DREAM ON Speaker:
Joel Christopher Payne
A native Californian, Joel Christopher Payne's story starts with a life changing moment at age four that would set the course of his life forever. He recalls, “My earliest memory that inspired my career came when I was riding on the Pirates of the Caribbean® attraction and I looked up to my mom and said, ‘Look mom! Look how real the robots are!’ At which point my mother without hesitation replied, ‘Son, those are the waiters at the Blue Bayou.’ You'd think I was destroyed, but in that moment, I realized just how amazing Walt Disney really was. I couldn't tell difference between the fantasy and the real thing, and I knew that I wanted to learn how to harness this kind of unique magic!”
Disneyland® Park and Disney feature animation ignited a lifelong passion in Joel that would lead him to inspire others through his own style of breakthrough art.
At age 20, and with no formal artistic training, he began a 22-year-career that would be forge through the fires of on-the-job experience. “When I started doing digital art, computers could only handle 16 colors!” Driven with his newfound passion, he designed elaborate worlds for 3D TV shows, Triple “A” video games, and multiple virtual reality rides. Industry training required perseverance in acquiring the skills and discipline that would prove to serve him well in future endeavors on his path to artistic freedom.
In 1993, Joel's big break would come from a game company called “New World Computing” known for the popular “Might and Magic” Series. His talents were manifested in the service of building the worlds for six videos games over the next several years. His very first game project “Heroes of Might and Magic” became critically acclaimed several sequels. In 1995, he became one of the youngest video game directors pioneering techniques is Digital Set creation three years before Robert Stromberg would coin the phrase “digital backlot.”
In 1996, he finally got his chance to work with Walt Disney Imagineering on “Disney's Virtual Jungle Cruise” ride that operated in Florida's DisneyQuest. Responsible for creating the rides river rafting track and 3D backgrounds, Joel learned from Disney Imagineers about the power of storytelling, color, and lighting techniques that he still uses in his paintings today.
From 1996 to present day, Joel went on to build 3D worlds for Steven Spielberg's “Sky Pirates”, art directing Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, Max Steel, Starship Troopers: Roughnecks, Silent Hill: Homecoming, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. He would also score film music for world renowned, legendary character creator Stan Winston.
In 2008, Joel led Universal Studios’ very first virtual version of their world-famous backlot facades creating digital doubles of the famous "Back to the Future” courtyard, and in 2009, his company “Digital Backlot” would design 75 original 3D characters for the project Growums. Featured on the American talk show “The View,” Joel not only animated the Growums characters, but like Walt Disney, voiced several of the lead characters to the tune of more than 100 cartoons.
In 2011, Joel began in earnest his dreams of pursuing a fine art career with inspiration and influence from his Disney and entertainment pedigree.
Joel has an energy and dedication for his inventive form of mixed media artwork dubbed “Believable Fantasy,” a hybrid of 3D modeling and traditional oil painting techniques. His original painting technique creates a level of depth, color, lighting, and detail that has collectors asking how it was achieved. Taking cues from artists like Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade, Joel blurs the line between the real and fantastic.
When asked about his latest works Joel said, “Every painting that I do, I want to have the word ‘WOW’ be the thing the viewer expresses most, because this is what I felt at Disneyland® as a little boy. I want folks to walk by my artwork and fall into it, live in it, and escape for a while. I think this is why I began creating this type of magic in the first place, to make the illusion as believable as possible so that I could inspire others to live the magic Walt Disney created in my life"
Joel was also nominated with a Hollywood Music in Media Awards (HMMA) award for his original song "Santas Live in You" found on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music. The track was also featured in the award-winning film "Hashtag The Movie" where he played Santa and debuted on a dozen streaming platforms Christmas of 2022.
