THE ANIMATION WONDER TWINS

Lipscomb is the only school to have three former Disney supervising animators and a former Disney director teaching classes.

Tom Bancroft (left), built the animation program in its early years, and Tony Bancroft (right), now serves as program director.

Since 2014, former full-time Disney and Big Idea animator Tom Bancroft has brought his artistic expertise and creativity to Lipscomb, pioneering its animation program. In fall 2022, he felt it was time to bring a little more of that Disney magic to Lipscomb by recruiting—not just any Disney animator—but his own twin brother Tony Bancroft, also a former full-time Disney animator and co-director of Disney’s Mulan.

So as of this fall, Lipscomb’s animation students are enjoying twice the magic with Tony Bancroft as program director and Tom Bancroft serving as artist-in-residence. With the addition of Tony, Lipscomb became the only university in the world to have three former Disney supervising animators and a former Disney director teaching classes.

Tom recruited his brother Tony to join the Department of Cinematic Arts, not only for his unmatched credentials but also for the vision they share for bringing up the next generation of Christian game changers in the entertainment industry. They want to grow and mold students to serve in the mission field of entertainment and tell stories that inspire others and impact the world.

“As iron sharpens iron, I credit a lot of my success to the dynamic that Tom and I share,” said Tony. “Growing up, we were competitive with drawing. We have grown in our talent level and abilities because we work so closely together.”

They studied together at CalArts, worked together at Disney and have hosted over 200 episodes of the animation industry go-to podcast: The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast.

“The podcast was born out of our passion for animation and that feeling of wanting to give back. We learned from giants in the industry, and we wanted to be able to give back in our own small way,” said Tony. “So we started the podcast as a way of reaching the next generation of animators, to teach them by talking about animation and its history, to share our experiences and also to interview all the top people in the industry.”

The Bancroft brothers each have over 30 years of experience in the animation industry and have been creatively involved in almost every aspect of making animated films, videos, commercials and short films. Although mainly living and working in different states, they have worked on six films together: The Rescuers Down Under, Roller Coaster Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Mulan

“There was this one moment with The Lion King ,” said Tom, “when Tony was animating Pumbaa and I was animating young Simba. I flew to California to work with Tony at the Disney Studio there for about a week on a mini sequence we were doing together.

“We animated the sequence very quickly and showed the rough to the directors, and it was a success. It’s all in the movie. That was the first time we felt like, OK, we’ve made it. We are Disney animators.”

Tony honed his animation and directing skills while working at Walt Disney Feature Animation in California for 12 years. He has also shared his talents with Sony Pictures; his own animation company, Toonacious Family Entertainment; and currently as an independent contractor working with Disney, Warner Brothers and others.

For Mulan, he received the Annie Award for Director of the Year from ASIFA-International, and he received the Visual Effects Society’s top award for character animation for his work as animation supervisor of Sony’s Stuart Little 2.

Tom worked as an animator for Walt Disney Feature Animation in Florida for 11 years, where he contributed his talents to 10 animated feature films, five animated shorts and numerous special projects and commercials.

He has been nominated for Annie and Rueben awards, spoken at the Kennedy Center and was awarded an entry into the Chicago Children’s Film Festival. He was also a makers of the family-friendly VeggieTales® video series.

Tom has authored two best-selling art instruction books, including Creating Characters with Personality which is the most recognized book on designing characters for animation, video games, comic books and cartooning, and is a required textbook at many art schools around the world.

Tom says that although these wonder twins were dedicated to reaching the next generation, they did not pursue teaching at first. “I think God pursued us to do this, separately at first, and now jointly,” he said. “Unlike most art schools that are degree leaning, Lipscomb brings its students to the forefront by having them taught by industry professionals,” he said. “ I could see the college’s appreciation for practitioner instructors with (producer/filmmaker/ recording artist) Steve Taylor and with (music producer) Brown Bannister in the music department too.”

Aspiring to take the school to a higher echelon of animation production, Tom has assembled over the years an all-star faculty with plenty of credentials from the house that Mickey Mouse built: Disney legend John Pomeroy (Winnie The Pooh and Tigger Too, Pete’s Dragon, Pocahontas, and

The Simpsons Movie); Victoria Thornberry (Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two, Justice Society: World War II, and LEGO DC Super Hero Girls: Super-villain High); Diana Coco Russell (Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Aladdin and Hercules); and Mike Nawrocki, (co-founder of Big Idea Entertainment, co-creator of VeggieTales, voice of Larry the Cucumber, and creator of Dead Sea Squirrels).

“Very quickly, within the first few years of my arrival in Nashville, my sub-goal was to help develop the animation industry of Nashville,” said Tom, who launched the crowd-invested Pencilish Animation Studios.

“We’ve always had a few small Nashville studios, but now we’re adding to that. About three or four more studios have popped up just in this last year—all with major projects. We have students working in every single one of those places right now.”

With the growing number of animation projects in the city, Lipscomb instructors are frequently approached with jobs, and they often suggest a student who could do it, bringing their students into professional industry jobs. Students are also offered opportunities to work with their professors on outside projects.

Two students had the rare opportunity to work on the Warner Brothers Space Jam: A New Legacy movie. In 2019, the nfl’s

Tennessee Titans hired Tom to illustrate cartoons for its social media and the project grew to involve alumni and students in animation as well as other arts programs.

In October, Tom and Tony took students to participate in the 2022 Lightbox Animation Expo in California. The Bancroft brothers spoke on various director and animator panels and the 22 Lipscomb students had the opportunity to pitch to studios, visit with recruiters, peruse the exhibits and network.

“Thinking about animation in entertainment in general, it’s definitely here to stay,” said Tony. “Coming out of the pandemic, there’s a real need and urgency for more faith-based storytelling and animation is a magical way of telling those stories. Netflix and the different studios streaming content have a sharp eye out for anything animation because of the positive message that it usually has with it.”

“It always comes down to the story,” said Tom. “We don’t lose track of that. We don’t just teach students how to use a computer and say now you’ll get a job. It’s the instructors who make the difference. Not only do we teach the technology, with software that we are currently using in the industry, but we also train them how to put it to use in the art of telling a story.”