"The Secret of NIMH" was the first feature film to be directed by Don Bluth. In September 1979, Bluth, fellow animators Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy and eight other animation staff left the feature animation department at Disney to set up their own independent studio, Don Bluth Productions. The studio worked, at first, out of Bluth's house and garage, but moved to a two-story, facility in Studio City, California, several months later. While they were still working at Disney, they produced the 27-minute short film "Banjo the Woodpile Cat" as a side project to gain other production skills that the company and their animation program were not addressing. Bluth asked Ron W. Miller, Walt Disney's son-in-law and the president and CEO of the company at the time, to view "Banjo", but Miller declined. As Goldman recalled, "that pulled the enthusiasm rug out from under us. We had hoped that the studio might like what we were doing and agree to buy the film and allow us to finish the short film in the studio, which would allow us to recoup what we had spent in terms of money and the many hours that we and the other members of the team had invested in the film."