Playgrounds TV: Wilbert Plijnaar

Crazy talented, modest and a true story teller! This describes an artist whose contribution to animation, together with his body of works, actually make the subject of extensive books. Having contributed to movies like Ice Age, Despicable Me, Minions, The Secret Life of Pets among many others, as well  as being a collaborator to the weekly Donald Duck Magazine and a co-writer of the long running ‘Sjors en Sjimmie’ series, Wilbert Plijnaar is a monumental source of wisdom and insights from the animation industry. Such an honour to have him a guest for an in-depth Playgrounds TV interview!

Date
9 February 2022 (Event has ended)
Time
20:30 - 21:30
Entrance fee
Free entrance

Wilbert Plijnaar started his career working for Donald Duck Weekly in 1972. He wrote and illustrated several stories with characters like ‘Gus Goose’, ‘The Big Bad Wolf’ and ‘Little Hiawatha’, and illustrated numerous covers. In the mid 1970s, he moved to the weekly comic magazine ‘Eppo’ , where he and Jan van Die began writing scripts for the Sjors en Sjimmie comicstrip, modernizing the series and turning it into a success that spun a weekly magazine with the same name.

In 1985, Wilbert Plijnaar meets Hans Buying of the Comic House Agency, setting the grounds for a very successful collaboration. Through a span of ten years, the duo works together on dozens of animation productions per year, rapidly making Comic House one of the largest animation producers in the Netherlands. Plijnaar contributions there are as concept developer, storyboard artist, lay-out designer, background painter, and (co) director.

In 1995, he is hired by Warner Bros and moves to Hollywood to work as a story artist. Since then he contributed to animated features such as Quest for Camelot, Osmosis Jones, Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius, Three ‘Ice Age’ movies, Over the Hedge, Disney’s ‘The Princess and the Frog’, ‘Horton Hears a Who’, Despicable Me 1&2, ‘The Grinch’ and a slew of others.

In 2019, his biography “Rotterdammer in Hollywood” – Written by Peter de Wit ( Sigmund) appeared. The image of Plijnaar that emerges from this coffee-table book full of testimonials is of someone with an unstoppable flow of ideas and jokes, who is too much of a perfectionist to build a large body of work for himself – “The logical consequence was to contribute ideas that were worked out by others,” he tells, “so that the responsibility for the final product did not rest on my shoulders. Otherwise it would never get finished.” We can’t wait to take a peek into his exciting mind and creative process!