In our 76th podcast we interview Amazon Game Studios Animator, Victor Chavez. Victor has been a professional animator in games since 2011 and has worked on such titles as Halo 4, Destiny, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. He is currently working at Amazon Game Studios in Orange County on the new IP - New World. It was great to hear how Victor had a complete career change from a Lead Operations Engineer at Microsoft to a professional animator working on AAA titles.

In our 75th podcast we interview Blizzard Entertianment Lead Animator, Michael Cuevas. Michael has spent 25 years in video game development. He has been specializing in character and creature animation; and has six years of animation instruction experience. Before working at Blizzard Entertainment, Michael's previous companies included Sony Santa Monica Studios, Obsidian Entertainment and Midway Games.

In our 74th podcast we interview long time Pixar animator/ Andrew Gordon. After 21 years at Pixar and having worked on such beloved films as Monsters Inc., Incredibles 1 & 2, and Ratatouille, Andrew left Pixar to explore new options. It didn't take too long before he found himself at DNEG in London, taking on the role of Head of Feature Animation in their newly formed feature animation division. Having started at Pixar in their early days, A Bug's Life, Andrew has worked as an animator,...

In our 73rd podcast we interview iAnimate creature instructor and animation supervisor at Cinesite VFX in Montreal, Scott Holmes. As a kid, Scott fell in love with creature animation when he stumbled upon Jason and the Argonauts on TV one Saturday morning. Scott’s professional feature film credits include “Monster House,” “Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe,” “Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers,” “Hellboy II,” “Paul, “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” ”Antman and Wasp,” and “Pokemon Detective...

In our 72nd podcast we interviewed Ricky Wood who is currently a Principal Animator at the newly formed, People Can Fly NY. Ricky has been animating games since 2003 and has helped ship 5 action packed titles - Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey To The West, DmC: Devil May Cry, Just Cause 3 and Just Cause 4. He got his start in games at Ninja Theory, during the pre-production phase of Heavenly Sword. Ricky's work quickly became the benchmark of quality within the company, where he spent over...

In our 71th podcast we interviewed Pixar animator and iAnimate alumni, Andrew Atteberry. Before joining Pixar Animation Studios Andrew got his start at Magnetic Dreams, a small studio in Tennessee where he learned many portions of the pipeline. Wanting to grow in his animation skills he joined iAnimate. After graduating iAnimate he went on to Walt Disney and joined their talent development program, Blue Sky Studios, and MPC. He's worked on such films as Rio 2, The Peanuts Movie, Coco, Toy...

In our 70th podcast we interviewed Pixar animator and iAnimate feature animation instructor, Tal Shwarzman. Before joining Pixar Animation Studios Tal spent over seven years at DreamWorks Animation were he animated on such films as Kung Fu Panda, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Shrek Forever After, Kung Fu Panda 2, Rise of the Guardians, and How to Train Your Dragon 2. Since joining Pixar he's worked on the short Piper, Finding Dori, Incredibles 2, and Toy Story 4. His interest in animation started...

In our 69th podcast we interviewed industry veteran and iAnimate feature animation instructor, Jim van der Keyl. Jim has been in the animation industry since 1989, getting his start as an inbetweener on the Little Mermaid at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He later worked at Warner Brothers where he was nominated for an 'Annie Award' as best animator for his work on Brad Bird's 'Iron Giant'. Jim made the transition to CG animation early on during Osmosis Jones and later worked for such...

In our 68th podcast we interviewed industry veteran, and newest iAnimate Game instructor, Keith Lango. Keith is an award winning animator & animation director with over 20 years of experience. He's worked on AAA titles such as HALO, Portal, Team Fortress 2, DOTA 2, and Counterstrike, in addition to various commercials, interactive, and VR projects. Keith has been fortunate enough to work at some of the most recognized studios like Valve, Blur, ReelFX, Sony, EA, Blue Sky, Warner Brothers,...

In our 67th podcast we interviewed iAnimate Feature animation alumni and DreamWorks Animation Supervising Animator, Ravi Kamble Govind. Ravi was one of our first students to attend iAnimate and one of our first graduating classes. It has been remarkable to follow his growth and success since graduating. Since graduating, Ravi has worked on many feature films and commercials. Ravi worked on the feature film 'The Penguins of Madagascar' where he was promoted as character lead on the octopus...

In our 66th podcast we interviewed iAnimate game instructor and Senior Animator at Blizzard, Casey McDermott. Casey has animated professionally since 2008 for film, commercials, music videos, R&D, pre-viz, cinematics, and most recently, in games. Since working at Blizzard from 2012 he has been an animator for incubation teams, World of Warcraft, a lead animator in cinematics and is now a Senior Animator/Game Developer for the Overwatch team. He has also taught at several schools and has...

In our 65th podcast we interviewed industry veteran and our Pre-Viz instructor, Conan Low. Conan is a 20 year veteran of the film entertainment industry and has worked on a wide range of projects from groundbreaking television, beginning with the pioneering computer generated animated series Reboot to box office movie hits like Madagascar 3 and Rogue One. After working on the first four seasons of Futurama and the first season of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars with Rough Draft...

