Former Animatus Studio artist Brian Menz has hit the big time, working most recently on the Disney feature “Bolt.” Brian was our lead Derf animator on “The Quest for Happy Hour,” and for good reason. Even then, we could see his talent for character animation.
Here is the text from the November 20 article in the Irondequoit Post.
At the Los Angeles premiere of “Bolt” earlier this month, local native Brian Menz had an up close and personal encounter with the lead character, a dog who plays a superhero but thinks he’s the real thing. “Bolt” in the film has the voice of actor John Travolta.
Bishop Kearney High School grad has a hand in new Disney film
By Linda Quinlan, staff writer
Irondequoit Post
Posted Nov 20, 2008 @ 08:29 AM
Irondequoit, N.Y. –
He’s already seen the film twice and expects that when he visits family in Rochester and Irondequoit, he’ll be seeing it again.
Brian Menz doesn’t seem to mind.
A lifelong dream came true six months ago when he got an e-mail from Walt Disney Animation Studios, asking him to be one of the animators on its upcoming movie, “Bolt,” which opens here and across the nation this Friday.
The normal production time for an animated movie is 18 months, Menz said, explaining that when the story was rewritten, directors were replaced and characters changed, the company decided to bring in more animators to keep it on schedule.
That’s where he came in.
He became one of 60 animators for the feature-length film and has been in Los Angeles the last six months, working at Disney’s studios.
“Disney was always my dream,” Menz said early this week by phone from Portland, Ore. “Just working in the building … there’s so much history; and, I got to meet and even have lunch with a lot of the guys I’ve idolized over the years.”
Brian’s mother – Elsie Menz, of the Culver-Empire area of Rochester, near Irondequoit – said her son has always been fascinated “with animation and the magic of making characters move.”
Brian recalls that when he and his twin brother, Carl, were in seventh grade, they used the family’s video camera to make their own “stick figure” animation.
While playing soccer, lacrosse and running track at Bishop Kearney High School, Menz also took two years of art classes and won awards at graduation for his work. He is a 1997 Kearney graduate.
He sought out a college where he could pursue animation arts and found it at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. There, he was mentored by Disney animator Mike Genz – who was hired to teach at Edinboro – and was awarded “Outstanding Graduating Senior in the Area of Cinema” in 2001.
During high school and two summers during his college years, Menz did internships at Rochester’s own Animatus Studio and worked on a couple of their animated productions, using traditional hand drawings to create the movement.
Next, he followed some Edinboro friends to the Dallas, Texas area and ventured into the area of computer-generated imaging.
His first big break came when he worked for DNA Productions, first on the “Jimmy Neutron Show” then the feature production “Ant Bully,” released in 2006.
That same year he moved to Portland, where he has spent time working with the animation studio Laika on the movie “Coraline,” which will be released in 2009. That film is a stop-motion production where the scene is manipulated for each frame.
Just back “home” from Los Angeles, Menz is now planning a move back east next week – to White Plains, Westchester County – to work for a company called Blue Sky. He landed a staff position to work on the film “Ice Age 3.”
For “Bolt,” Menz said he worked mostly on shots of the lead character, a dog who plays a superhero in a TV show.
“But, he (Bolt) thinks he is a superhero and it’s all real,” Menz explained. “He eventually gets separated from his Hollywood set and has to find his way back to his owner.”
Along the way, Bolt – actor John Travolta provides the character’s voice – “captures” a cat to help him, Menz said with a laugh, and meets up with “a delusional hamster” who is Bolt’s biggest fan.
Menz predicted the project “will put Disney back on the map.”
“It just has that Disney warmth and a lot of heart,” Menz added. “The main gist of the story, I think, is that you don’t have to have superpowers to be a hero.”
The project was fun, “but it can get stressful, trying to get what the director wants,” Menz said. For instance, he explained, do you have Bolt pick up the cat by the scruff of his neck or pin it down with his paw?
It’s also not a quick process. Menz said he probably did no more than four or five seconds of film – each with 24 frames – a week.
“That’s why they had to bring in so many people,” he said with a laugh.
He attended the “Bolt” premiere Nov. 8 at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, sitting in the balcony with most of the other 525 people who worked on the film.
While he’d attended premieres for his previous films, “Disney throws a party,” Menz said, explaining that besides the premiere, clips of how the hamster (voice) was cast – for instance – were also included.
The two times he’s seen the film so far, “usually whoever is sitting next to me asks me to elbow them when the frames I’ve worked on come on,” Menz said.
He couldn’t be more thrilled to have been part of a Disney production.
“I always just liked Disney films,” Menz said. “There’s the magic of it … and you actually care about what happens to the characters, even though they’re just drawings.”
Story-wise, probably his favorite Disney film is “Finding Nemo,” Menz said, “but I also love the ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Lion King’ and ‘Aladdin’ era.”
His next dream is to write and direct his own animated film.
“But that’s probably a few projects off before I get there,” he said.
By the numbers
4 Or maybe 5 … the number of seconds of animated film Bishop Kearney grad Brian Menz completed each week while working on the new Disney film, “Bolt.”
21 The day this month – it’s Friday! – that “Bolt” has its nationwide release.
24 The number of frames in a second of the animated film.
30 The age of Brian Menz, who was an animator on “Bolt.”
60 The number of animators who worked on “Bolt.”
Bishop Kearney High School graduate Brian Menz was one of 60 animators who worked on “Bolt,” the new Disney film opening this weekend. The story includes Bolt, a dog, a cat and a hamster Menz describes as “delusional.”
