EJ DeBrun

Animator, Author

Elizabeth “EJ” DeBrun is a former animator attending UC Berkeley and obtaining a master’s degree in animation from Savannah College of Art and Design. 

During her time in the film and television industry, she has worked with many veteran industry professionals at studios such as Nickelodeon and Lucasfilm Animation and has also written for television at an independent studio. In 2013 she shifted gears and decided to focus on writing short stories and novels in the science fiction and fantasy genre. She was a presenter at the 2019 San Francisco Writers Conference, speaking on three panels: Screenwriting, Filmmaking and Turning Books to Screen in addition to conducting a master class, The Hero’s Journey: A Practical Guide to the Three Act Story.  

How did you first become interested in animation?
As a kid from the 90s, I always loved Disney animated movies - The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King. I watched them all over and over again because I was an only child and they kept me company growing up. But I'll be honest, as a kid, I never thought about how to make these movies. For me, those movies were literally some type of magic until I met Brian Kisinger in my junior year in high school.

Brian was the son of my school's music teacher. He had also been recently hired as a background artist at Walt Disney Animation studios and his mother had set up a career consultation session for all the people in my year. My world changed after that session because for the first time ever, I realized that animation wasn't some kind of magic that just showed up on my TV. It was something that real people made and if real people made it, then I could do it too.

How did your career evolve from visual art work to the field of writing novels? 
Ask anyone who knew me as a kid, and they'll tell you I have always been a bookworm. My parents used to take me to these really long, boring dim sum brunches on Saturdays and I was a picky kid so instead of eating, I would always bring a book to read. A long book because these were easily three-hour meals. So even though I love animation with a burning, seething passion, I love stories more. For me, animation, gaming, comics, novels, all these different mediums we have all come down to the same thing: how to tell a good story.

So, my goal starting in the animation industry was not about becoming an animator. My goal was always to be a storyteller. Animation just happened to be how I wanted to share my stories because, again, I was a lonely kid from the 90s and these movies kept me company, so I wanted to make movies that comforted someone else the same way those movies comforted me.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, life isn't really that simple. Animation is an expensive medium that takes hundreds of people thousands of hours to produce but out of those hundreds of people, only a handful get to be the directors, the storyboard artists.

In other words, once I entered the industry full throttle, I realized more and more that my chances to actually be one of the storytellers were slim to none. Once I figured that out, I decided shift gears and find an alternative way to tell my stories. As a kid, I took a lot of academic writing classes and, like I mentioned before, I read a ton. I also have a lot of writer friends to help guide me, so it was easy enough for me to shift mediums and I haven't looked back since.

Why did you focus on the field of science fiction and fantasy for writing?
This comes back to the animation thing because there reason why I love animation is its ability to create an illusion of life. In other words, through animation we can create fantastical things that seem real but actually aren't real at all. It's a sort of magic and that same magic can be found in science fiction and fantasy, so that's where my mind goes.

What is the main difference between screenwriting and published writing?
As an animator, I always say that the #1 difference between the two comes down to the end product: one is a movie, the other is a book. That seems obvious, but when you think about it, scripts are really the beginning of a creative process to churn out a product that looks nothing like a script, whereas with a book, what you put on the page is reasonably similar to the end product in people's hands. And there are so many other things that can be implied by that difference, the formatting, amount of creative control, the limits to POV choices etc. etc. So really, this one difference kind of snowballs into all the other key differences and those don't end.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that besides the fact that both screenwriting and published writing involve a story and some words, they are completely different mediums and not similar at all.

Do you have any advice for a young person entering the field of production?
If we're talking about media production my best advice would be: work hard, stick to your deadlines and don't cause trouble. Do all that and you'll probably find a lot of success in the industry, though it might not take you where you want to go.

If you could tell your younger self anything what would it be?
Keep at it. It's going to seem impossible sometimes but keep at it and forget everything else. Just make something you can be proud of.

Is there anything else you would like to share?
It doesn't matter what medium you use because people love stories. They always have and they always will, so concentrate on the story first and the rest will follow.

I attended a panel discussion that EJ participated in on filmmaking and animation at SFWC and was so inspired by her story and work experience. She was also so encouraging of young writers like myself.  Thank you!!!

All art/photos belong to EJ DeBrun and are used with her permission.