Shawn P. Krause

Shawn P. Krause is an animator of Pixar Animation Studios and once a Creative Director of Animation and Story at Spire Animation Studios.^[1]

Shawn P. Krause
Alma mater	University of Missouri (BFA) California Institute of the Arts
Occupation	Animator
Years active	1994–present
Employer(s)	Pixar Animation Studios (1994–present) Spire Animation Studios (2020–2023)
Known for	Up Cars 2 Inside Out

Early life

Shawn P. Krause was born to Ron Krause, who was a previous manager of Krause Key & Lock, a prominent key store and locksmith service in St. Louis that was established in 1947 by Shawn’s grandfather William, and it currently managed by Shawn’s older brother, Eric. The store itself also featured during the credits of the film, Inside Out, in which Shawn worked as a supervising animator.^[2] As a native of Mehlville^[3], he attended the schools of Mehlville School District, such as Margaret Buerkle Middle School (1980-1983) and Mehlville High School (1983-1987).^[4][5] After he graduated in 1987, he attended the University of Missouri and graduated with Bachelor's Degree of Fine Art with a Minor in Art History and Archaeology in 1992.^[4] A year later, he attended the California Institute of the Arts where he created one of his student films, The Bicycle Thieves, his first year short film that caught the attention of Pete Docter, and it also made it into CalArts Producer's Show.^[4][6]

Career

After that, he was hired at Pixar in 1994 to worked on commercials such as storyboarded Chips Ahoy! commercials, co directed a Twizzlers commercial, and directed a commercial of Levi's.^[7] After worked at commercials, he alongside fellow animator Bob Peterson get an offer which he eventually started worked as animator on the studio's first film, Toy Story and afterwards, worked on numerous Pixar projects.^[7] His contributions including led the animation teams for three Pixar features such as, Up, Cars 2 and Inside Out. As one of supervising animators of Inside Out, he won on 14th VES Awards in a category of Outstanding Animated Performance in an Animated Feature for animating the feature's main character, Joy.^[8] In 2016, he became a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[9] In August 2020, he become Creative Director of Animation and Story at Spire Animation Studios and returned to Pixar in May 2023.^[6] Aside from his career from Pixar, he also experienced volunteership in Verde Valley School, where he has been a guest instructor since June 2013, in which he led a week-long filmmaking class for select student’s end-of-year called 'Project Period' and became a member of Board of Trustees in January 2017.^[6]

Filmography

Commercials

• Balloon (brand : Chips Ahoy!) (1995): storyboard artist^[7] (uncredited)
• Circus (brand : Chips Ahoy!) (1995): storyboard artist^[7] (uncredited)
• Christmas Conga (brand : Tower Records) (1995): director^[10] (uncredited)
• Let Me In (brand : Twizzlers) (1996): co-director^[6] (uncredited)
• Shake It (brand : Levi’s) (1996): director^[6] (uncredited)

Feature films

• Toy Story (1995): additional animator, additional layout artist
• A Bug's Life (1998): animator
• Toy Story 2 (1999): animator
• Monsters, Inc. (2001): character developer (Roz^[6]), animator
• Finding Nemo (2003): animator, character developer^[6] (Bloat^[6]) (uncredited)
• The Incredibles (2004): animator
• Cars (2006): animator
• Ratatouille (2007): pixar productions
• Up (2009): directing animator
• Cars 2 (2011): supervising animator
• Brave (2012): additional animator
• Inside Out (2015): supervising animator
• The Good Dinosaur (2015): animator
• Finding Dory (2016): animator
• Cars 3 (2017): animator
• Incredibles 2 (2018): character developer, animator
• Toy Story 4 (2019): custom animation production
• Soul (2020): additional animator
• Inside Out 2 (2024): animator
• Elio (2025): animator

Short films

• The Bicycle Thieves (1993): entirety^[4]
• Jack-Jack Attack (2005): animator
• Riley's First Date? (2015): supervising animator
• Bao (2018): additional visual development artist
• Lamp Life (2020): supervising animator
• Pixar Popcorn (2021):
  • Soul of the City (2021): animator, writer
  • Dancing with the Cars (2021): animator, writer

TV series

• Dug Days (2021):
  • Puppies (2021): animator

• Dream Productions (2024):
  • Part 1: The Dream Team (2024): additional animator
  • Part 2: Out of Body (2024): additional animator
  • Part 3: Romance! (2024): additional animator
  • Part 4: A Night to Remember (2024): additional animator

Documentaries

• A Day in the Life of John Lasseter (2011): himself^[11]

Video games

• Disney’s Animated Storybook: The Lion King (1994): animator, animation cleanup
• Disney’s Activity Center: Aladdin (1994): animator
• Cars Race-O-Rama (2009): special thanks
• Cars 2: The Video Game (2011): supervising animator

Theme parks

• It's Tough to Be a Bug! (1998): directing animator^[6] (uncredited)
• Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage (2007): supervising animator^[6] (uncredited), modeler^[6] (Darla statue^[6]) (uncredited)
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends (2007): supervising animator^[6] (uncredited)

Bibliography

• Disney Pixar's Toy Story Manga: 30th Anniversary Edition (2025): foreword^[12]