Aaron Blaise spent three years creating a short, hand-drawn, animated film he titled “Snow Bear,” which was released last year. The film has earned approximately 40 awards at film festivals throughout the world. It’s been nominated for two Annie Awards, including Best Animated Short Film, and has been shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Academy Award nominations will be announced January 22. The Annie Awards will be conducted February 21, and the Oscars will take place March 15.
Blaise is justifiably proud of the accolades he’s earned for “Snow Bear,” but what means much more for him is how creating it helped him to heal from a devastating loss when his wife Karen died in 2007. “I lost my way and myself,” he says. “‘Snow Bear’ is about love, loss, and being adrift. It’s about the healing process—about grieving, loneliness, and the need to connect. It’s about a lonely character living in a lonely environment and not giving up. I saw myself in it; it was very metaphoric.”
An award-winning illustrator, Blaise worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation for 21 years on films that include “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “Pocahontas,” “Mulan,” and “The Lion King,” and co-directed a film titled “Brother Bear.” Last year, he earned the Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the field of animation.
Blaise is also a wildlife painter, who captures the beauty of everything from leopards and lions to bison and bears, which sell as soon he finishes them. He and his business partner, Nicholas Burch, also created Creature Art Teacher, an online course that has more than 3.2 million followers in approximately 130 countries.
But, back to “Snow Bear.” It’s a hand-drawn, 11-minute animation film, which was very labor-intensive. “Twelve to 24 frames go by every second,” Blaise says, adding that the film has music but no dialogue because he didn’t want it to be hindered by language barriers. He released the film last year, and it’s now available for viewing on YouTube.
Blaise has also developed a “Snow Bear” card game, which currently has revenues of $60,000. “A big chunk of that goes to polar bear conservation,” he says.
By the way, the main character in “Snow Bear” eventually finds a friend and heals. That mirrors Blaise’s own journey. He, too, has healed and found love when he met Vedanta eight years ago and married her in 2023.