In our 64th podcast we interviewed game animator Lana Bachynski. Lana is currently a Senior Animator at Blizzard Entertainment and has been working on Heroes of the Storm where she was instrumental in bringing the original character Orphea life. In addition to animating at Blizzard, Lana also has taken up the gauntlet of running the Animation Boot Camp held each year at GDC. Lana had some great insight to working in this industry as well as a genuine enthusiastic attitude that made this...

For our 63rd interview we spoke with ILM Senior Animator, Erik Morgansen. Erik has been working as an animator for more than 20 years. Erik's film career began upon completing the Animating Assistant Training Program at the Disney Feature Studio with work on 'Meet the Robinsons'. Previous to that he'd worked at a number of studios doing real-time animation, game cinematics, location-based entertainment and commercials. As a senior animator at ILM he's worked on such films as 'Rango', 'Ready...

In our 62nd podcast we interviewed past iAnimate feature student and current Pixar animator, Frank Abney. In addition to Pixar Animation, Frank has had the opportunity to work for Dreamworks Animation and the Walt Disney Animation Studio. During his time at three of the top studios he has been able to work on such films as Kung Fu Panda 3, Coco, Incredibles 2, Frozen, and most recently Toy Story 4. With a resume like that and Frank's own personal project 'Canvas', this made for a great...

In our 61st podcast we interview Tina Nawrocki. Tina is a 2D animator and worked on the critically acclaimed game Cuphead! Tina's passion for animation and art shined in this interview and made for some great conversation.

In this podcast we interviewed two iAnimate feature animation alumni, Steven Johnson and Humberto Rosa, who worked on the critically acclaimed Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. This was Steven's first animated feature and a first for Humberto as a lead animator. So it was a great opportunity to catch up with some of our alumni, talk about an amazing film, and from unique perspectives.

In our 59th podcast we interview animation veteran, Simon Otto. Simon has been working in the industry for over two decades, and the majority of that time at Dreamworks Animation. He joined the studio in 1997 to work on their first animated film, The Prince of Egypt and most recently finished as the Head of Character Animation on the third installment of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. Last month, Simon decided to leave the comforts of Dreamworks Animation to pursue personal goals. It...

In our 58th podcast we interview technical animator Andy Kephalidis. Andy's career began 6 years ago at Ubisoft on the Watchdogs series and a Farcry title. While working on his yet to be announced project at Eidos Montreal, he has also taken up the hobby of Unreal Engine 4, which has quickly become his obsession. With the knowledge he has gained working in the Unreal engine, he'll be teaching our brand new workshop titled, 'Animation Integration in Unreal'. Andy's passion for the Unreal...

In our 57th podcast we interview animator Brendan Body. Brendan has worked around the world, switching between animated features and Visual Effects. Some of his film credits include four of the Harry Potter films, Hellboy 2, Pacific Rim, and Legend of The Guardians. The theme of flight has run throughout his career, having brought to life various birds, pixies, dragons, a Hippogryph, and giant flying kaju. Brendan will be teaching in our Creature animation workshop 3, Flight School and...

In our 56th podcast episode, we interview animator Jason Keane. Jason is a Calarts Alum who got his start in animation learning how to draw and traditionally animate from his uncle, Glen Keane, a long time Disney veteran. Jason is an animator currently directing an independent short film. He recently left Blue Sky Studios after 5 years, animating on such films as: Epic, Rio 2, The Peanuts Movie, Ice age 5, and Ferdinand. It was great to hear Jason's insight about the industry, how he got into...

In our 55th podcast we interviewed Bruce W. Smith. Bruce has worked in the animation industry for for over two decades, is the creator of Proud Family, worked at at such studios as Walt Disney Animation Studio, Don Bluth, and currently at Warner Bros. He's been a character designer, viz dev, director, and supervising animator. He helped in the character design of Dr. Facilier for The Princes and the Frog, a character he also was the supervising animator on. This is a podcast we won't want to...

In our 54th podcast we did a roundtable interview with four artist, three of whom are iAnimate.net instructors, about an art festival that took place a couple months back in Łódź, Poland called Promised Land. Promised Land was the brain child of Sebastian Kalemba & Paweł Mielniczuk, two talented artist at CD PROJEKT RED. This art festival brought speakers from around the world from such studios as Guerrilla Games, Platige Image, Blizzard Entertainment, Industrial Light & Magic,...

In our 53rd podcast we interview Bryan Engram. Bryan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Brazen Animation in Dallas, Texas. Prior to Brazen Animation, Bryan enjoyed many years as an animator & director of studio animation at Reel FX. Brazen Animation recently made a big splash in the animation community with their 'Tempest' teaser. It was a great demonstration of the studios artistic and technical skills, as well as it's ability at story telling. It was great to speak with Bryan about his career...

In our 52nd podcast we interview Reel FX Animation Supervisor, Bill Haller. He's worked on and lead teams on such films as Surf's Up, Hotel Transylvania, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and The Book of Life. Bill lead the animation team at Reel FX on Rock Dog, where he worked with long time friend and director Ash Brannon. Bill has been working in the industry for two decades and had plenty of insight to share. Enjoy!