Ryan Woodward
Ryan Woodward is an assistant professor of animation in the Department of Visual Arts at Brigham Young University. At BYU, he teaches Storyboarding, Animation, Gesture Drawing, Visual Development, and Business Practices. In addition to teaching at BYU, he has taught at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. [1]
Woodward graduated from Newbury Park High School, in Newbury Park, California in 1990. He then enrolled at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho (now Brigham Young University-Idaho). He graduated with an associate’s degree in 1995. Woodward worked for seven years in the animation and live-action film industry in Los Angeles, and then returned to school at BYU in 2003, where he completed his degree in Illustration. In 2006 he received a MFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California.
In 2003, he was awarded an Oscarson Discovery Grant which enabled him to present his comic book series at a convention in San Diego.
Woodward has been a very successful professional in animation art [2] He was part of the EFX department at Warner Bros Feature Animation from 1995 to 2001. He created the storyboards for Ironman 2, Where the Wild Things Are, and the Spiderman movies, among his many projects. He has also created award-winning short films that have made the film festival circuits. (At the end of this article, see his short film that has gone viral on youtube.com with well over 1 million hits.) In his professional career he has used his artistic talents in animation, storyboard creation, and concept design.
A personal project, including the short film below, was released at the beginning of 2011, and included a gallery exhibition of figurative works. The show, called "Conte Animated," was shown at BYU in the Harris Fine Arts Center from January 20 to 28, 2011. [3]
