Since storyboarding for the Tribeca 2017 selected short Curpigeon, James Bourne knew he was more than just two action hero’s names rolled into one. He yearned to direct his own film while storyboarding full time at animation studios like Blue Sky, Bardel, Moonbot and Wildbrain. Finally in April 2019, he secured funding for his directorial debut, The Abandoned Block. Born into a family of doctors in Rochester, Minnesota and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, James found his calling from a young age to be in the visual arts rather than medicine. After high school and two years abroad in South Korea, he entered Brigham Young University’s prestigious Center for Animation and graduated with a BFA in Visual Arts Animation. From then on, he has storyboarded for studios in nearly every corner of North America. Since finishing The Abandoned Block, James has continued storyboarding for animation in British Columbia, Canada where he currently lives and on the side, is creating several animated tv pilots he hopes to become showrunner for.