Natalie Nourigat, BA '10 (Japanese) fell in love with comic books at age 14 after a friend introduced her to manga. It was a love that would later lead to a career at Walt Disney Animation Studios. 

"My head exploded. Like, 'what is this? I want all of this!'," the Portland native says.
 

She was hooked. Suddenly, she found herself perusing the aisles of the then-still-standing Borders reading everything she could get her hands on and using what she found to inspire her own illustrations. She even started learning Japanese so that she could read the titles not yet translated into English, a skill that she continued to strengthen during her time studying at the UO.
 

"I was really lucky … I went to a middle school and a high school that offered Japanese, and I really wanted to keep studying it and the UO has a really incredible East Asian languages department," she says. "I really enjoyed my time (there)."
 

So, she got her degree in Japanese—not in anything related to animation. But throughout her time at the UO, she continued to pursue her art, submitting her work to several competitions and gaining valuable insight through an internship at Helioscope Studio in Portland. She may not have immediately jumped into a job in animation post-graduation, but to Nourigat, the mentorship she gained in her last few years at the UO—specifically from UO professor Alisa Freedman—and through her internship is invaluable.
 

“(It) taught me a lot about professionalism and networking," she said. "I kind of thought of networking as something a little bit fake and something you do to get ahead in life, and I learned that networking is more about building genuine friendships. I think every major breakthrough I’ve gotten has been because of a friend … who threw my name in the hat. That can really make a huge difference in somebody’s career."
 

Fast forward ten years and the Natalie Nourigat of today lives in Burbank, California, works for Walt Disney Animation Studios as a storyboard artist, and has influenced the production of projects like Raya and the Last Dragon and directed the animated short film Exchange Student. She was one of Variety's 2019 Ten Animators to Watch and has had work nominated for the Eisner Award, GLAAD Media Award, and Oregon Book Award. She even has a wonderfully engaging Instagram account where she posts everything from relatable memes to illustration advice.
 

In other words, she’s ‘made it’, by all accounts.
 

But it wasn’t easy for Nourigat to break into animation. In fact, despite acknowledging what she calls her "privileged" upbringing, the Portland native spent years keeping her dreams of working in the world of illustration under wraps—that is until a dance with the French countryside and some excellent mentorship managed to change her mind.
 

“There was definitely a period of insecurity," Nourigat said. "I realized that I was not going to go strictly to an art school, and did not have a high degree of confidence that I would find work afterwards if that was the only thing I studied, and I kind of was not sure how I was going to integrate art into my life as an adult during that time."
 

That realization and her continuing desire to keep learning new languages and travel—something that she hadn’t been able to do as a student—led her to apply for an au pair position in France.
 

And although she divulged little about her au pair experience to the UOAA, preferring simply to say the experience “was great for learning French,” while giving a little chuckle, her website reveals a little more.
 

“It wasn’t a great situation, and I left after 3 months,” Nourigat writes. “So I was homeless and unemployed in a foreign country, but I decided to stay, couch surf, travel around, look for work, and go home when my savings ran out. This was a crazy, emotional, scary year, but it was really formative for me. A lot of strangers showed me kindness, a lot of artists really stuck their necks out introducing me to publishers and festivals … and I got to have the travel experiences I’d been dreaming about for so long. My art improved like CRAZY, and I felt like I had a lot more to say than I had before this experience.”
 

She also had the chance to attend the Annecy International Animation Film Festival where she saw all types of art and illustrations valued. She says France's long and innovative history in the field inspired her, helping her realize that she might truly have a place in the world of animation.

France “lit a fire under (her) butt,” according to Nourigat.
 

But then there she came back to the US. And at 27, she once again had to try and make the seemingly impossible a reality.
 

“I never went to art school," she said. "I had no studio experience. But I knew that I wanted to try and that I would regret it if I didn’t at least try, so I said I’m going to devote myself to this for about a year and see what happens. But I was still really shy about it, I didn’t want anybody to know I was attempting that because I felt so sure that I would fail. I didn’t want anybody checking in on that … so I was doing it in secret for a long time.”
 

She read blogs, went to the library, and signed up for storyboarding classes in her free time. Here and there, she also got a couple of big breaks. One connection worked for Cartoon Network and began giving her tests for shows. And, eventually, she had an epiphany: if she actually wanted this, she had to tell somebody.
 

“That’s one of my biggest pieces of advice when I talk to people nowadays who are trying to break in is ‘I get it. It’s really scary to admit it. But that will speed up your breaking in so much if you just tell people what you want. People can’t help you if you don’t let them, you know’?,” she says.
 

Now, Nourigat uses what she’s learned to mentor future generations of animators. Through programs like Rise Up Animation and the Women in Animation Mentor Program, she’s using all of the wisdom she’s learned from her former mentors and her life experience to pave the way for others.

Nourigat served as story artist on Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon (2021).

“I had a really hard time breaking in, even with all the privileges that I have," said Nourigat. "Information is not equally available, and if you just had someone telling you a couple of pointers, it could make such a difference in your career. So I wanted to make that easier and not harder for the next people who want to break in and do what I’m doing or cooler things than I’m doing. These are my future peers and I’m so excited to meet them at the ground level and watch them grow."
 

She gets to walk them through a day in the life of a storyboard artist at Disney: the thousands of drawings, the collaboration, and especially Nourigat’s favorite part: the big pitch.
 

“That’s the big payoff,” Nourigat says. “You do all the voices and hope there’s no singing in your scene because that’s really embarrassing. It’s a performance. It’s really fun. It takes me back to high school theater.”
 

And it’s not all just execution. According to Nourigat, storyboard artists have real potential to make meaningful alterations to the overall movie.
 

So with a newfound sense of confidence, and maybe even a little flair for the dramatic, Nourigat is moving towards bigger and better things. She’s currently the head of story on Iwájú, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Disney Animation and the pan-African media company Kugali, which is set in futuristic Nigeria, and also directed a theatrical short film called Far From the Tree, which is said to be inspired by Cannon Beach, Oregon.
 

But despite getting her big break and all of the accolades that she’s received, Nourigat says that her proudest moments come from the recognition that her book I Moved to Los Angeles to Work in Animation has secured.
 

“People come up to me now and they say ‘I work in animation now because of your book. It showed me how to break in and now I have the job I’ve always wanted,'” she says. “That’s the most rewarding thing anyone could say about something I’ve made, you know?"
 

By telling her own story, Nourigat is influencing people to get out of their own comfort zones and embrace their passions. And that’s true storyboarding.

- by Sage Kiernan-Sherrow, UOAA associate.