Cowetan roots for 'Brave' at Oscars
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By W. WINSTON SKINNER
winston@newnan.com
When the Academy Awards presentation is telecast Sunday, Coweta County resident Don Chapman will be rooting for “Brave,” the animated film written and directed by his sister.
“Brave” is among the nominees for best animated film this year. Brenda Chapman wrote and directed the movie, which was released in the summer of 2012.
The Oscar telecast will start at 7 p.m. Sunday on ABC. This marks the 85th year for the film awards.
Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews are nominated for “Brave.” Other nominees in the animation category are “Frankenweenie,” Tim Burton; “ParaNorman,” Chris Butler and Sam Fell; “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” Peter Lord; and “Wreck-It Ralph,” Rich Moore.
“Brave,” set in medieval times in Scotland, was released by Disney and Pixar during summer 2012.
“The story is about a girl who is growing up and the relationship she has with her mother,” Don Chapman said in an interview soon after the film was released. “When I was watching it, I saw a lot of my mother in the film. The relationship in the movie is based off the relationship that my sister had with her mother.”
The end credits for “Brave” include a special credit to Ruby Chapman Brown, Don and Brenda Chapman’s mother.
Brenda Chapman was the first woman hired at Disney in the storyboard department. She was also one of the story heads of “The Lion King” and directed Dream Works’s “Prince of Egypt.”
“She was the first Dream Works employee ever hired when they branched off,” Don Chapman said.
“I am incredibly proud of my sister and what she thought up. It’s amazing to know that she did all of that – and that she is my sister,” he said.
Associated Press entertainment writer Derrik J. Lang noted this year’s nominees in the animation category are “not exactly kid stuff — and that’s how the directors like it.”
“I think this year with these films — and so many more — the envelope for animation is being pushed,” Mark Andrews said at an Academy Awards event Thursday honoring the animated feature film nominees. “We keep seeing more risky, deep films that we wouldn’t have seen 10 years ago coming out. I want to be one of those guys pushing it more and more and more because it’s not only an awesome medium, but there’s so many more stories that we can tell.”
The animation category was first introduced at the 2002 ceremony, with “Shrek” winning the inaugural trophy. Only three animated films have ever been nominated for best picture at the Oscars: “Beauty and the Beast,” ‘‘Up” and “Toy Story 3.”
A native of Carmi, Ill., Brenda Chapman resides in Mill Valley, Calif. She studied at the California Institute of the Arts and is married to director Kevin Lima.
