Bradley 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,” Furnish tells 225 in a feature from the current issue.
At 33 years old, the Catholic High School and LSU alum has made his way to Pixar. He has been on staff 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.
“Ninety percent of editing is building something that no one notices they are watching,” he says. “At the same time, you want to construct something that impacts the viewer in a big way.”
While working hard at Pixar, Furnish also spends time on a few personal animation projects he holds dear to his heart. One such project is the acclaimed short The Dam Keeper. The film is an 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.
The film received an Oscar nomination this year for Best Animated Short Film. It’s an experience he still finds surreal.
“Being a part of that and being nominated feels like it happened to someone else,” he says.
