work for DreamWorks in 1996.[6] With DreamWorks, she worked on a lot of hit animated movies until she left in 2013.[6] In 2013, she returned to Disney for a short time to work on the Oscar-Winning movie Frozen.[20][2] She then started working with Encore on their set of DC comic based live-action television shows such as The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow in 2015.[2][6] Currently, she works with Fox on the long-running series "The Simpsons".[1][6]

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Year Title Credits Characters
1985 The Black Cauldron additional animator
1986 The Great Mouse Detective animator
1988 Oliver & Company animator
1989 The Little Mermaid animator Ursula
1990 The Rescuers Down Under supervising animator Frank
1992 FernGully: The Last Rainforest character designer
Aladdin animator Jafar as beggar and snake
1996 The Hunchback of Notre Dame supervising animator Claude Frollo
1998 The Prince of Egypt additional animator
2000 The Road to El Dorado supervising animator Tzekel-Kan
2002 Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron animator Spirit
2003 Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas animator Marina
2004 Shark Tale animator
2006 Over the Hedge animator
Hammy's Boomerang Adventure animator
Flushed Away animator
2007 Bee Movie additional animator
2008 Kung Fu Panda animator
2009 Monsters vs. Aliens animator
2011 Kung Fu Panda 2 animator
2012 Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted animator
2014 The Book of Life additional animator

Television[edit]

Year Title Credits
2017-present The Simpsons character layout
lead character layout
assistant director

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Kathy Zielinski". IMDb. Retrieved 2019-11-12.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h "Kathy Zielinski – Great Women Animators". Retrieved 2019-11-12.
  3. ^ a b "Kathy Zielinski | Animation Guild". animationguild.org. Retrieved 2019-11-12.
  4. ^ a b Lang, Alison (October 23, 2019). "Night of the Demons". Art of the Title.
  5. ^ Scapperotti, Dan (July 1996). "The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Animated Villainy". Cinefantastique: 19–20.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "Kathy Zielinski". LinkedIn.
  7. ^ a b "Kathy Zielinski". IMDb. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  8. ^ Frozen, retrieved 2019-12-12
  9. ^ Aladdin, retrieved 2019-12-12
  10. ^ The Prince of Egypt, retrieved 2019-12-12
  11. ^ How to Train Your Dragon, retrieved 2019-12-12
  12. ^ Kung Fu Panda, retrieved 2019-12-12
  13. ^ Shark Tale, retrieved 2019-12-12
  14. ^ a b "Eric Miller Animation Studios — Animation Spotlight : Kathy Zielinski". Eric Miller Animation Studios. 30 September 2016. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  15. ^ a b c "49. Kathy Zielinski". 50mostinfluentialdisneyanimators. 2011-05-07. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  16. ^ Moghadam, Nahid Shahbazi. “The Grotesque in ‘Danse Macabre.’” Peake Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, 2014, pp. 15–25. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24860804
  17. ^ Danse Macabre [1922], retrieved 2019-12-12
  18. ^ Callenbach, Ernest. “Animation.” Film Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 3, 1964, pp. 16–16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1210904.
  19. ^ Giesen, R., Khan, A. (2018). Acting and Character Animation. Boca Raton: CRC Press, doi:10.4324/9781315155036
  20. ^ Frozen - IMDb, retrieved 2019-12-12

External links[edit]

Kathy Zielinski at IMDb

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