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Du Chau then spent time as an animator for independent animators Dale and Jane Baer at Baer Animation, where he worked on a number of Disney projects. He next co-directed (with Hoyt Yeatman of Dreamquest Images) a live-action, animated and CGI short for Sony Wonder, and directed the animation on "The Land Before Time 3," a direct-to-video spinoff of the hit feature film.
Du Chau then spent a stint at Chuck Jones Productions, where he came to the attention of Warner Bros. just as the studio was forming its Feature Animation division. Once there, Du Chau worked in development and was soon attached to direct a story set in the South Pacific that he'd sold to Warner Bros.. When he was asked to direct "Quest For Camelot," he put that other project aside to give his full attention to directing his first theatrical animated feature-length film.
Producer DALISA COOPER COHEN was born and raised in Los Angeles, and graduated from UCLA with a degree in communications. She began her career as part of the Columbia Pictures Internship Program and later moved on to the William Morris Agency as assistant to agent Elaine Goldsmith. Next, Cooper Cohen worked in development at Bruce Willis' TriStar-based production company.
In 1989, she was involved in establishing Mel Gibson's Icon Productions, where she served as the company's Vice President, setting up projects with such diverse talent as director David Cronenberg and singer Bono Hewson of U2. She also served as the co-producer on Gibson's directorial debut, "The Man Without a Face." After that, she worked as a consultant to media mogul Ted Turner's company, helping to establish his feature-film division, Turner Pictures. She then joined Barry Levinson's Baltimore Pictures and served as producer Mark Johnson's co-producer on "A Little Princess," which was released by Warner Bros. She joined Warner Bros. Feature Animation as Senior Vice President of Creative Affairs just prior to beginning work on "Quest For Camelot."
Multiple Grammy-winner DAVID FOSTER has won 14 Grammy Awards and has been nominated 41 times as a composer, producer, arranger and artist. Foster, a native of British Columbia, Canada, began his musical career as a keyboard performer, working with Chuck Berry, John Lennon, Barbra Streisand and Rod Stewart, among others, as well as with his own rock group, Skylark. He received his first Grammy Award for writing 1979's "After the Love Has Gone," performed by Earth, Wind & Fire. His second Grammy was awarded for his production of the cast album for "Dreamgirls," the Tony Award-winning Broadway play. It was followed by Foster's entry into film songwriting, which resulted in the hit songs "Love, Look What You've Done to Me" by Boz Scaggs for "Urban Cowboy," and Chicago's "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" for the film "Summer Lovers."
During the 1980s, Foster produced numerous platinum albums for Chicago, which earned him a Grammy Award as 1984's Producer of the Year. He additionally produced, arranged and composed award-winning music for superstars Barbra Streisand, Michael Bolton, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Neil Diamond, Dionne Warwick, Kenny G, Manhattan Transfer, Olivia Newton-John and The Pointer Sisters, among many others. He composed numerous film scores, as well as songs for such movies as "Footloose," "Ghostbusters," "Pretty Woman" and "Three Men and a Baby."
More recently, Foster has produced, arranged and composed for a number of albums featuring performances by a wide variety of today's top recording artists, including Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Toni Braxton, Rod Stewart, All 4 One, Michael Crawford, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Vanessa Williams, Wynonna, Peabo Bryson, Brandy, Az Yet, The Corrs and En Vogue, earning 1994's Producer of the Year Grammy in the process.
He has also produced songs for the soundtracks of such films as "Made in America," "Sleepless in Seattle," "Beethoven 2," and the international platinum soundtrack to "The Bodyguard," and produced his own Christmas album, featuring many top artists.
In 1994, Foster joined Atlantic Records as Vice President and in 1995, established his own Atlantic-distributed label, 143 Records. In 1997, he was named Senior Vice President of the Warner Music Group.
Foster has previously collaborated as a producer and composer several times with Carole Bayer Sager, notably on the song "It's Falling in Love," performed by Michael Jackson, and on Sager's songs for the films "Beethoven 2" and "Forget Paris."
Academy Award-winner CAROLE BAYER SAGER's lyrics have earned her an Academy Award (plus seven nominations), a Grammy Award (and nine nominations), a Golden Globe Award (and seven nominations) and induction into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame. Her songwriting collaborations in the last four years have earned her back-to-back Grammy nominations, for "When You Love Someone" (from the film "Forget Paris"), "Look What Love Has Done" (from "Junior") and "The Day I Fall in Love" (from "Beethoven 2"). The latter two songs also received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and a remake of Sager's #1 hit, "On My Own," recorded by Reba McEntire, was nominated for a Grammy Award.
