EBWIBR Luncheon Series Featuring Brenda Chapman

The East Bay Women in Business Roundtable is proud to present the director of Academy Award Winning film, "Brave"  Brenda Chapman in our 2013 Speaker Series "Women of Distinction".

Brenda describes herself as a storyteller, most would describe her as a talented writer and director. Her career began at Cal Arts where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. With the help of a student film she made while in school entitled, A Birthday, she landed a job at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studio.

She has worked on such animation classics as Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Later in her Disney career, she worked as head of story on The Lion King! After nearly eight years at Disney, Brenda left to help launch a new animation studio: DreamWorks Animation Studios.

The highlight of her DreamWorks experience was undoubtedly the opportunity to direct the 1998 film The Prince of Egypt. Brenda became the first woman to direct an animated feature film for a major Hollywood studio.

In 2003, she joined Pixar Animation Studios as a senior story artist working on Cars, an experience that helped her become more comfortable with the studio and its processes—enough so that she soon stepped up as director to create the feature film, Brave, which features Pixar’s first-ever female protagonist.

The film was inspired by her relationship with her daughter. Brenda writes, “Even though we frequently clash and are both control freaks, my love for her is fierce and unwavering—and I channeled those feelings into a story that gives contemporary working moms, their daughters and their families something to relate to in a fairy tale/folk tale setting–in Scotland, no less! There’s no doubt that Brave is an atypical princess story (no prince!), but it also allows viewers to immerse themselves in a magical world (à la the old Grimm’s tales) that has as much wonder as it does a positive, empowering message…something moms won’t cringe at when their daughter asks to dress up like Princess Merida for Halloween!”.