Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey grew up reading superhero and monster comics in Portland, Oregon and graduated from Reynolds High School. He never planned on becoming an animator or director, he simply "knew" that he would be drawing comic books for a living. If it wasn't for an article he read on Disney Animation in The Comics Journal, he'd probably be doing just that. "I was a Junior in High School and had just discovered, or rather, rediscovered the old Warner Bros. cartoons on TV." Chris said. "I specifically remember this Chuck Jones Pepe Le Pew cartoon that just cracked me up. I guess I was seeing the little womanizer through post pubescent eyes for the first time. Lol.” Later, he read in the Comics Journal that the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA had a Disney animation program. That sounded like an exciting alternative to a traditional art college, so he spent the next 6 months working on a portfolio and was accepted in the Spring of his Senior year.

Cal Arts was a culture shock for Chris. "The other students had wanted to be Disney animators for their whole lives just like I had wanted to draw comics," Chris explains. "They had seen all the Disney Classics, knew the names of the Disney animators and directors and I was lost. I had only seen a few of the Disney films growing up and while I liked them, I was drawn more toward action adventure. In the Disney cartoons, just as the tension would build, they would throw in some gag to let the kids know that everything would be 'ok.' I hated that. I wanted to believe that the character could die. Lol." Within a few years of leaving Cal Arts, Chris was employed as an animator at Disney Feature Animation on The LITTLE MERMAID where he stayed for ten years, animating and directing on a variety of projects.

In between Cal Arts and Disney, Chris had the opportunity to animate some computer generated spaceships. This was before the big animation boom of the 90s and jobs were scarce. "I had no particular passion for computer animation. My goal was to become more employable so that I wouldn't starve." That opportunity has served him well and has allowed Bailey to jump back and forth from the CG animation world and the traditional animation world. Always looking for new challenges, Chris supervised the animation and did the character design for Paula Abdul's video OPPOSITES ATTRACT where she danced alongside a distinctly 2-D Scat Cat. This was done after hours and on weekends during a lull at Disney between The LITTLE MERMAID and The RESCUERS DOWN UNDER. Chris had a pencil test machine set up in his garage where animators would test their animation. After that, Chris began directing theme park projects for Disney which include IT'S TOUGH TO BE A BUG in Disney Wild Kingdom and Disney's California Adventure Park and the It's a Small World Post Show in Paris Disneyland. He also served as the "Cat Animation Supervisor" on HOCUS POCUS, coordinating the live action, animatronic and animated cat for the film starring Bette Midler. Chris' direction on Mickey Mouse's RUNAWAY BRAIN earned him an Academy Award nomination in 1995.

Chris returned to animating for the film HERCULES, but left Disney when his obligation on Nessus was complete. It was during this time that he wrote and drew a short comic book story called MAJOR DAMAGE, about a little boy and his favorite comic book and video game hero, Major Damage. The comic story sat unpublished as Damage took a backseat to Chris' film projects. It had been scarcely six months since he had left Disney, but Chris was now back as CG Animation Supervisor on the live action films, DEEP RISING, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG and the theme park film, IT'S TOUGH to be a BUG, playing in Disney's Wild Kingdom and Disney's California Adventure.

In Chris' spare time, the Major Damage comic story was expanded into a storyboard for a short film. "I wanted to make it in CG," he says, “but the technology didn't exist for me to produce it as a one man show." Chris mentioned Major Damage while a guest speaker for the "Women in Animation" group and met independant film producer, Kellie-Bea Cooper. "She put Damage on the fast track. Between her, myself and CG Supervisor Doug Cooper, we had the creative, technical and organizational chops to make it happen. She coordinated our alliances with HP and Alias|Wavefront for our hardware and software needs and was on a constant recruiting drive soliciting help from friends and colleagues in the animation industry." For the next two years, Chris, Kellie-Bea and Doug and an international crew of about 100 worked between the cracks of their day jobs to bring Major Damage to life.

Chris' recent credits include producing and directing KIM POSSIBLE, animation director on X-MEN II, GARFIELD, FAT ALBERT and GARFIELD II.

End