Animation Master Academy

Mike Yosh

Lead Animator

Mike Yosh is an award winning Lead Animator with twenty years experience in games leading both Cinematic and Gameplay teams. He studied Classical Animation at Vancouver Film school, and shortly after, taught himself Maya. Since arriving in California in 2003, He has worked at Genuine Games on Bulletproof, Treyarch on Spiderman 3, and lead animation teams at Naughty Dog on such titles as Uncharted, Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3, The Last of Us, Left Behind, The Last of Us 2 and is currently at Insomniac Games where they released SpiderMan PS4.

Fernando Herrera

Animation Supervisor

Fernando has +10 years of experience in animation, currently works as an Animation Supervisor at Framestore. He started his career in Brazil working on several commercials, TV shows and Games, later he went on to be Animation Director on one of the first animated feature films in Brazil. After that he worked as a Lead Animator at MPC and Framestore in projects like Detective Pikachu, The Predator, His Dark Materials. He has been teaching animation for the past 7 years.

Lukas Niklaus

Senior Animator

Lukas Niklaus grew up in the small town of Uffikon in Switzerland. After an apprenticeship as a Typographer/Graphic Designer he found his true passion, CGI, and was hooked right away! He started learning on his own and took courses both in person or online. After completing his studies with Animation Mentor he traveled to California to attend their graduation ceremony. As luck and preparation would have it, he met a recruiter from Pixomondo who invited him to join their newly formed studio in Toronto and this became the start of his career. This beginning later led him to Montreal and eventually to beautiful New Zealand.

Lukas has animated at some of the top visual effects houses like Weta Digital, ILM, Animal Logic, Framestore, MPC and other studios and contributed to several Oscar winning or nominated movies. Most recently he has joined a small startup called Lost Cosmonauts located in Wellington, New Zealand.

Jason Martinsen

Lead Animator

Jason grew up in Bayfield, Wisconsin, a very small town located on the south shore of the largest lake on the planet, Lake Superior. He studied classical animation at Sheridan College in Ontario Canada. His student film, Mt. Ehn, won the Teletoon: Most Promising Student award. In 2002, Jason began his professional career at Naughty Dog Studios in Los Angeles, animating the hit game series Jak & Daxter, and later Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3.

A move to New York came next, to work at Blue Sky Studios on feature film. Projects included Ice Age II, Horton Hears a Who, Ice Age III and Rio. Jason has combined his career moves with his love for travel. He has lived in Madrid, working on Planet 51 for Ilion Animation Studios. In London, he worked on Iron Man and Paul for Double Negative. And in Melbourne, he worked on After Earth for Iloura Studios.

In 2012, he settled in Vancouver BC. At the Coalition, Jason worked on Gears of War. And at Sony Pictures Animation his projects included Hotel Transylvania 1 and 2, Cloudy 2, Storks, and finally, Emoji the movie. Next he returned to Blue Sky Studios in New York as senior character animator on Ferdinand. In 2018 Jason began work with Moon Studios on their visually stunning game, Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Moon has a progressive business model, they hire top-talent from around the world and the team is connected by the Internet. Flexible hours, and the ability to work from any location allowed Jason the time — and freedom, to travel often. In Jan 2019 Jason relocated to Montreal Canada, and began work for Reel FX. Current he is lead animator on Scooby-Doo (based on the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon)

Jack Geckler

Crowds Artist

Orlando native Jack Geckler began his career in entertainment as a puppeteer/actor at Disney, and it was this role that gave him a taste for the world of animation – learning how to impart realistic movements onto a character. After graduating Full Sail, he headed to Los Angeles to pursue a career; he eventually joined up with Genuine Games to work on the Fight Club game for Xbox and Playstation 2. Since then, he’s gone on to some of the industry’s top studios, including Walt Disney Animation, Dreamworks, and ILM. His projects span the adjacent worlds of gaming, television and motion pictures — his credits include How to Train Your Dragon (parts 1 & 2), Frozen 2, Power Rangers, the Madden game franchise, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Thor: Ragnarok, and the highly anticipated sequel to Avatar.

Todd Elliott

Animator

Todd Elliott has over 25 years of experience in the animation industry. Immediately after college, he worked as a production assistant with many of his childhood heroes on ABC's Muppets Tonight. However, as much as he loved The Muppets, he always knew his true passion was animation. He earned first big break in 1996 as an assistant animator on Space Jam and he never looked back. With over 15 film credits from Tippett Studio, Rhythm & Hues, Sony Pictures Animation, and a portfolio of freelance work, including Emmy award winning Arrested Development, he has found his home at Disney's Blue Sky Studios.

Some of the more notable movies Todd has contributed to are Hotel Transylvania, Epic, Ice Age: Collision Course, Rio 2, The Peanuts Movie, Ferdinand, Spies In Disguise and he is currently animating on Nimona. Todd now looks forward to sharing his knowledge with students and artists interested in discovering all that animation has to offer.

Michael Morgan

Character Animator/ Animation Coach

Raised on a diet of cartoons, video games, and movies, it only made sense that Michael would one day become an Animator. It wasn't until his teens that Michael realized Animation was an arena he could actually have a career in. After spending years studying Graphic design and MultiMedia, Michael graduated from DeMontfort University in 2000 and became a professional Animator traveling around the world working in Video games, TV/ Commercials, and VFX Films. Working on such projects as 'Star Wars' the Clone Wars, animated TV series to Disney Marvels 'Guardians of the Galaxy 2', 'Black Panther', 'Venom' and many more.

Not only is Michael an industry professional Animator, but he is also an Animation Coach. Having mentored in colleges, universities, and animation studios for over 10 years Michael knows how to teach industry practices to students effectively. Enjoy learning with Michael as he helps take your animation knowledge to another level.