ABOUT
Hollywood Producer Saul Blinkoff works for many high profile clients including; DISNEY, DREAMWORKS, NETFLIX and travels the world as an Inspirational Speaker sharing transformative tools of clarity, tenacity, resilience & discipline to empower others to live their dreams! He is an empowering Life Coach and Podcast Host of the motivational podcast LIFE of AWESOME!
Saul lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their four children.
INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER!
As an internationally recognized keynote speaker, Saul shares highly impactful tools to help achieve success and meaning in all aspects of life!
HOLLYWOOD FILMMAKER!
Saul is an award winning Director/Producer who has worked on animated films and shows for over 20 years with top Hollywood studios including DISNEY, DREAMWORKS, NETFLIX & AMAZON!
PODCAST HOST!
On ‘LIFE of AWESOME!’, Saul empowers listeners around the world to reach their limitless potential in career, relationships, marriage, parenthood and all aspects to living a dream life! Esteemed guests include; George Foreman, Alan Menken, Lea Salonga & Rudy Ruettiger!
LIFE COACH!
Saul shares practical tools and steps that empower clients to achieve their desired goals and realize their limitless potential!
SAUL’S STORY
FAR FROM HOLLYWOOD! I grew up in a suburb on Long Island New York. As a kid I didn’t realize that a person could really ever work in the film business because no one I knew did. People I knew had ‘normal’ jobs. They worked as doctors, teachers, or ran businesses. While my older brother was excelling in sports and my younger (twin) sister was an avid reader, I spent all my time drawing. I didn’t have many friends (actually no friends) and spent most of my time alone either climbing trees or drawing carton characters like Snoopy and Garfield on everything, even on the walls sometimes; sorry Mom!
A BOY AND AN ALIEN! In 1984, I saw the Steven Spielberg masterpiece E.T. and was entranced by the representation of a kid my own age on the screen. He was smart, creative and had a sympathetic love for this alien stranded from his family. As the credits rolled, I knew for the first time in my life what I wanted to do…I wanted to grow up to be a movie director. I wanted to tell stories that would inspire audiences the way this film inspired me.
LIGHTS, CAMERA…DREAMER! I went to the library and got every book I could about filmmaking and Steven Spielberg. I soon discovered that as a teenager, Spielberg had a film camera and made movies with his sisters and kids in his neighborhood. So I would do the same as I gathered my sibling and some local kids around the block, I started writing, storyboarding and directing short films. It was set, I was going to be a hollywood director one day! Towards the end of my junior year I saw the Disney animated hit, ‘The Little Mermaid’ and was mesmerized. The drawings, the color the music and especially the animation of Ariel, the lead character. She was drawn by famous Disney animator, Glen Keene who put so much sincerity and emotion into her acting. I discovered an art form that really spoke to me. It combined my love of drawing with my love of filmmaking….animation. I soon found out that Disney had a studio in Orlando Florida, Boom! I had a new dream..I was just finishing my junior year in high school and I knew deep in my soul what I wanted to be…my dream was to be a Disney Animator! But how?!
THE RECIPE! These were the days before the internet so my incredibly supportive mother flew with me down the coast to Orlando and we spend 2 days in Disney World trying to find out how. I still remember my mom asking all the Disney cast members how her son could be a Disney Animator, even the lady that was putting us on the ‘It’s a small world’ boat ride. I have to say I was a bit embarrassed at the time. Well good for my mom’s extroverted style, because we soon found found out to get hired by the Walt Disney Company, we had to go to the Disney Casting building. When I walked up to the building I was fixated by the whimsy and imagination of this office building.
WALT DISNEY WORLD CASTING BUILDING
As I opened the doors which were themed to look like the doorknobs that speak from the Disney classic film Alice and Wonderland, I stepped into an atrium with gold statuettes of classic Disney characters from, Dumbo to Roger Rabbit. Even the air in that atrium smelled magical, like there was pixie dust in the air. I walked up a long ramp where next to me was a mural on the wall of Walt Disney holding a sketch book and Peter Pan and Wendy were painted on the ceiling flying off to Never Never Land. Well, that’s exactly where I wanted to go! Neverland!
I soon found myself in an interview with a Disney Casting person and she asked me why I was there? “I proudly told her my dream was to be a Disney Animator!” She half smiled and rolled her eyes as she explained that animators were not hired here. This was where people interview who want to work in the theme parks as performers, attractions, food, merchandising, etc. Seeing I was let down, she told me to wait a moment and left the room. She returned moments later and handed me a piece of paper. It was list of 8 art colleges that Disney recruits their animators from. She said, “If you want to be a Disney Animator, you need to go to one of these schools.” Boom! I had it! I had the recipe in my hands. The equation was complete. Saul + one of these schools will equal Disney dream coming true!
