User:Benjgluck

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Ben fell in love with filmmaking and storytelling as a young boy growing up in St. Louis, Missouri. In his teens, Ben directed his first short film, "Kimoc Koob," about a boy who reads a comic book and becomes trapped inside. Ben’s early achievement was recognized by a local TV station when they aired the film in St. Louis.

Ben explored his passion for filmmaking, and was accepted to the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied in the character animation department. Ben’s acclaimed and prize-winning student film “Man’s Best Friend”, about the pet dog of the biblical Adam and Eve, won the Walter Lantz Award, Best Short at the New York Independent Film Festival, and the Bronze Award at The World Fest Charleston. "Man's Best Friend" premiered on MTV and went on a worldwide tour with Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation. The short film and all of the awards it garnered caught the attention of The Walt Disney Company.

Liking what it saw, Disney gave Ben a full scholarship and hired him right out of Cal Arts. While at Disney, he worked in Story on the features "Dinosaur" and "Home on the Range." Next, Ben was brought on to supervise the script and story department on “Bambi 2”, which won an Annie Award for Best Animated Direct to Video Production. His work on those films helped him land his directorial debut, Disney's "Brother Bear 2." That film, which stars the voice talents of Mandy Moore and Patrick Dempsey and features the music of Melissa Etheridge, was nominated for an Annie Award.

Leaving Disney in 2006, Ben moved back into the feature world and took on the complex job of pre-visualizing the script and supervising artists on Shane Acker’s dark animated fantasy "9” – executive produced by Tim Burton and being released by Universal/Focus Features. After his work on “9”, Ben moved to Lucasfilm Animation and worked closely with George Lucas, working on visual effects and story development for Lucas’s first fully animated feature film.

Currently Ben is employing his flair for off-beat humor and whimsical storytelling in a short independent film he is writing and directing. He is also directing "Alpha and Omega", a new animated feature being produced by Crest Animation and LIONSGATE.