Alan Best (born 2 May 1959) is a Canadian animation director and producer.

Early life

Best was born in

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of ...

. He was educated at St. George's School (Vancouver) and trained at the Paris atelier of French

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. ...

artist Paul Colin. He was production trainee on '' Cet obscur objet du désir'', the final film of Spanish-born director

Luis Buñuel Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...

Career

He began his career as an assistant animator working for

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 t ...

studios. He worked on the animated features, '' Heavy Metal'' (1981), '' Pink Floyd The Wall'' (1982), and at the studios of

Halas and Batchelor Halas and Batchelor was a British animation company founded by husband and wife John Halas and Joy Batchelor. Halas was a Hungarian émigré to the United Kingdom. The company had studios in London and Cainscross, in the Stroud District of Glouc ...

Bob Godfrey Roland Frederick Godfrey MBE (27 May 1921 – 21 February 2013),Bill Melendez José Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Melendez (November 15, 1916 – September 2, 2008) was an American character animator, voice actor, film director and producer. Melendez is known for working on the ''Peanuts'' animated specials. Before ''Peanuts'', he p ...

, and Richard Williams. He directed the first all-animated

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 devi ...

, '' (How to Be a) Millionaire'' for the British pop band

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

. He was supervising director of the

ABC Family The American cable and satellite television network that is now known as Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through several different owners (and six different name changes) during its h ...

sci-fi series ''

Galidor ''Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension'', sometimes shortened as ''Galidor'', is a 2002 television series that ran on YTV in Canada and Fox Kids in the United States in 2002 with a total of 26 half-hour episodes. The series was created by ...

''. In 2005, he redesigned Victor, the '' Just for Laughs'' festival

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fic ...

Personal life

He is married to British-born writer

Katrina Best Katrina Best is a British-born short story writer who lives in the United Kingdom. Biography Katrina Best is a British-born author who has lived in Canada and the United Kingdom. She is a dual citizen of both countries. Best published her s ...

(née Barton) with whom he has a son and daughter. He is the nephew of

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strac ...

sculptor/natural historian Alan Best and great-great nephew of British printmaker Frank Morley-Fletcher. He is a cousin of British portrait painter

Glyn Philpot Glyn Warren Philpot (5 October 188416 December 1937) was a British painter and sculptor, best known for his portraits of contemporary figures such as Siegfried Sassoon and Vladimir Rosing. Early life Philpot was born in Clapham, London, but ...

, actors

Ronald Colman Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then immigrating to the United States and having a successful Hollywood film career. He wa ...

, Pamela Brown and British diplomat

David Gore-Booth Sir David Alwyn Gore-Booth (15 May 1943 – 31 October 2004) was a British diplomat, who served in the FCO from 1964 until 1998. Sir David was appointed HM Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 1993, before his final posting as British High Commis ...

. He is an uncle of

Substack Substack is an American Online platforms for collaborative consumption, online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters dir ...

founder/CEO Chris Best.

References

External links

* Canadian animated film directors Canadian animated film producers Artists from Hamilton, Ontario Film directors from Ontario Living people 1959 births St. George's School (Vancouver) alumni {{animator-stub