John Sanford
Born: 1968
Where: Denver, Colorado, USA
The writer and director made his feature debut with Home on the Range, said to be Disney's last movie featuring 2-D animation.
He first experiments with drawing when he sketched cartoons for Denver East High's School newspaper and went on to the Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design.
"My goal is to make things a lot of fun for myself and the audience - I don't want to be too heavy-handed with any kind of message."
After studying animation at The California Insitute of the Arts his student film caught the attention of Disney directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale.
They hired him as a story trainee and within a year he was promoted to story artist on The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
He went on to work on Mulan and was promoted to head of story on Atlantis: The Lost Empire before directing Home on the Range.
