Animation editor Bradley Furnish has worked on Toy Story 3, Brave and other films. Photo courtesy Bradley Furnish.
Making the cut
Animation editor Bradley Furnish goes from BR to Pixar
The word Pixar would sound strange if it weren’t so synonymous not only with animation, but with some of the best family films ever made.
With Toy Story 3, the Disney-owned juggernaut hauled in $415 million in box office receipts alone, and a Baton Rouge native played a key role in the landmark film’s extensive development.
At 33, Catholic High School and LSU alum Bradley Furnish has been on staff with Pixar for eight years, serving as a key assistant editor for Toy Story 3, Brave and last year’s holiday special Toy Story That Time Forgot.
Furnish grew up in Baton Rouge completely in awe of the art of animation.
“I remember tearing up watching The Lion King even though I was way too old to cry at a movie,” he says.
That love of drawing and storytelling took him to LSU, where he studied graphic design and made a handful of his own movies—mostly short films, fake commercials and music videos with friends.
It turns out that film editing, Furnish says, has a lot in common with the creative process of graphic design. The method of refining and discarding work is strikingly similar.
“Studying graphic design at LSU helped me to be less precious about something, even if I made it,” he says.
After graduation, Furnish settled down in San Francisco and immediately applied for a job at Pixar. He didn’t hear back, but he plugged away at freelance graphic design gigs. Three years later, he heard of an opening at Pixar through a friend of a friend. He submitted his work and grabbed a spot as a production assistant in the editorial department.
He quickly advanced, earning assistant editor credits on some Pixar blockbusters.
“Ninety percent of successful editing is building something that no one notices they are watching,” Furnish says. “At the same time, you do want to construct something that impacts the viewer in a big way—whether it’s to laugh or to cry or anything else. But to build a moment, a scene or an entire movie that really touches someone is the challenge—those are hard-won moments.”
The Dam Keeper is the story of Pig, who operates his town’s windmill dam, and his friend, Fox. Image courtesy Tonko House.
Furnish is hard at work on a few projects he is sworn to secrecy about, but he recently completed work as editor for an independent film that is garnering worldwide praise.
Animated films require much more front-end involvement from an editor than a live-action production would, and for the acclaimed short film The Dam Keeper, Furnish was there at ground zero, editing storyboards and providing valuable feedback to the film’s writers and co-directors Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi.
Both delicate and dark, The Dam Keeper is the allegorical tale of a young pig who operates his town’s windmill dam, an unheralded act that protects those who have bullied and discarded him from a dark mass of ash and pollution.
“I remember the first image they showed me, which was Pig putting on this mask, and it just really appealed to my sensibility,” Furnish recalls. “For me, being able to get involved early and help shape the story was exciting.”
Like Furnish, Kondo and Tsutsumi have worked for Pixar—both art directing Monsters University. The pair knew of the Louisiana native’s editing savvy, but the three had never worked together directly for the Disney-owned animation powerhouse.
That changed when Furnish looked at their first sketches in February 2013, and The Dam Keeper became nine months of nights and weekends. He burnt the candle at both ends to maintain the fast-paced demands of his Pixar work while chasing this passion project with bold and vintage 2-D imagery and a heart-pulling narrative that just would not leave him alone.
There were review sessions and brainstorms every weekend. There were emails and revisions at 2 a.m.
“I have a very understanding wife,” Furnish says. “But the funny thing is when you’re doing something that you love, you don’t notice the time.”
The result of this commitment is a magical 16 minutes with a painterly look, awash in golden browns and pastels, that flows by with blurs and smudged edges imprinting these images in deep emotional layers that an action flick or laugh-out-loud comedy cannot reach.
The film received an Academy Award nomination this year for Best Animated Short Film, though the Disney-produced puppy short Feast won the Oscar.
A still from The Dam Keeper.
Incredibly proud of The Dam Keeper and his work on it, Furnish still calls the Oscar nomination “weird” and isn’t quite sure what to make of it or what effect the acclaim could have on his Pixar career.
“Of course that recognition is for the film itself and the entire crew, but being a part of that and being nominated really feels like it happened to someone else,” Furnish says. “It’s surreal.”
Now, much of Furnish’s work is for Pixar’s promotional department. Tasked with cutting together commercial clips and promo spots for upcoming feature films—such as 2016’s Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory—Furnish has his fingerprints all over the short pieces seen on the likes of the Disney Channel and similar outlets. He gives audiences inside looks into new characters and sneak peaks at the further adventures of well-established fan favorites.
“With Pixar, people like to focus on all the perks [of working there]—the cereal bars and the scooters, stuff like that,” Furnish says with a laugh. “But what makes a good company great is the people you work with. And at Pixar, the people are amazing. They’re inventors.”
At LSU, Furnish created his own band of young filmmakers, and now he finds himself surrounded by some of the world’s elite animators and filmmakers. It’s an inspiring environment in which to invent oneself and a creative career.
“Everyone here is so passionate about what they do,” Furnish says. “It’s a big challenge to step up and meet that. But the feeling is infectious.”
