The 2023 Honor Roll
Hayao Miyazaki, Co-founder
With over 60 years in the industry, Floyd Norman has become an animation legend, working with such giants as Walt Disney, William Hanna, Joe Barbera, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and the creative teams at Sesame Street and Pixar. He has served in nearly every department of animation. From cel painter to story director. Of course, he’s also an animator.
Norman was born in Santa Barbara, CA in 1935 and started his career assisting Archie cartoonist Bill Woggon on the Katy Keene comic book while still in high school. After attending the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, he was hired at Walt Disney Studios in 1956. Sleeping Beauty (1959) would become his first feature title (though he went uncredited), while also making him the first African- American artist to work for the company. After serving in the Korean War, Norman returned to Disney to work on One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), and Mary Poppins (1964). Walt Disney recommended the young artists’ move to the Story Department when he saw the gag sketches Norman was creating to entertain his colleagues. In his new position, He helped storyboard and write The Jungle Book (1967). After Disney’s passing in 1966, Norman left to form his own company, Vignette Films, with fellow animator Leo Sullivan. Vignette was one of the first companies to create live-action and animated films about Black history. These films were screened in high schools and colleges across the United States in the pre-Civil Rights era. The company also worked on fun studio projects; they created the Soul Train main title animation and animated the original pilot for Fat Albert. Finally, Norman created animated segments for Sesame Street.
In the 1970s, Norman joined Hanna Barbera, where he worked alongside the two Saturday morning cartoon pioneers to animate and write some of TV’s most notable shows including: The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, among others.
Norman would return to Disney in the 1970s to animate on Robin Hood (1973). In the 1980s Floyd would join Disney Publishing where he wrote and illustrated a number of Disney children’s books, as well as pen the daily “Mickey Mouse Comic Strip.” It was a job that lasted nearly six years. He would later return to Disney Animation to work in the Story Department on The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Mulan (1998). That same decade, Norman would begin work with Pixar on such movies as Toy Story2 (1999) and Monster’s Inc. (2001). He helped create numerous classic sequences for both films.
Norman has written about his career in several books, including Faster! Cheaper!: The Flip Side of the Art of Animation, and Animated Life: A Lifetime of Tips, Tricks, Techniques and Stories from an Animation Legend. He also contributes to the website Afro-Kids.com.
The Disney studio would honor Floyd Norman in 2007, naming him a “Disney Legend.” This top honor is only bestowed to the best and brightest of the Disney organization. Other honors include his induction into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1979 and the Winsor McCay Award in 2003. He was also presented the Lifetime Achievement in Animation in 2015 from the International Family Film Festival and was honored with the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 2019.
In 2016, Norman’s storied career was the focus of the feature documentary Floyd Norman: An Animated Life. The movie premiered on Netflx and was in consideration for the 2017 Oscars. It won top honors at numerous film festivals including the San Diego Comic Con International Film Festival and the Bentonville Film Festival created by actress Geena Davis to bring attention to diversity in film and TV production.
At 88 years of age, Floyd Norman remains the picture of perseverance. Not one to retire, he continues to have an impact on animation as a filmmaker and mentor, taking on freelance work in and outside of Disney. Recently, Floyd returned to Sesame Street for their 50th Anniversary to direct and write a new animated segment for the classic series. Like the show, Floyd shows no sign of calling it quits.
Previously, Dos Santos has directed, produced, and storyboarded on a variety of animated television shows such as Nickelodeon’s “The Legend of Korra” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” DreamWorks Animation’s “Voltron: Legendary Defender” and Warner Bros.’ “Justice League Unlimited” and “Teen Titans.”
Dos Santos began his career 20 years ago at Sony Pictures Television in their TV department working on animated series like “Roughneck: The Starship Troopers Chronicles” and “Men in Black: The Series.”
Dos Santos was born in Lisbon, Portugal. He moved to North Hollywood when he was four years old, but spent his summers back in Portugal which heavily influenced him as an artist. Dos Santos currently resides in Woodland Hills, California with his wife and son.
Kemp Powers is a director of Sony Pictures Animation’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Alongside his fellow directors, Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson, the trio helmed the highly-anticipated sequel to “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which received the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature in 2019.
Powers is a Golden Globe®-winning and Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter, playwright, producer and director who was named one of Variety’s 2020 “10 Screenwriters to Watch.” He is currently working on two separate features for Netflix – “Ireedeemable,” with Jeymes Samuels directing and Jay-Z, Samuels, and James Lassiter producing, is based on the comic series Irredeemable and Incorruptible by Mark Waid and illustrated by Peter Krause; and “Eloquent,” with Higher Ground producing, is based on David W. Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.
Powers also co-wrote and co-directed the Oscar-winning “Soul” for Pixar Animation Studios. The film won two Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Animated and Best Original Score – Motion Picture. Additionally, “Soul” won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Score. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound.
In television, Powers previously wrote for the popular CBS All Access series, “Star Trek: Discovery.” His stage plays include “One Night in Miami…,” “Little Black Shadows,” “Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue,” “The Two Reds” and “A Negro by Choice.” He received the 2013 Ted Schmitt Award for Outstanding New Play for the world premiere of “One Night in Miami…” in Los Angeles. That production also won three LA Drama Critics Circle Awards and four NAACP Theatre Awards. “One Night’s” 2016 production at London’s Donmar Warehouse earned Powers an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play. Kemp’s upcoming stage play, “The XIXth” (The Nineteenth) premieres at The Old Globe in San Diego, March 2023.
Prior to his work in stage, television and film, Powers was a journalist for 17 years.
Justin K. Thompson is a director of Sony Pictures Animation’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Alongside his fellow directors, Joaquim Dos Santos and Kemp Powers, the trio helmed the highly-anticipated sequel to “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which received the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature in 2019.
Thompson previously served as the production designer for “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” for which he received an Annie Award from ASIFA-Hollywood for Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, and a nomination from the Art Directors Guild for Excellence in Production Design for an Animated Film.
Thompson also served as the production designer on Sony Pictures Animation’s “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and its sequel “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.” In his role, Thompson created the look of the beloved film series.
With over 20 years of experience in the animation industry, Thompson has contributed his work to some of the most groundbreaking television programs. Over the past ten years, he has made the transition to visual development and production design on digitally animated feature films.
Prior to joining Sony Pictures Animation, Thompson worked at The Orphanage Animation Studios, The Jim Henson Company and Lucasfilm Animation. His credits include “How to Eat Fried Worms” (art director), “The Power of the Dark Crystal” (visual development artist) and “Viking” (art director).
Thompson spent five years at Cartoon Network, receiving various credits on such television programs such as “The Powerpuff Girls” (key background design/storyboard artist) and “Samurai Jack” (key background designer). He also served as a visual development artist/background supervisor on Cartoon Network’s critically acclaimed hit, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” for which he was awarded an Emmy® for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation. Thompson was also part of the creative team that brought “The Powerpuff Girls” to the big screen, serving as both visual development artist and key background designer on the feature.
Thompson has also served as a visual development artist on a number of projects at Disney Television Animation, DreamWorks SKG Television and Film Roman.