Ringling grad seeks $350K kickstart for animated film

SARASOTA — Aaron Blaise, a 1989 Ringling College of Art and Design graduate, has teamed up with his longtime Disney collaborator, Chuck Williams, on a Kickstarter campaign to raise $350,000 for a new movie.

Kickstarter is a for-profit business that allows people to raise money, usually for creative projects, through crowd funding. Some projects on Kickstarter offer perks to investors, like early access to the final product.

Blaise and Williams, who co-directed the Academy Award-nominated movie “Brother Bear,” seek the funds to start production of their animated feature film, “Art Story.” They have 931 backers who have pledged $90,431 through Aug. 12. The Kickstarter campaign ends Aug. 23.

The collaborators, according to a release, have worked at Disney for more than 20 years. Films they have worked on include “Lion King,” “Beauty & the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “Pocahontas.”

“Art Story,” the release states, is an “unconventional and creative animated family film about a boy and his grandfather who become trapped in the world of fine art. Their relationship develops as they become stuck within famous works of art and their characters are rendered in the style of the painting.”

Blaise says he came to Ringling to study painting and fine art, and “kind of fell into animation.” He adds that he hopes Kickstarter will be a good ally in getting the project going.

“Smaller films have had a lot of success on Kickstarter, and Chuck and I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to be the first to try to fund a full-length animated feature there,” Blaise says in the statement. “We've got the background, experience and reputation and we believe we can capitalize on that to produce an animated feature with a compelling story that also leverages our love for fine art.”

For more on the project click here.