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Shawn Kelly | |
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| Occupation | Co-founder of AnimationMentor.com |
Shawn Kelly is an animator of movies and was a co-founder of the company Animation Mentor, an online animation school with student/mentor relationships at its core.
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Shawn Kelly | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Co-founder of AnimationMentor.com |
Shawn Kelly is an animator of movies and was a co-founder of the company Animation Mentor, an online animation school with student/mentor relationships at its core.
Born in Sonoma County, Calif., and raised in Petaluma, Kelly set his sights on working at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) at age five when the movie Star Wars hit the big screen. Under the tutelage of animators Bill Hennes and John Root, he studied drawing and computer software throughout high school, attended community college, and Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
A summer internship at ILM introduced Kelly to another influential mentor, animation director Wayne Gilbert. It was through Gilbert that Kelly realized that he wasn’t learning what he needed at school. Kelly left the academy in 1996 for a job as a character animator at former video game and educational company Presage Software, but continued his studies with Gilbert twice a week.
In 1998, Kelly fulfilled his lifelong dream and landed a job at ILM. Since that time, he has worked on numerous films including War of the Worlds , for which he animated tripods and probes; Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith , where he helped develop and animate the vulture droids and animated Yoda in a pivotal sword fight; and Rango , where he was the Lead Animator for both the Mayor of Dirt and the Spirit of the West. Kelly also worked as Lead Animator on all five Transformers movies. Kelly’s credits feature 29 films including Hulk , the Star Wars prequels, AI: Artificial Intelligence , and The Avengers .
Because Kelly realized his dream to animate films with the help of three mentors who took a personal interest in his career, he became convinced that animation lovers everywhere should have the same opportunity, and he co-founded Animation Mentor, an online animation school with student/mentor relationships at its core. Kelly works with Bobby Beck, Animation Mentor’s CEO and President, and cofounder Carlos Baena to help define and shape the school’s overall direction. Kelly balances his Animation Mentor role with his work as a senior animator at Industrial Light & Magic.
Kelly lives in California with his wife Jen, and writes short films.
Yoda is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, first appearing in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back. He is a small, green humanoid alien who is powerful with The Force and is a leading member of the Jedi Order until its near annihilation. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda was voiced and puppeteered by Frank Oz, who reprised the role in Return of the Jedi, the prequel trilogy, and the sequel trilogy. Outside of the films, the character was mainly voiced by Tom Kane, starting with the 2003 Clone Wars animated television series until his retirement from voice acting in 2021. Yoda is an iconic figure in popular culture due to his distinct pattern of speech and role as a wise mentor.
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original Star Wars, now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga.
David Kaye is a Canadian voice actor. He is best known for animation roles such as Megatron in five of the Transformers series, Optimus Prime in Transformers: Animated, Professor X in X-Men: Evolution, Cronus in Class of the Titans, Khyber in Ben 10: Omniverse, several characters in Avengers Assemble, and Duckworth in the reboot of DuckTales. He is also known for anime roles including Sesshōmaru in Inuyasha and Treize Khushrenada in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and video game roles such as Clank in the Ratchet & Clank series and Nathan Hale in the Resistance series. He is also the announcer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO and voiced the Celestial Arishem in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals. He did voice work for various other studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for many years while occasionally doing voice work in Los Angeles, California, US, before fully relocating there in 2007.
General Grievous is a character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. He was introduced in the 2003 animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars, before appearing through computer-generated imagery in the 2005 live-action film Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Wood reprised the role in the 2008 animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
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Roger Barton is an American film editor. He has worked on dozens of Hollywood films, including Titanic, Armageddon, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
Ryan Church is an American concept designer best known for his designs of vehicles, planets, and architectures as a concept design supervisor on George Lucas's Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and of the tripods in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a 2009 American science fiction action film based on Hasbro's Transformers toy line. The film is the second installment in the Transformers film series and the sequel to Transformers (2007). The film is directed by Michael Bay and written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman. Taking place two years after the previous film, the story revolves around Optimus Prime, Sam Witwicky, and the Autobots allying once again in the war against the Decepticons, led by Megatron. An ancient Decepticon named the Fallen, seeks revenge on Earth and intends to find and activate a machine that would destroy the Sun and all life in the process.
