Rosana Sullivan is an American filmmaker and storyboard artist, best known for her work at Pixar Animation Studios. She wrote and directed her first animated short film, Kitbull (2019), for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
Early life and education Rosana Sullivan was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and grew up in Texas. She has one brother. When she was in high school at age 16, her father, a university professor of biology, accepted a new job at the University of San Francisco and the family relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Sullivan initially studied for a career as a veterinarian, enrolling at the University of San Francisco as a biology major. In her junior year, she took a course in portrait painting to satisfy an art credit and realized that art was her real calling. She spent her senior year at USF in the fine arts program, graduating in 2007, and then attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, graduating in 2010.
Career Sullivan worked as a lead character designer at Ooga Labs and a 2D artist at Kabam before joining Pixar Animation Studios in 2011. With Pixar, she contributed to the 3D animated films Monsters University (2013), The Good Dinosaur (2015), Piper (2016), and Incredibles 2 (2018). She was nominated for a 2015 Annie Award for outstanding achievement in storyboarding in an animated feature production for her work on The Good Dinosaur. In February 2019, she wrote and directed her first animated film, a nine-minute traditionally animated short called Kitbull, which is part of the SparkShorts series.
In April 2019, Sullivan published an autobiographical picture book, Mommy Sayang, describing the life of a girl and her mother in a Malaysian village. This story, along with others that she has written, was inspired by her mother's roots in Malaysia.
In January 2021, it was announced that Sullivan began developing a feature film for Pixar.
Filmography Short films YearTitleCredited as Director Storyboard artist Writer 2009 Long Shadows 2016 Piper 2019 Kitbull 2020 Loop
Feature films YearTitleCredited as Storyboard artist Executive producer 2013 Monsters University 2015 The Good Dinosaur 2018 Incredibles 2 2019 Toy Story 4 2020 Onward Soul 2022 Turning Red Sources:
Accolades + Award Date Category Nominated work Result Ref(s) Academy Awards February 9, 2020 Best Animated Short Film Kitbull Annie Awards February 6, 2016 Outstanding Achievement for Storyboarding in a Feature Production The Good Dinosaur Humanitas Prize January 24, 2020 Humanitas Prize for Short Film Kitbull
Bibliography
References
External links
"Episode 012: Rosana Sullivan – Pixar Story Artist" (audio) Pixar's Rosana Sullivan ’07 keeps 'finding ways to make art' (video)