Mike Disa

Michael Disa (born February 14, 1965) is an American film director, screenwriter, and animator. He began working as an animator at Disney in the mid-1990s, where he was involved with several films up until the late-2000s. During this time, he also worked on non-Disney animated films, including Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and Barnyard. He made his directorial debut with The Origin of Stitch, Disney's 2005 direct-to-DVD short sequel to Lilo & Stitch. At one point he was attached to direct a computer-animated prequel to Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but he dropped out due to creative differences, and the project was cancelled. After growing disillusioned with Disney, Disa left the studio to become an independent filmmaker. His first feature film, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil was released in 2011. Disa followed this with Postman Pat: The Movie, which was released in 2014. Early life Disa was raised on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, near Marquette Park. His parents, Mike and Judy, were both graduates of Northern Illinois University, and his father worked as an art teacher for forty-two years at Curie Metropolitan High School and Harper High School. He grew up in a large Irish Catholic family and served as an altar boy at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, where his uncle was a pastor. Disa attended St. Joseph High School and graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1987 with degrees in art and computer programming. Career Disa moved to Los Angeles, California in 1990, where he was homeless for six months until he found a job doing digital cleanup of individual animation frames on educational CDs for $1.50 a frame. He went on to do effects works on films, video game design, freelance work on the animated television series Tiny Toons Adventures, and animation for Hanna-Barbera Productions. He eventually joined as an animator at the Walt Disney Company, where he worked on Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), Tarzan (1999), Fantasia 2000 (2000), The Tigger Movie (2000), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Treasure Planet (2002), Home on the Range (2004), and Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005). He also worked on Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), before spending a year developing a film called Wings with Warner Bros. that ultimately was not produced.