Sandro Cluezo

Sandro Cleuzo was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Drawing was always his favorite past time activity when he was growing up and he would spent hours in front of the TV watching cartoons and trying to draw the characters. He was always a big fan of the Disney animated films and shorts and even as a kid, he could tell that they had a high quality level, different than the other cartoons on TV and started to think that animation like that is what he wanted to do. At 14 he acquired the famous Preston Blair book and started to learn how to animate following the samples in the book. He was a big fan of the work of Don Bluth, specially “The Secret of Nimh” and wanted to work with him. He learned that they were located in Dublin, Ireland and in 1990, after saving enough money for a year, he flew there and applied for a job. Don saw his portfolio and hired him on the spot as an animator, a dream come true. He spent 4 years with Bluth in Ireland working on films like Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park and The Pebble and the Penguin” and 2 more years when they moved to Arizona when they setup the Fox Animation Studios and made “Anastasia”. In 1997 he started to work for Disney Animation Studios. His first project was as an animator on “Fantasia 2000” on the “Firebird” segment.