Dave Rosenbaum: From Hollywood to Lewes

Lots of people have to travel for work, but Dave Rosenbaum’s work travel schedule as of late is unlike most people’s. 

He just returned to Lewes from the Zurich Film Festival, where he has been working to find distribution for “Animal Farm,” an animated adaptation of George Orwell’s 1945 novel. The film was directed by Andy Serkis, famous for his role as Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and features the voice talents of Seth Rogan, Glenn Close, Woody Harrelson, Steve Buscemi, Kieran Culkin, Kathleen Turner, Jim Parsons and Gaten Matarazzo. 

His goal at the festival was to find distributors for the film in central Europe, countries such as Germany and Switzerland. The preference, he said, is to get a wide distribution, but the movie business doesn’t always work that way, so the job may require making a streaming deal for Germany, a theatrical deal for Switzerland or an airline deal for Poland. 

“Animal Farm” is set to play at other festivals around the world, such as in San Francisco and London. 

After growing up in Gaithersburg, Md., Rosenbaum attended the University of Richmond before deciding to embark on a career in the film industry. He said he was always interested in the arts and worked summer jobs around the Washington, D.C. area at places like the Kennedy Center and Arena Stage. 

He was accepted to the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles, a graduate program that helps train filmmakers in skills such as writing, directing, producing, cinematography, production design and editing. Students are broken into groups according to their particular discipline and make short films together. Rosenbaum’s interest was in producing, which he said he was drawn to because he liked the idea of finding a story and assembling a team to tell that story in the most interesting way possible. 

“The producer is the one at the end that brought everyone together,” he said. “It’s a bit of a ‘choose your own adventure’ when you’re a producer. They’re usually the first person on the project and the last person off.”

Rosenbaum said at the time, in the late 1990s, there was real debate about shooting on film and shooting digitally. He said the idea of shooting digitally and movies with computer-generated characters was intriguing to him. That led him to working at Dreamworks in its nascent computer-animation department. 

While he was working at Dreamworks, he was approached about switching over to a new startup animation studio, Illumination, founded by Chris Meledandri, who had previously been the head of 20th Century Fox Animation. The idea of joining a new animation studio and building it from the ground up was appealing to Rosenbaum, and he came on board as vice president of talent and supervisor of story. 

As vice president of talent, Rosenbaum’s job was to find the talent behind the scenes, such as artists, storyboard artists and character designers. In his other role as supervisor of story, his job was to translate scripts into visuals. 

“One of the interesting things about animation is you can have challenging concepts – either for children or people that are in a specific demographic for your film – but you can present it in a visual way that will help them understand. That’s the magic of animation,” he said. 

Rosenbaum said his approach to animated storytelling is very much inspired by the great silent film comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and, his personal favorite, Harold Lloyd. Rosenbaum said those comedians were able to tell stories without words, using only body language and performance.

That sort of storytelling translated to Rosenbaum’s work on Illumination’s “Despicable Me” franchise and its famous Minions. He said the first “Despicable Me” film was probably the most rewarding project he worked on at Illumination.

“The company was new. ‘Despicable Me’ was not a known [intellectual property]. No one had much expectation for the film or the studio. We had a lot of hope that we’d all become successful, but I certainly didn’t envision the huge success and the longevity that those characters would have,” he said.

Among other contributions to the Minions/Despicable Me franchise, the Minions named Dave, Larry and Kevin are named after Rosenbaum’s family members. He also co-wrote and voice acted in the Minions short film “Mower Minions,” in which the Minions try to perform lawn work for a group of seniors in hopes of making $20 to buy a blender. 

At Illumination, Rosenbaum worked on other popular films such as “The Lorax,” “Sing” and “The Secret Life of Pets.”

On the latter, Rosenbaum said, “That started with an idea from the founder of the company, Chris Meledandri, who came to the story department and said, ‘I want to make a movie about what our pets do when we’re not at home.’ There was no script or anything. We started with just that idea and started coming up with ideas and concepts and gags, and it really grew out of that.”

After 10 years at Illumination, Rosenbaum was approached by Cinesite, a multinational company that had started as a visual effects and film restoration company but was transitioning into film production. Cinesite was looking to build an animation division from scratch, and Rosenbaum was intrigued by the idea.

“After 10 years at Illumination, we were getting into the sequels. The part of the job that was interesting to me was starting to fade,” he said.

Rosenbaum said he had the support of Meledandri in leaving for Cinesite, which required a move to Montreal, Canada, where the company’s North American offices are based. The company has worked on projects for other studios, such as the animated “Addams Family” movies and this summer’s “Smurfs” film, as well as tackling its own projects such as “Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank,” “Hitpig,” and “Riverdance: The Animated Adventure,” which Rosenbaum co-wrote and co-directed.

Cinesite’s in-house films are made independently, which means those in production like Rosenbaum need to help the process of finding distributors and getting the films in front of audiences, with film festivals being the best way to do so. 

So how did someone with this resumé end up in Lewes?

“COVID,” Rosenbaum said. 

In short, during the pandemic, Canada had strict lockdown rules, making it difficult to travel. Rosenbaum and his husband were both on work visas and could not get in and out of the country without having to go into quarantine. Rosenbaum’s parents had a place in Ocean City, Md., and they decided to go there until COVID restrictions eased up. Since Rosenbaum worked in animation, it was easier to work remotely than his counterparts in live-action productions. As the pandemic dragged on, and with not much to do, Rosenbaum went and looked at real estate.

“We were just driving around and looking at developments. More as something to do. We found a place in Lewes. We’d felt very transient in Canada anyway. We’d had enough of the winters. So we bought a place here,” he said. 

Here quickly became home, and Rosenbaum has volunteered his time to local organizations such as Milton Theatre and Children’s Beach House in Lewes. He recently helped organize and moderated a fundraiser for Children’s Beach House in which Marcia Lucas, editor of “Star Wars: A New Hope,” “American Graffiti” and “Taxi Driver,” spoke on her life and career. 

“I love the idea that there was something in this area that catered to underprivileged kids but also catered to those with communicative disabilities, because one of the great aspects of animation is that it does bridge a lot of communication issues because it is visual,” he said. 

Rosenbaum said his favorite part of living in the Cape Region is the sense of community and the sense of joy people have about living here. 

“It’s a town of a lot of kind, grounded people,” he said of Lewes. “Not all cities I’ve lived in have felt that way. I feel like it does bring me back to my roots.”