This week on 8111, Bruce Buckley. Bruce grew up in Toronto. As a kid, he loved going to the drive-in movies with his family. Art was a clear area of interest in childhood as he enjoyed drawing and making things out of plasticine.
Bruce attended Sheridan for college where he studied art fundamentals. His primary focus was photography, shooting both 35mm and 4x5. Commercial photography was exciting and he wound up doing lots of studio work and architectural photography.
After earning his degree, Bruce took a job with the Canadian government woking with microfilm. There he discovered computers and became curious about the possibilities of using them to make art. After nine years there Bruce returned to school to study technical illustration.
In 1987 he went to NAB where he met fellow Canadian Steve Williams who was at the conference presenting with Alias. This meeting eventually led to a job opportunity working for Alias support doing training for clients and traveling the world to places like Columbia, Korea, and Europe.
A phone call from John Berton in 1993 brought Bruce to ILM. At ILM he went to work right away on films including; Casper, Dragonheart, and Congo helping to develop systems and tools to make the artist’s work move seamless. In 1995 Bruce was headhunted away by Disney to come work on Dinosaur. Bruce’s credits include; Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Incredibles, Monster House, Beowulf, Scott Pilgrim, Tree of Life, John Carter, Prometheus, Fate of the Furious, Kong: Skull Island, and Deadpool 2, to name just a few.
Today Bruce teaches at the NY Film Academy. It was great to get to chat with Bruce about his amazing career in the industry and hear his insights.
