Although I have worked quite extensively in preproduction design and development while in animation, I still look for exposure and opportunity to do so in the live action realm. I worked for world-class studios such as the Don Bluth Studios, and Walt Disney Feature Animation. I have experience in contributing to such films as Mulan, Fantasia Continued, Lilo and Stitch, and Brother Bear in the roll of visual development. Visual Development was the term used to describe to the artistic effort to design and develop the “look” of the film in preproduction.
I can’t remember if this scene, or anything much like it appears in the film.
While this setting never appeared in the film, the pose of Mulan stayed true through development and appeared in the final film. She winds up sitting like this in the lap of a stone dragon.
Recently I was given a very limited opportunity to do some costume design. I was promised more work than this one costume, but that never worked out. The film project was a KOAN production directed by Ryan Little, called Age of the Dragons, starring Danny Glover.
Well, I of course did not receive any screen credit for just one rendering, and the final costumes did not resemble what I conceived very much. Hopefully next time will be better.
Sometimes the role of the concept designer is just to breath life into the project that otherwise would just be shelved away (like temporary life-support). In one case, the work I did helped to bring about a whole new industry for the Walt Disney Company. Back in 2004 Bob Zalk, a veteran show producer for Disney Imagineering, asked me to do a series of concept illustrations to help pitch an idea of a Disney travel scheme. The idea succeeded and now includes tours to over 22 destinations world-wide. It’s called Adventures by Disney.
