MinnAnimate 6 Bios

Youth/Student Filmmakers

Sam Ballis

Sam Ballis is based in the Twin Cities, and currently is about to start college at MCAD in the fall. Sam dedicates a lot of time to the world of filmmaking, and animation is one field that she is currently exploring.

Jim Belden

Jim Belden has been a student and volunteer at CTV since 2014. Working with TV and film is one of his many creative passions, as well as acting and writing.

Emily Downes

Emily is an artist, filmmaker, animator, and instructor working in still and moving images. She holds a BFA in Film from UW-Milwaukee, where she is currently pursuing an MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres. Drawn to the unusual and unpredictable, her work explores the flux of peculiarities in language, communication, gestures and habits. Working across various mediums, such as video, photography and animation, her work investigates how images are translated into various forms through context. Emily’s work aspires to instigate questions, engage curiosity and manifest new language around what is seen in these new forms.

Mary Kippley

I’m Mary Kippley, a creator from Hamline University. I specialize in building diverse characters and supernatural/mystical stories that examines questions and twist themes I feel are either mis- or underrepresented in the media today, such as love, friendship, loneliness, alienation and other topics having to do with relationships. I draw to express and create to explore, and more often than not, I’m exploring myself — my beliefs, my ideals, my identity. This exploration may take the form of songs, poems, or shorts, but usually come in comics and sketches.

Jennifer Rosario

My name is Jennifer Rosario. I attend Hamline University pursuing a degree in Digital Media Arts. This video is a product of Hamline’s Intro to Animation class taught by Professor John Akre.

Skyler Swender

MCAD senior animation major that is interested in the narrative structure of storytelling compared to its content.

 

Independent Animators

Trevor Adams

Trevor Adams is a recipient of the 2017 MSAB Artist Initiative grant and is affording him the opportunity to revisit and digitize personal archives for the unsuspecting public.

John Akre

John Akre is a Minneapolis animation educator, maker, and fan, and he organizes MinnAnimate. He creates stop motion animation on location with his Sloppy Films Animation Station, teaches animation at Hamline University and creates work with clients through Green Jeans Media, the home studio he runs with Beth Peloff.

Emory Allen

Foreign Fauna is an animation studio rooted in design and illustration.

Brian Barber

Brian Barber is an illustrator, animator designer and motion graphics artist, working in advertising, children’s books, corporate videoa and more.

Susan Shay Brugger

Susan has been a closet animator most of her life. When she isn’t chasing her young granddaughters, she works as a production manager for Theory Studios, a 3d animation, vfx and vr studio.

Joseph Dutra

Currently attending Minneapolis College of Art and Design and majoring in filmmaking while also learning techniques in animation. Favorite animated films of all time are Toy Story and Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Hopes to make both live-action and animated films throughout his career.

Emily Fritze

Emily is an independent animator and motion graphics artist based in Minneapolis. She has worked on a variety of projects that include music videos for Pert Near Sandstone, Trampled by Turtles, and Perry Project, among others; documentaries, feature films, commercial work, as well as illustration and graphic design. She has been shown and awarded in film festivals – Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, Square Lake, MNTV, Philadelphia Film Festival, and SoCal.

Sue Grant

Little Old Lady Animator.

Cody Greene

Cody Greene is an independent writer/animator from St Paul Minnesota.

Eve Hernandez

Eve Hernandez is a Graphic Designer with a background in Fine Arts. Her work includes a mixture of both digital and traditional mediums. Currently residing in the cold tundra known as Minneapolis- her work involves bright colors and smooth sounds to offset the busy, snowy city.

Ed Heyl

Ed Heyl lives in northeast Minneapolis and attends massage therapy school when he’s not making art.

Julie JAO

Julie JAO is a visual artist who does both painting and live performance. Her work is about movement and energy. She is particularly interested in the spark of life that propels a being from a state of inertia to action and the impetus that creates this change of state.

Robert Jersak

Robert Jersak is a multimedia artist by night, communication studies educator by day. He’s eager to be a part of the growing animation scene in the Twin Cities.

Simeon Kondev

Independent animator, graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. Clients include Viceland, FOX, and Adult Swim.

Andy Lefton

Andy Lefton is a Minneapolis based senior 3D/VFX artist with over 12 years of experience.

Adam Loomis

Animator, filmmaker and artist living in Minneapolis, MN.

Ian Lueck

Ian Lueck, a Wisconsin native, has been an independent filmmaker and animator for almost two decades. His work has been featured at the Los Angeles Film Studies Center and the Trylon Microcinema in Minneapolis, as well as numerous video sharing sites on the web.

Wayne Nelsen

Wayne Nelsen has made 66 animated videos and film collages, using the stories, poems and music of other people.

Mike Owens

Animator, Director, Character Designer and Storyboard artists creating hand dawn entertainment for TV and Film. Co-Creator and Executive Producer of Danger & Eggs, an animated series on Amazon Prime.

Beth Peloff

Beth Peloff is a video maker and teacher who works in both documentary and animation. Her films have played at film festivals including the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, the Twin Cities Film Festival and the Sodak Animation Festival.

Maret Polzine

Maret Polzine is an experimental filmmaker from the Twin Cities. They have a BFA in animation, and their works have screened globally.

Lea Redding

Lea Redding is an animator working in Minneapolis, she graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in December 2015.

Colin Stanhill

Colin Stanhill is a self-taught animator working in Minneapolis. He draws all his films by hand on paper. According to Malcolm Turner, of the Melbourne International Animation Festival, he is “quite a lucid sort of fellow.”

Josh Stifter

Josh Stifter is the animation director and owner of Flush Studios. He’s created animation for Kevin Smith and had his cartoons featured on the El Rey Network.

Chamindika Wanduragala

Chamindika Wanduragala is a Sri Lankan American visual artist, DJ (DJ Chamun), puppeteer and maker of stop motion films. She’s also the Artistic Director of Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop, an arts organization that nurtures artists of color and Indigenous artists in contemporary puppet theater and sequential art.