Mark Osborne (filmmaker)

Mark Osborne
Born	Mark Randolph Osborne (1970-09-17) September 17, 1970 Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Film director, film producer, screenwriter, animator
Years active	1993-present
Notable work	More Kung Fu Panda The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie The Little Prince
Relatives	Kent Osborne (brother)

Mark Osborne (September 17, 1970) is an American film director, writer, producer and animator.

Biography

Osborne got his start by studying Foundation Art at Pratt Institute in New York before receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts in June 1992. His thesis film, Greener, won numerous awards and screened at more than 40 film festival worldwide. He has received two Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Animated Feature of the year for the 2008 critically acclaimed Kung Fu Panda which he directed alongside John Stevenson. Kung Fu Panda has netted more than $630 million worldwide to-date. The action-comedy was Osborne's first major studio project. It also won him and Stevenson the Annie Award for Directing in an Animated Feature Production.

Osborne's other most well-known work to date, award winning stop motion animated short, More, has screened in over 150 film festivals worldwide. It was the first IMAX animation film to ever be nominated for an Academy Award (1999). More garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short, Special Jury Prize for Short Films at the Sundance Film Festival (1999), The SXSW Best Animated Short (1999), the ResFest Grand Prize (1999), the Critics Week selection for CANNES (1999), among many others.

Osborne has also directed a majority of the live-action material for the popular animated TV series SpongeBob SquarePants featuring Patchy the Pirate, as well as all of the live action sequences for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, featuring David Hasselhoff. He was classmates with the television show's creator, Stephen Hillenburg, while a student at CalArts. He worked as director on SpongeBob episodes such as "The Sponge Who Could Fly" and "SpongeBob B.C."

His other live action directing credits include his independent feature film Dropping Out, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000, and has developed a cult following. Bachelor Pad was also a short live-action comedy Mark made with his brother Kent along with Dylan Haggerty in the late 1980s. Parts of Bachelor Pad can be seen in the unaired second episode of Taterhole, which was a spin-off to The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show in 1997. The entire episode can be viewed here. His short film Greener was broadcast on TNT's Rudy and GoGo's New Year's Eve Flaming Cheese Ball special on New Year's Eve (1995-96).

For a while, Osborne taught stop-motion at his alma mater, CalArts. He later left to pursue his professional aspirations. In 2004, Osborne was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to assist in the production of another personal stop-motion short film, The Better Half. In October 2010, Osborne was hired to direct The Little Prince for Gallic S3D.

Osborne, along with singer Chris Martin, wrote the story of Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto concept album, and directed the video of "Hurts Like Heaven". He wrote the first issue of the comic adaptation and still hopes to turn the album into a film.

Personal life

Osborne is the brother of TV writer and producer, Kent Osborne. Osborne's son, Riley, voiced the Little Prince in the 2015 film, The Little Prince, which was directed by Osborne.

Filmography

• The Little Prince (2015) (director)
• SpongeBob SquigglePants (2011) (director of Patchy the Pirate cut-scenes)
• Kung Fu Panda (2008) (director, voice of Pig Patron)
• The Better Half (2004) (director)
• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) (director: live-action sequence)
• Channel Chasers (2004) (director: "Channel 295" scene)
• SpongeBob SquarePants (1999-2004) (director, live-action director, consulting producer)
• Caffeine Headache (2003) (special thanks)
• "Weird Al" Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection (2003) (director: video "Jurassic Park")
• Dropping Out (2000) (director, 'Thank You' Guy)
• Short 7: Utopia (2000) (director)
• Herd (1999) (Fed #2, Producer)
• More (1998) (director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, digital effects artist, stop-motion animator)
• "Weird Al" Yankovic: The Videos (1998) (director: video "Jurassic Park")
• Greener (1994) (director, writer, cinematographer, editor)
• Alapalooza: The Videos (1993) (director: video "Jurassic Park")
• Jurassic Park (music video) (1993) (director)

External links

• Official website, happyproduct.com
• "Mark Osborne: Why Failure is the Best Way to Succeed in Movies", jawbone.tv
• Mark Osborne at the Internet Movie Database