Early Life
Hertzfeldt was born in Fremont, California where he attended local schools and drew homemade comic books. At 15, he began to teach himself animation with a small video camera. Two of Hertzfeldt's teenage VHS cartoons can be seen on the "Bitter Films: Volume 1" DVD collection.
While at film school he was drawn to animation as it was a less expensive form to work in. He could not afford to buy the multiple rolls of 16mm film required to shoot live action. "I think I've always approached animation from a strange angle, a bit like a regular filmmaker who just happens to animate. Editing, writing, sound, those are the things that usually come first in my head. Animation is often just the busy work I need to get through to connect the dots and tell the story."
Hertzfeldt has never held any job other than creating his animated films, not even in his youth. His earliest video animations found film festival exposure, and in film school at the University of California, Santa Barbara he was able to find international distribution for each of his 16mm student films.
Read more about this topic: Don Hertzfeldt
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug. He had been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him, he felt delivered from his own fretted, daily self.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)