About
Simon J. Smith is a British producer, director, animator, camera operator, voice-actor, and layout artist for PDI/DreamWorks Animation. Simon began his career in London, where he worked at SVC Television, effects house Framestore, and post house VTR where he established his own 3D department. Smith served at The Mill as the CG supervisor on commercial projects for Nike, Honda, Volvo and VW Polo. He was a pioneer in the field of pre-visualization, and used that skill set to create PDI's layout / pre-viz department, an integral part of PDI/DreamWorks filmmaking process. Smith was also instrumental in helping set up the CG layout / pre-viz department at Aardman Animation for their production of Chicken Run. Smith was originally known for his work on the award-winning pop video "Go West," by The Pet Shop Boys and for receiving the first ever Gold Leaf Award for his 3D directorial work on the commercial, "West Lites."
Smith came to PDI/DreamWorks in 1997 as the head of layout / (pre-visualization) for the feature film division. Smith supervised the layout / pre-viz department on PDI/DreamWorks' first animated feature film, "Antz," before acting as the Three Blind Mice, and serving as the head of layout / pre-viz on the feature film, "Shrek." He then directed the Universal Studios theater experience, "Shrek 4-D," followed by the DVD short film, "Shrek 2: Far, Far, Away Idol." His feature film directorial debut was "Bee Movie." Then came another DVD short, "Megamind: The Button of Doom," before he was chosen to direct his next feature film, the animated action comedy, "The Penguins Of Madagascar." Smith then ventured into the video game space using the Unity real time engine to create a unique pipeline to produce 3 eipisodes of “Baymax Dreams” for Disney. Smith created the concept and wrote and directed the episodes that won the project an Emmy Award.
Presently, Smith is the Exec Producer/Showrunner on the hit Netflix/Warner Bros Batman series “Batwheels” which is in it’s third season of production.
