Nationality Canadian Name Arna Selznick Children Max Douglas Website dancingmonkeys Employer Nelvana | Years active 1980s–present Spouse John van Bruggen Occupation Animation crewmember Role Director | |
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Residence Toronto, Ontario, Canada Known for Directing The Care Bears Movie (1985) Movies The Care Bears Movie, Back to School with Franklin, Strawberry Shortcake and the B Similar People John van Bruggen, Sunny Besen Thrasher, Eva Almos, Jackie Burroughs, Bob Dermer | ||
Arna Selznick is a Canadian director and artist, known for directing Nelvana's 1985 animated film The Care Bears Movie. Arna owns and operates a studio called Dancingmonkeys with her husband/partner John van Bruggen.
Career
Selznick completed two years, 2014- 2016 as a key member of the story team of the CG animated feature film, The Nut Job 2, produced in Toronto by Toonbox Entertainment. She is currently directing a CG animated featurette for Corus's Nelvana, titled The Most Magnificent Thing, based on the popular children's book by Ashley Spires.
Selznick began her career at Toronto's Nelvana studio, participating in several efforts such as layout artist on Rock & Rule, story supervisor on Inspector Gadget and director on Strawberry Shortcake and the Baby Without a Name. There, she met future husband John van Bruggen. She moved on to direct The Care Bears Movie, released in 1985 by the Samuel Goldwyn Company in the United States, and Astral Films and Criterion Pictures Corporation in Canada. The film won Canada's Golden Reel Award for highest-grossing local production in 1985, with the Canadian gross of $22,934,622.00. Quite remarkable, since children's admission at the time was about $3.50 or less. At the time of that film's release, Arna was probably only the third woman to direct an animated feature (after Lotte Reiniger of 1927's The Adventures of Prince Achmed, and Joy Batchelor of 1954's Animal Farm). Selznick was part of the layout unit on the next two Care Bears films, A New Generation (1986) and Adventure in Wonderland (1987), and was also a story artist on Wonderland.
In 1986, Selznick launched the dancingmonkeys studio in Toronto, partnering with director/screen writer John van Bruggen. In 2005, she and van Bruggen created Coolman!, part of the FunPak series on Canada's YTV network. Selznick has been on story teams for several other children's films and television series, among them Nelvana's Cone High; Disney's Return to Never Land; the British animated feature The King's Beard; the Nicktoons sci-fi saga Skyland; Treehouse TV's Toot & Puddle; and many other Nelvana productions.
While the Houston Chronicle's Stephen Hunter gave a mixed response to the animation of The Care Bears Movie, he pointed out that director Selznick "has a nice feel for the dynamics of action animation; several of the set-pieces zing along nicely."