Floyd Norman: An Animated Life

A movie about an unsung hero for many!
A mouth or so after black History mouth, I discovered a man named Frank Braxton who is credited as being the first black animator and had short but impactful career over at Warner Bros.

Then, possibly another mouth after that I saw the trailer for Floyd Norman: An Animated Life, and knew I wanted to see this.

Forget about the fact that Floyd is a black man who made it in a industry that was dominated by whites, and did it on sure talent alone, Floyd’s energy in the documentary lifts the spirits of all who still think as children and stay young by doing what they love for as long as you can do it. He’s like Stan Lee.

It’s an untold story that I really needed to here. Still to this day it’s important to know that diversity exist in this business and even though Floyd thinks of himself as more than just a symbol for the cause, he is in fact really good at being it just from being himself.

He’s a man at 80 who has not lost a kink in his step and keeps moving on, which is an inspiration for all of us to stay as young as you feel.

For those Die-Hard animation fans it’s a well rounded documentary about the animation business starting from when Floyd was hired by Disney to work on Sleeping Beauty up till 2015 with Floyd let go from Disney at age 65 and then being hired back 15 years after. It features very famous names in animation (like Paul Dini who created the DC animated Universe) to some lessor known but just as important guys. Who would have thought an industry catered mostly towards children would be so filled with racism sexism and ageism (more so the two latter really than the former).

Great documentary about an interesting man inside an awesome business.