On Thursday morning, news broke on Pixar’s brand new short, La Luna, a film that is set to play in various festivals throughout the year. The short film’s director and head of story, Enrico Casarosa, may not have directed a film for Pixar up until now, but he has spent quite a bit of time working in the animation industry. Disney/Pixar has released an official bio on Casarosa, which you can check out here!
Enrico Casarosa joined Pixar Animation Studios in January 2002. He began working as a story artist on “Cars” and the Academy Award-winning feature “Ratatouille.” Casarosa’s next project was as story artist on Disney•Pixar’s Academy Award®-winning feature film, “Up.” Most recently, Casarosa made his directing debut with the short film, “La Luna.” Currently, Casarosa is working as head of story on an upcoming Pixar film.
As a story artist, Casarosa creates visual sequences from the script. Story artists also generate new ideas and gags, and provide feedback regarding the plot, characters and overall story of the film. With help from story artists, the film’s director finds the story they want to tell and the best cinematographic way to tell it.
Casarosa found early influences in Hayao Miyazaki’s work and grew up watching Miyazaki’s television series in Italy. Born and raised in Genoa, Casarosa moved to New York City in his twenties, to study animation at the School of Visual Arts and Illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Before coming to Pixar, Casarosa worked as a storyboard artist at Blue Sky Studios on “Ice Age” and “Robots.” He also worked as a background designer and storyboard artist for a number of Disney Channel Television Series’ including “101 Dalmatians” and “PB&J Otters.”
Casarosa lives in San Francisco, California with his wife Marit and their little daughter Fio Giulietta.
Make sure to follow Enrico on Twitter here!