Izzy Burton is an award-winning director, illustrator, author and lead artist at Netflix Animation. Currently based in Brighton, Izzy directs short films, draws for television and film, and illustrates and writes for books.
Describing her style as full of colour, poetic storytelling and whimsical ideas, a highlight of her career so far was her beautiful short film, A Whale's Tale, which was BAFTA-nominated and won many awards and acclaim around the world in 2018, followed by Via – a charming tale about life. Meanwhile, Stella and the Seagull is her latest illustrated book, bringing Georgina Stevens' story to life – it'll be her fifth published work in just 18 months.
Of course, this wasn't always the path Izzy thought she'd choose. She studied Computer Visualisation and Animation at Bournemouth University but thought she might embrace her love of maths and become a programmer instead of pursuing a career in art. But as storytelling has been something she has always been passionate about, she followed her heart after graduation and found herself working at leading animation studios, creating content for the Cartoon Network, BBC, Nickelodeon, and Cineworld.
She then went freelance, which proved very fruitful as last year, she was headhunted and became the lead artist for Netflix Animation where she's currently working on exciting things she "can't yet reveal".
In this episode, we talk about this interesting journey, and how Izzy went from graduation to working at lead studios to freelancing, publishing books and then joining one of the largest broadcasters in the world, Netflix – all in the space of six years. We find out what it's like to work at Netflix and what it's like to direct your own film. We also cover the insecurities we sometimes have as creatives when we worry about when our luck might run out. There's also talk of dystopian themes, a love of nature and birds (she can identify all of them), and a few shared giggles on boy bands, sweet pigeons, climbing trees, and building dens.