Ahsoka Tano is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. She was introduced as the 14-year-old Togruta Jedi Padawan of Anakin Skywalker in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) before appearing in the subsequent animated television series ; the sequel series Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018); in the live-action film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) as a voiceover cameo; and in the miniseries Tales of the Jedi (2022), voiced by Ashley Eckstein. In 2020, Ahsoka made her live-action debut in the second season of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, portrayed by Rosario Dawson. Dawson reprised the role in a 2022 episode of the spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett, and the 2023 series, Ahsoka.
Carlos Baena is a professional animator and now a cofounder of the online school Animation Mentor, which was started in March 2005. It was the first post-secondary school that helped students to pursue a career in animation. At the school, students work with mentors from major studios in a production-style environment, and graduate with a professional demo reel.
Mace Windu is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise, portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in the prequel trilogy. Jackson later reprised the role with voice only in the 2008 animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the 2019 sequel film The Rise of Skywalker, whilst Terrence C. Carson voiced the character in other projects, such as The Clone Wars animated television series. The character also appears in various canon and non-canon Star Wars media like books, comics, and video games.
Transformers is a series of science fiction action films based on the Transformers franchise Michael Bay directed the first five live action films: Transformers (2007), Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Dark of the Moon (2011), Age of Extinction (2014), and The Last Knight (2017), and has served as a producer for subsequent films. A sixth film Bumblebee, directed by Travis Knight, was released in 2018, while a seventh film, Rise of the Beasts, directed by Steven Caple Jr. was released in 2023.
James Morris is an American film producer, production executive and visual effects producer. He is currently general manager and president of Pixar. Previously, he held key positions at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for 17 years.
Russell William Earl is a visual effects supervisor. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards and two British Academy Film Awards, among other awards.
Rob Coleman is a Canadian animation director; he is currently the creative director at Industrial Light & Magic's Sydney branch. Previously, he was the Head of Animation at the award-winning Australian visual effects and animation studio, Animal Logic from 2012-2021.
Jeff White is a visual effects artist who was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 85th Academy Awards and 90th Academy Awards for The Avengers and Kong: Skull Island, respectively.
Richard Bluff is an English visual effects supervisor. Known for his works in Disney's visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) as a digital matte artist and visual effects supervisor in acclaimed films such as Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), The Island (2005), Transformers (2007-11), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Star Trek (2009), Avatar (2009), The Avengers (2012), Cloud Atlas (2012) Pacific Rim (2013), The Big Short (2015) and Doctor Strange (2016), for which he received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects nomination at the 89th Academy Awards. He previously worked at Blur Studio as digital artist.
Bruce Banner is a fictional character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise originally portrayed by Edward Norton and subsequently by Mark Ruffalo—based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name—known commonly by his alter ego, the Hulk. Banner is depicted as a genius physicist who after a failed experiment to replicate a super soldier program using gamma radiation, transforms into a large, muscular creature with green skin whenever his heart rate goes above 200 beats per minute or when facing mortal danger. As the Hulk, he possesses superhuman abilities, including increased strength and durability.
The Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Animated Character in an Episode or Real-Time Project is one of the annual awards given by the Visual Effects Society, starting from 2002. Since its inception, the award's title has gone through several title changes, and one major category shift. First awarded in 2002, the award was titled "Best Character Animation in a Live Action Televised Program, Music Video or Commercial" and given to the best character animation in a televised program, with no specific character cited. This would change in 2004, when the category was re-titled "Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in a Live Action Broadcast Program", and given to visual effects artists for work on a specified character. The category was again re-titled the following year, this time to "Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in a Live Action Broadcast Program, Commercial, or Music Video". In 2008, it was titled "Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Broadcast Program or Commercial", but changed in 2014 to "Outstanding Performance of an Animated Character in a Commercial, Broadcast Program, or Video Game" and once again the next year to "Outstanding Animated Performance in an Episode, Commercial, or Real-Time Project". In the title changed to "Outstanding Animated Performance in an Episode or Real-Time Project" and, finally, in 2017 to "Outstanding Animated Character in an Episode or Real-Time Project"