Mark Elliott Andrews (born September 12, 1968) is an American filmmaker, animator, and storyboard artist. He is best known for directing (alongside Brenda Chapman) the 2012 Pixar feature film Brave. He was the story supervisor for The Incredibles and Ratatouille, directed the short film One Man Band and co-wrote the short films Jack-Jack Attack and One Man Band.
Career Andrews studied animation at the Character Animation Program at CalArts. After that he was one of five who got a Disney internship, but was fired after three months.Day 89: A113 Series: Mark Andrews — the Kennedy Compounds He is also considered to be Brad Bird's "right-hand man". Some of his student films have been featured at MOMA's exhibition Tomorrowland: CalArts in Moving Pictures. Unlike most other CalArts alumni, he was not a huge fan of Disney films, and claimed he was a bigger fan of anime such as Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer, and Robotech.
He is the father of Maeve Andrews, who voiced Jack-Jack Parr in The Incredibles. Andrews replaced Brenda Chapman as director of Brave (2012). Both were credited as directors, and they won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
On January 13, 2013, it was announced that Andrews was writing and directing another original feature film at Pixar. Having now directed an animated film, Andrews found the storyboarding phase on Brave to be a frustrating and overly time-consuming process since a 2-D context was being used to convey a 3-D film and it left little room for change later on. This contrasted with his experience on John Carter just before where that film was always being made in the context of the live-action medium and changes could be made in real time. Andrews pitched to Pixar Presidents Ed Catmull and Jim Morris his idea to make his next film at Pixar using mo-cap instead of storyboards for sketching ideas. Andrews' intention for using mo-cap was to be in a 3-D context earlier in the process of making a 3-D film, which was approved. Andrews ultimately left Pixar in 2018 with the understanding that the studio no longer wanted to make the film, which he described as a "big action-adventure fantasy epic".
Since leaving Pixar, Andrews has been a vocal proponent of implementing tools such as Unreal Engine to work in 3-D animation in context with significantly fewer financial and creative constraints while producing significantly more content. Andrews served as director and executive producer of the Netflix original animated series Super Giant Robot Brothers, which was released on August 4, 2022. The series was made using Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games in collaboration with Reel FX Animation.
In October 2021, it was announced that Andrews was attached to write and executive-produce an animated fantasy drama for Fox Entertainment and Bento Box Entertainment titled Hawkmaster. In July 2024, Andrews was also attached as the showrunner of a "post-apocalyptic samurai dinosaur" series for animation and VFX studio Floating Rock titled Kyōryū. By July 2026, Andrews signed on as supervising director and co-showrunner on John Carter, Warlord of Mars, an animated series adaptation of John Carter. He previously wrote the screenplay for the live-action John Carter film.
Filmography
Films YearTitleDirectorScreenplayStorySupervisorStoryArtistOtherNotes1998Quest for CamelotStory Department 1999The Iron GiantWorkbook Designer2001Osmosis JonesStory: Animation Department Heads and Designers2002Spider-Man2004The IncrediblesVisual Development, Additional Voices2006Cars2007Ratatouille2009UpAdditional Voices 2010Toy Story 3Additional Story2011Cars 2Pixar Senior Creative Team 2012John CarterBraveSong Lyrics: "Touch the Sky", Pixar Senior Creative Team 2013Monsters University Pixar Senior Creative Team 2015Inside OutThe Good Dinosaur2016Finding Dory 2017Cars 3Coco2018Incredibles 2Story Consultant, Pixar Senior Creative Team
Short films YearTitleDirectorWriterStoryArtistExecutiveProducerOtherNotes1997Loose ToothAnimation Story Developer 2005Jack-Jack AttackMr. Incredible and PalsOne Man Band2007Violet2009Alma Consultant2012The Legend of Mor'du2014Love HurtsRole: Reese2020Circle of Stone
Television YearTitleDirectorWriterExecutiveProducerStoryboardArtistCharacterModelsSongLyricistNotes1996The Real Adventures of Jonny QuestAnimation director, storyboard artist on episode: "Escape to Questworld"Models on episodes: "East of Zanzibar" and "Future Rage" 1998–2000Histeria!Storyboarded 11 episodes 2001The Powerpuff GirlsEpisode: "Nano of the North" 2001–04Samurai JackWrote 5 episodes, storyboarded 2 episodes2003–04Star Wars: Clone WarsStoryboarded 20 episodes2021What If...?Storyboarded 9 episodes2022Super Giant Robot Brothers2022–26PrimalEpisodes: "The Red Mist", "Feast of Flesh", and "Cavern of Horrors"
Music video Year Title DirectorStoryboardArtistNotes2021"The Writing on the Wall" Music video by Iron Maiden
Video games YearTitleAnimator1994Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm
Other credits Year Title Role 2008 Bolt Consultant - uncredited 2009 Tracy Pitchman #1 Wild Dogs Special Thanks 2011 Toy Story Toons: Small Fry 2015 Sanjay's Super Team 2016 The Jungle Book Thanks 2019 Smash and Grab Brian Larsen's Story Brain Trust Float Story Trust 2021 Nona Special Thanks
References
External links
Mark Andrews's blog Mark Andrews Mark Andrews visits Calarts' Character Animation (Fall '04) Mark Andrews at FLIP Animation Magazine Retrieved December 2012