Brad Simonsen

Bradford Simonsen is an award winning American Film Producer, specializing in Animation, VFX and Live Action. He produced the Emmy award winning short film, "Once Upon A Studio", celebrating 100 years of Disney Animation which was included in the shortlist for best short film for the 96th Academy Awards®. He previously produced the Emmy winning "Baymax" the Series for Disney Plus. He also produced Walt Disney Studios' short film, "Us Again," which was included in the shortlist for the 94th Academy Awards® Animated Short Films. He joined Disney Animation in 2012, and has served as associate producer on three Oscar®-winning features, "Big Hero 6," "Zootopia" and "Encanto," as well as the 2018 Oscar®-nominated film, "Ralph Breaks the Internet." He also produced the animated short films, "Weeds," and "Flutter" which garnered festival acclaim and Academy consideration. Among his notable live-action film credits are "Real Steel" and "Jack the Giant Slayer" (digital producer), "Alice in Wonderland" and "Big Fish" (digital production manager) and the animated films "Open Season," "Polar Express," "Beowulf" and the 2003 Oscar®-winning short "The ChubbChubbs!" (for which he also voiced the character of Meeper). Simonsen attended the University of Washington School of Business in Seattle, where he earned a degree in Marketing and Human Resource Management. During that time, he was also active in the school's drama department as an actor and writer while he produced for the University of Washington's production programs. Upon graduation, Simonsen moved to Los Angeles where he launched his industry career as an assistant director. He segued from production to feature film development with an assistant role at Jan De Bont's production company. This was followed by a role as director of production at Robert Redford's film banner, where he worked on such titles as "The Legend of Bagger Vance," "Spy Game," "The Motorcycle Diaries" and "The Last Castle" among others. Developing an interest in visual effects, Simonsen landed a job at Sony Imageworks in 2001, where he coordinated the production of "The ChubbChubbs!" and went on to work as digital production manager over the next nine years. From 2010-12, he worked as a digital producer at the award-winning Digital Domain production company. Brad has also written and produced several independent films.