Karen Disher
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Disher in 2015
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| Born |
Karen Beth Disher[1]
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| Alma mater | Tisch School of the Arts[2] |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, storyboard artist |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Employer(s) | MTV Animation (1994-2002) Blue Sky Studios (2002–2021) Spire Animation Studios (2021–present) |
| Spouse |
Robert Partington (m. 2001) |
Karen Beth Disher is an American film director and storyboard artist. Disher is best known for her work at MTV Animation, where she was the chief character designer and supervising director for the animated series Daria (1997–2002) following her previous work as a layout artist for Beavis and Butt-Head (1993–1997).
Disher is also known for work as a story artist at Blue Sky Studios, an in-house studio at 20th Century Animation, in which she worked on several films, including many in the Ice Age franchise.
Disher studied traditional 2D animation at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. After graduation, she joined MTV Animation as a layout artist on Beavis and Butt-head. She then designed the main characters and was the supervising director on the hit series Daria.[1] Meanwhile, she directed two TV feature-length installments in the series, Is It Fall Yet? in 2000 and the follow-up Is It College Yet? in 2002. She then joined Blue Sky Studios, where she worked as a story artist on many animated films, including Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Horton Hears a Who!, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Peanuts Movie, and Ferdinand. She was also the head of story on Rio,[3] and directed a short animated film Surviving Sid[3] and a television special Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, both part of the Ice Age franchise. In addition to storyboarding and directing, she lent her voice to some minor characters in the films she worked on, most notably to Scratte in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.[4]
In 2018, Disher was tapped to co-direct Blue Sky's first feature-length musical, "Foster",[5] based on an original story written by Disher, co-director Steve Martino, and Tim Federle, with songs to be written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. This project was cancelled due to the closure of Blue Sky in 2021.[6]
Disher joined Spire Animation Studios in 2021 as Creative Director, Development and is a founding member of the studio's brain trust, the "Creative Cadre".[7][8]
In 2001, Disher married Robert Todd Partington, then a supervisor of computer graphics and animation technologies for MTV Networks.[1]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Beavis and Butt-head Do America | key pose artist | |
| 1999 | Life | presenter, animator | |
| 2000 | Is It Fall Yet? | director/original character development/supervising director | |
| 2002 | Is It College Yet? | director/original character development/animation director | |
| 2005 | Robots | storyboard artist | |
| 2006 | Ice Age: The Meltdown | ||
| 2008 | Horton Hears a Who! | Who Kid | |
| Surviving Sid (short film) | S'more | director | |
| 2009 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | Scratte | storyboard artist |
| 2011 | Rio | Mother Bird | head of story |
| 2012 | Ice Age: Continental Drift | Scratte | storyboard artist |
| 2013 | Epic | ||
| 2014 | Rio 2 | ||
| 2015 | The Peanuts Movie[9] | ||
| 2016 | Ice Age: Collision Course | ||
| 2017 | Ferdinand | ||
| 2019 | Spies in Disguise | additional story artist, Blue Sky senior creative team |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994–1997 | Beavis and Butt-head | layout artist | |
| 1997–2002 | Daria | Sally | supervising director/original character designer |
| 2011 | Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas | Molehog | director |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Daria's Inferno | creative consultant |
Karen Disher, who heads the film's story department, voices Scratte. But Disher's responsibilities extended beyond her vocal work. Unlike the film's main story, scripted by Michael Berg & Peter Ackerman and Mike Reiss and Yoni Brenner, from a story by Jason Carter Eaton, the story department, working closely with Saldanha, created the Scrat-Scratte scenes. Disher and her team embraced the task of inventing new challenges for the beloved Scrat. "Working on the Scrat-Scratte scenes is the purest form of animation," she notes.
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 | This article about a United States film director born in the 1970s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This article about an American voice actor born in the 1970s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
