Don Hall
Birthdate: Mar 8, 1969
Birthplace: Glenwood, Iowa, USA
Don Hall (birthname: Donald Lee Hall) is one of the leading animation directors at Walt Disney Feature Animation studios and winner (as co-director) of the Best Animated Feature Oscar for Big Hero 6 (2014). After graduating and teaching animation at CalArts, Hall landed a story job at Disney as a story artist for the production of Tarzan (1999).
Hall continued in the same story artist position as well as writing additional story material for Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove (2000). He was credited as an additional story artist for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002), and wrote additional story material for Brother Bear (2003). Hall served as a story artist and character designer on Disney’s Chicken Little (2005). The first major animated feature credit Hall was as co-screenwriter and story supervisor on Disney’s commercial failure, Meet the Robinsons (2007), in which Hall also performed a vocal role. He continued as story supervisor on Disney’s Oscar-nominated The Princess and the Frog (2009).
Don Hall’s first assignment as co-director (with co-director Stephen Anderson) of a Walt Disney Animation studio film was Winnie the Pooh (2011), on which he was also a co-writer, and starring the voices of Jim Cummings, Travis Oates, Craig Ferguson, and Huell Howser, while earning a modest $50 million global gross. Don Hall directed (with co-director Chris Williams) the Oscar-winning, computer-animated Big Hero 6, with the voices of Damon Wayans Jr., James Cromwell, Maya Rudolph, and Alan Tudyk, and grossing over four times costs ($165 million) with a global take of $658 million.
Hall was also directing partner with Williams, with lead directors John Musker and Ron Clements, as well as a story co-writer for Disney’s Polynesia-set Moana (2016), with the voices of Auli’I Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Nicole Scherzinger, and Tudyk, and virtually matching the box-office numbers of the previous Big Hero 6.
After serving as an additional story artist on Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Hall was director (with co-director Carlos Lopez Estrada) and co-story writer on Disney’s Oscar-nominated, Southeast Asian-set Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), with the vocal cast of Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Izaac Wang, Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, Sandra Oh, and Tudyk, but under-performing at the box office with a slender $130 million global gross.
Hall was the sole lead director of Disney’s highly anticipated Strange World (2022), based on an original screenplay by playwright/screenwriter Qui Nguyen and starring the voice actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, and Lucy Liu.
Personal Details
Don Hall was born and raised in Glenwood, Iowa. His mother is Janet Hall, and his parents encouraged his childhood desire to make animated films for Disney. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting from the University of Iowa.
He graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in character animation. After graduating from CalArts, Hall returned to his alma mater as an instructor in advanced story development, while working as a videogame animator. He is married with two children and lives in Pasadena.
Filmography
actor
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- 2021 | Raya and the Last DragonasWriter
Raya and the Last Dragon
In a realm known as Kumandra, a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon.
Some Facts About Don Hall
Advice to Animators: Don Hall has stated that his advice to young animators is to “observe life as much as possible…observe human behavior. Examine your own life…you are training to be a storyteller, you should have something to say, and it’s your responsibility to develop your ‘tools’ so that you can better communicate with your audience, because, let’s face it, a storyteller without an audience is basically a crazy old hobo who babbles to himself.”
Mentors: Hall has credited his Cal Arts mentors as “instrumental” in his development: Story writer Ken Bruce, animators Leo Monaghan, Corny Cole, and Martha Baxton.
