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Published Sunday
May 22, 2005
Ex-Omahan breathes life into film cartoon
animals
BY BOB FISCHBACH |
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| WORLD-HERALD STAFF
WRITER |
Terran Boylan has an unusual brain.
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| Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris
Rock), Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada
Pinkett Smith), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) and
plotting penguins share the spotlight in "Madagascar." Omaha
native Terran Boylan helped animate the comedy about zoo
animals in the wild. | |
While most people are predominantly left-brain (speech,
writing, science, math) or right-brain (creativity, imagination, art,
three-dimensional thinking), Boylan possesses a rare balance of both.
That's just what you need if you're a computer animator
for DreamWorks, helping to create movies like "Madagascar," a story of zoo
animals scared to find themselves in an African jungle. It opens
Friday.
Boylan, an Omaha native, is a character technical
director (TD) at DreamWorks. He helps program computer controls for a
character's movable parts, finding ways to make a cartoon come alive with
fluid, natural movement.
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Terran Boylan
Age: 40.
Engaged to be married. No children. His father is local
abstract artist Dan Boylan. His mother, Mary Dexter, lives in
St. Louis.
Born Oct. 13, 1964, in Omaha. In
his teen years, he lived near 42nd and Center Streets. Now
lives in Glendale, Calif.
Attended St. Pius X
and Mason Elementary Schools, Nathan Hale and George
Norris Junior Highs, Central High School.
Earned a
bachelor's degree in computer engineering, master's in
art, both from Iowa State University in Ames.
Hired by
DreamWorks as a computer animator in January
2000. | |
One of his specialties, for example, is hair. In
"Madagascar," the 50,000 hairs in the mane of Alex the Lion (voiced by Ben
Stiller) move constantly. Boylan helped develop programming that makes
hair react in realistic ways to the character's movements.
"The single most important trait for a good character TD
is a balance of technical and artistic skills," Boylan said from his home
in Gl |
