Eric Darnell (born August 21, 1961) is an American

animator An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games ...

, storyboard artist, director,

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

and occasional

voice actor Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talen ...

best known for co-directing '' Antz'' with Tim Johnson, as well as co-directing and co-writing ''

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Afric ...

'', '' Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa'' and '' Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted'' with Tom McGrath, as well as the spin off '' Penguins of Madagascar'' (2014) with Simon J. Smith.

Life and career

Darnell was born in Prairie Village, Kansas. He attended Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kansas, where he was a writer for the school newspaper the ''Harbinger''. He studied broadcast journalism at the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

. After graduating in 1983, he spent four years working on experimental films in his basement, which helped him get accepted into the Experimental Animation program study at the California Institute of the Arts. Meanwhile, he directed the

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devic ...

for the 1989 R.E.M. song " Get Up". After graduating in 1991, Darnell joined Pacific Data Images, where he worked as a character animator on the 1991

Hanna-Barbera Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observan ...

special '' The Last Halloween''. He also animated and directed the short film ''Gas Planet'', which won the Ottawa International Animation Festival Special Jury Prize. In 1995, he left PDI to join

DreamWorks Animation DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a divisio ...

, where he helped with research and development for ''

The Prince of Egypt ''The Prince of Egypt'' is a 1998 American animated musical drama film produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures. The first feature film from DreamWorks to be traditionally animated, it is an adaptation of the B ...

''. Shortly after DreamWorks merged with PDI the following year, he was assigned to direct his first feature film, '' Antz'', co-directing alongside fellow PDI-turned-DreamWorks employee Tim Johnson. The film, released in 1998, marked the studio's first computer-animated feature film, and the second computer-animated feature film after Pixar's '' Toy Story''. He then worked as a storyboard artist on the 2001 film '' Shrek'', for which he also wrote the song "Welcome to Duloc." Darnell and Tom McGrath directed ''

'' in 2005 and its sequel, '' Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa'' in 2008. He was co-writer for the Christmas TV special, '' Merry Madagascar''. Darnell also co-directed '' Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted'' with McGrath and Conrad Vernon, which was released on June 8, 2012. He co-directed, with Simon J. Smith, a ''

'' spin-off, titled '' Penguins of Madagascar'' and released on November 26, 2014. In 2015, Darnell co-founded with Maureen Fan, a former vice president of games at Zynga, a

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

-based virtual reality studio Baobab Studios to create animated virtual reality short films. Darnell serves as Baobab's chief creative officer, while Fan serves as its CEO. For the studio, Darnell wrote and directed short VR films, ''Invasion!'' (2016) and its follow-up ''Asteroids!'' (2017), featuring two comedic aliens, Mac and Cheeze. Plans for a feature-length film based on the characters were announced in 2016 by Baobab and Roth Kirschenbaum Films. Darnell also wrote and directed an animated VR short film, ''Crow: The Legend'', inspired by the Lenape myth. Released in 2018, it features the voices of John Legend, Constance Wu,

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', b ...

, Diego Luna and Liza Koshy.Russian, Ale
"John Legend Ventures in VR with Oprah Winfrey and More in ''Crow: The Legend'' – Watch Here!"
''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

'', November 29, 2018; and Takahashi, Dean
"Baobab's Crow: The Legend debuts as a free short film on Oculus and YouTube"

VentureBeat ''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. It publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. History The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, ...

, November 15, 2018, accessed November 19, 2018

Personal life

Darnell lives in Campbell, California with his wife, Laura, and their son, Rex, and daughter, Leah.

Filmography

Feature films

Short films

Television series

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Darnell, Eric 1961 births Animators from Kansas American animated film directors American animated film producers American storyboard artists California Institute of the Arts alumni University of Colorado Boulder alumni Living people Showrunners People from Prairie Village, Kansas Princess Grace Awards winners DreamWorks Animation people Nickelodeon people People from Campbell, California Film directors from California Film directors from Kansas