FIERCE COMPETITION! My mom soon took me me on a tour of each of these schools and I was blown away by the artwork I saw on the walls at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio. Each painting/Illustration was better then the next. I saw the student work had a level of professionalism and talent that far exceeded my own skill level. So I chose the school, worked tirelessly the next 6 months on my admissions portfolio and was accepted in the incoming freshman class. The first week in school I quickly learned that I was far from the being the only student who wanted a job at Disney someday. Almost , everyone did. This was before Dreamworks or Pixar even existed. If you wanted a job in animation it was at Disney. Early that semester, Disney recruiter Bill Mathews, (one of the original Disney Animators who worked on the 1956 classic Sleeping Beauty) came to our school to do a presentation in the auditorium explaining the specific portfolio requirements needed to be accepted on the Disney Animation Internship.
Freshman at Columbus College of Art & Design
The auditorium was packed with every freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. He said , “How many of you want to be Disney Animators someday?” Every single hand went up. Then he said, just so you all know, this internship is incredibly competitive and maybe just maybe 4 of you will ever work there.” When those words left his mouth. All I was thinking was one thing, “I wonder who the other 3 are going to be?!” You see as I looked around at the over 500 fellow dreamers that day, I knew deep in my heart that none of them wanted it as bad as I did, and none of them would work as hard as I would. I really believed in myself. Then Bill Mathews explained, the only way to get the internship was to submit a portfolio of figure drawing and anatomy of humans and animals entirely drawn from life, no cartoon characters.
DRAWING, DRAWING AND MORE DRAWING! That year I signed up for as many figure drawing classes as I could and never put my sketchbook down. My best friend Andy and I would draw everywhere together. At the cafeteria during dinner we would draw others students eating, we would sketch other students around campus doing their daily activities and my personal favorite were the nights we would walk around the desolate downtown city of Columbus drawing the benches, lampposts as we talked for hours about our dreams of working at Disney. Andy became my best friend and his work ethic and tenacity started to rub off on me. It was then I realized that who we choose to be friends with actually effects who we become.
Drawing in a life drawing class.
My sophomore year came and I took my best drawings, put them in a portfolio and sent them into the Walt Disney Studios. I didn’t really expect to get in as a sophomore but wanted to go through the process. I got rejected from Disney twice over the next 2 years and finally gave up on my dreams. Reality set in as I just didn’t feel like I would ever really be good enough. A week later I saw the inspirational underdog movie RUDY, which tells the true story of a short, un-athletic, college student who achieved the impossible by fulfilling his dream of playing football for NOTRE DAME.
After that, I was motivated to never give up again. I called up the Disney Studios and asked them to tell me how close I had been to being accepted. They explained they chose 17 students that year and that I had made it to number 20! I was only 3 away from getting in and I was ready to give it all up?! It’s a good reminder to all of us, so often we feel like we are miles away from achieving our goal but all we need to do do is preserver a bit more! I now worked even harder than ever at drawing. I put hundreds of my best drawings in a portfolio to submit to Disney.
SAUL’S LIFE DRAWING PORTFOLIO
SAUL’S LIFE DRAWING PORTFOLIO
SAUL’S LIFE DRAWING PORTFOLIO
Soonafter, Bill Mathews came back to our school and I was chosen with a select group of other students to show my portfolio to him. This was my third time trying.
Portfolio interview by Disney recruiter Bill Mathews.
Eventually, after all the rejection, hard work, tenacity and discipline, my dream came true and I was accepted by The Walt Disney Studios on an animation internship!!
SAUL ON THE DISNEY ANIMATION INTERNSHIP
SAUL ON THE DISNEY ANIMATION INTERNSHIP
Over the years I’ve gotten to work on some incredible projects with amazing people!
For the past 15 years I have traveled the world speaking about clarity, living out our dreams, resilience and finding meaning in all aspects of life!
SAUL TRAVELS THE WORLD INSPIRING AUDEINCES
People have asked me countless time “When is the podcast coming out?!” So in January of 2021 I launched my podcast ‘Life of AWESOME!” I have had the privilege of interviewing some truly remarkable people who are not just successful at making a LIVING, but successful at making a LIFE!
My goal now is to impact as many people as I can to live their truest dreams by living a life of…AWESOME!!!
Click here for IMDb