While still in her teens, Sager wrote her first #1 hit song, "A Groovy Kind of Love," which has been a hit three times in the past two decades.
"That's What Friends Are For," recorded by Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Elton John, was the #1 song of 1986, earning a Grammy for Song of the Year and heightening public awareness of AIDS. Sager and her former writing partner/husband, Burt Bacharach, donated the song's publishing revenues, totaling two million dollars to date, to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. That same year, the success of the Grammy-nominated "On My Own" (recorded by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald) and "That's What Friends Are For" enabled Sager and Bacharach to top the music charts in three genres at once, a first for a songwriter/producer team.
Sager's song credits include "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)," which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe in 1984; the Golden Globe-nominated "They Don't Make Them Like They Used To"; and such popular hits as "When I Need You," "Midnight Blue," "It's My Turn," "Everything Old is New Again," "You and Me, We Wanted It All," "Heartlight," "I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love," "Come in From the Rain" and "Don't Cry Out Loud."
Her songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Barbra Streisand, the Doobie Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Natalie Cole, Carly Simon, Leo Sayer, Dionne Warwick, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin and even Sager herself, on her own internationally platinum LP. One of her early hits, "When I Need You," has recently been re-recorded by Celine Dion on her most current album "Let's Talk About Love."
Sager has written with a number of collaborators, including Melissa Manchester, Peter Allen and, most recently, Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, Jon B and Carole King. Her collaboration with Marvin Hamlisch resulted in two Oscar nominations, for "Looking Through the Eyes of Love," from the motion picture "Ice Castles," and "Nobody Does It Better," from "The Spy Who Loved Me." Sager's lyrics can also be heard in the Tony Award-winning musical "They're Playing Our Song," which she co-wrote with Marvin Hamlisch and Neil Simon.
Composer PATRICK DOYLE was educated at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where he studied piano and singing. Following graduation, he worked as a piano teacher before writing his first score, for the musical comedy "Glasvegas," seen at the 1978 Edinburgh Festival. He then went on to a dual career in acting and composing for British television.
Doyle joined Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 as actor, composer and musical director after he was commissioned to score a televised version of the company's successful stage production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." Doyle composed his first film score for Branagh's acclaimed version of "Henry V." Further collaboration with Branagh produced scores for the features "Dead Again" (Golden Globe nominee), "Much Ado About Nothing," "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" and "Hamlet" (Academy Award nominee). His other feature composing credits include "Donnie Brasco," "Mrs. Winterbourne," "Sense and Sensibility" (Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations), "A Little Princess," "Carlito's Way," "Indochine" and "Great Expectations," a modernization of the Dickens novel.
KIRK DE MICCO (writer) sold his spec script "A Day in November" to Warner Bros. and producer Arnold Kopelson before signing to write "Quest For Camelot."
WILLIAM SCHIFRIN (writer) was previously a staff writer on the television series "Townies."
JACQUELINE FEATHER (writer) wrote, with David Seidler, the feature film "Dancing in the Dark," and, also with Seidler, the unproduced screenplays "The Boxer," "Close to Home" and "Glitterbug," among others. Feather and Seidler recently teamed on the screenplay for Morgan Creek Productions' animated feature, "The King & I," to be released by Warner Bros.
DAVID SEIDLER (writer) includes among his credits the feature films "Dancing in the Dark," which he wrote with his frequent collaborator, Jacqueline Feather; and "Tucker: The Man and His Dream," which he wrote with Arnold Schulman. As a writing team, Feather and Seidler have created more than 40 scripts and have more than a dozen screen credits in both film and television.
British writer VERA CHAPMAN (novelist) didn't begin seeing her writing in print until she was 77 years old. From the early 1970s until her death in 1996 at the age of 98, Chapman wrote 10 books and numerous short stories, most of which deal with British legends, fantasy and folklore.
Chapman was one of the first women to be granted full membership of Oxford University in 1919, and she was graduated in 1921, after which she married a missionary and moved to Mozambique. She worked there as a teacher, then returned to England and, later, became a civil servant, retiring in 1963.
In 1969 she founded the Tolkien Society, in order to share her enthusiasm for myth and legend; the organization continues to flourish. Around the same time, with the encouragement of J.R.R. Tolkien himself, she began writing her own stories, which are now regarded as the first feminist Arthurian fantasies. Her first three novels, The Green Knight, The King's Damosel and King Arthur's Daughter, were later compiled into an omnibus called The Three Damosels, which was published in England in 1976 and in the United States two years later.
Chapman's other writing includes Judy and Julia and Miranty and
the Alchemist, both written expressly for children; and The Wife of
Bath, Blaedud the Birdman, The Notorious Abbess and The Enchantress,
although the last is still unpublished.
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