Jill Culton is a 30-year veteran in animation serving as an animator (2D and CG), a character designer, visual development artist, story board artist, head of story development, writer, director and executive producer. Considered to be one of the first female pioneers of computer animation, in 2019 Culton earned Animation Magazine’s ‘Game Changer Award’ for becoming the first female in history to both WRITE and DIRECT an original animated feature.
Culton started at Pixar where she worked on Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2 and has an ‘original story by’ credit on Monster’s Inc. where she served as head of story development. JESSIE, the cowgirl in the Toy Story franchise is her design.
At Sony Pictures, Culton directed their first animated feature, Open Season, and Executive Produced the sequel, Open Season 2. In 2019, Culton both wrote and directed, Abominable with Dreamworks and Pearl Studios. This film won many awards including Best Animated Feature at the PGA Awards.
Currently Culton is directing the animated musical, Oh the Places You’ll Go!, Dr. Suess’ best-selling book. She is partnering with Jon M Chu at Bad Robot and Warner Brothers Pictures Animation.
