About The Filmmakers

CARLOS SALDANHA (Director) has been one of the principal creative forces at Blue Sky Studios since 1993. Saldanha was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 20, 1968. He left his hometown in 1991 to follow his artistic instinct and passion for animation. With a background in computer science and a natural artistic sensibility, he found New York City the perfect locale to merge these skills and become an animator. He attended the MFA program at New York's School of Visual Arts, where he graduated with honors in 1993, after completing two animated shorts, "The Adventures of Korky, the Corkscrew" (1992) and "Time For Love" (1993). The shorts have been screened at animation festivals around the world. At SVA, Saldanha met Chris Wedge, one of the cofounders of Blue Sky Studios, who invited him to join their growing team of artists.

Saldanha was Blue Sky's supervising animator for the talking and dancing roaches in the feature film "Joe's Apartment" (1996). He was also the director of aimation for the computer generated characters in "A Simple Wish" (1997) and "Fight Club" (1999).

In addition to feature projects, Saldanha directed and animated a number of television commercials. "Big Deal," a spot for Bell Atlantic, won numerous awards, including a 1997 Bronze Clio. In 1999, he won a Gold Clio for animation on "Re-Incarnated," a Tennents Beer commercial for its 1998 Soccer World Cup campaign in Europe.

Saldanha teamed with Chis Wedge to co-direct Blue Sky's first animated features, "Ice Age" (2002) and "Robots" (2005). "Ice Age" was nominated for an Oscar in 2003. In 2002 Saldanha directed the animated short film "Gone Nutty," which was nominated for an Oscar in 2004. After the success of "Ice Age," Saldanha took the directorial reins on "Ice Age: The Meltdown" (2006), the third computer-animated feature film from Twentieth Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios, which was the most profitable animated movie of the year and one of the biggest in Fox's history.

MICHAEL THURMEIER (Co-Director), a 1997 Sheridan College Classical Animation graduate, was hired by Blue Sky Studios as an animator in 1998. At Blue Sky, he worked on several award winning commercials, and contributed animation to the film "Fight Club" and to a memorable episode of "The Sopranos." As Blue Sky transitioned to animated features, Thurmeier served as lead animator on the company's debut film, "Ice Age," released in 2002. This work earned him an Annie® nomination in the category of best character animation.

Following "Ice Age," Thurmeier was supervising animator on "Robots," released in 2005, and on "Ice Age: The Meltdown" (2006), and he directed the Oscar nominated and Annie award winning short film "No Time for Nuts" (2006). He was promoted to senior supervising animator on Blue Sky's next film, "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" (2008).

MICHAEL BERG (Screenplay) received a B.A. degree from Rutgers College in 1992. He attended the American Film Institute's MFA program as a screenwriting fellow. Berg sold his original feature script "The New Jersey Turnpikes" to Universal Pictures and was admitted to the Writers Guild West at the age of twenty-six. He has been an active member of the guild for the past thirteen years.

Berg co-wrote the 2002 feature film "Ice Age," which was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature. He adapted Michael Chabon's Summerland for Miramax Films, and has worked on scripts for Universal, Warner Bros. and Revolution Studios. In addition to penning screenplays, he has written articles and short stories for magazines such as Details and Rosebud.

PETER ACKERMAN (Screenplay) co-wrote the screenplay for "Ice Age." He sold an original pitch to Disney called "The Animated-American," wrote the play "Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight" (published by Broadway Play Publishing and performed around the world), adapted the Broadway revival of "The Pajama Game," starring Harry Connick, Jr., which won a Tony Award for best revival, and wrote the radio-play "I'd Rather Eat Pants," commissioned by National Public Radio and broadcast serially on the program "Morning Edition." His children's book The Lonely Phonebooth will be published by Godine this fall. Ackerman is currently writing the book for a Broadway musical starring Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein.

MIKE REISS (Screenplay) has won four Emmys and a Peabody Award during his eighteen years writing for "The Simpsons." In 2006, Reiss received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Animation Writers Caucus.

Reiss co-created the animated series "The Critic" and created Showtime's hit cartoon "Queer Duck" (about a gay duck). The BBC named "Queer Duck" one of the 100 greatest cartoons of all time. "Queer Duck: the Movie" was released to rave reviews in July 2006. The film won awards in New York, Chicago, Sweden, Germany and Wales.

Reiss's other TV credits include "It's Garry Shandling's Show," "ALF" and "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson".

"My Life in Ruins," a film inspired by his travels to 58 countries, will be released by Fox Searchlight Pictures in June. Reiss was co-writer on "The Simpsons Movie."

His caveman detective story "Cro-Magnon P.I.," won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Reiss has published eleven children's books, including the best-seller How Murray Saved Christmas and the award-winning Late for School. Reiss also composes puzzles for National Public Radio and Games Magazine.

Reiss has lectured at over 100 colleges and institutions, on five continents. His topics include "The Simpsons," comedy and Judaism, and the sorry state of television. Reiss is a former president of The Harvard Lampoon and editor of The National Lampoon.

Reiss has been happily married for twenty years. Like most children's book authors, he has no children.

YONI BRENNER (Screenplay) was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, where he majored in English and Comparative Literature, played jazz and classical trumpet, and edited The Every Three Weekly, a humor paper.

In addition to screenwriting, he frequently contributes humor to The New Yorker, and his work was included in the 2008 compilation Disquiet, Please: More Humor Writing From the New Yorker edited by Henry Finder and David Remnick. Brenner has

also published humor in The New York Times, The New Republic, Smithsonian Magazine and Deadspin.com. He lives in New York.

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS is his first produced credit.

JASON CARTER EATON (Story) began his film career in 1996 as director of development for Scott Rudin. He left to pursue writing, and published the political humor book Chelsea Clinton's Freshman Notebook in 1997 for Hyperion. As penance, he decided to write children's books. His picture book The Day My Runny Nose Ran Away was published by Dutton in 2003, and was followed by the 2008 release of his children's novel, The Facttracker, from HarperCollins.

Eaton's television and film career began with internet shows for the Sci-Fi Channel and Showtime. He was hired to write an animated feature film treatment "Imaginary Friend" for Blue Sky Studios /Twentieth Century Fox Animation in 2003, and then was commissioned to write an animated feature script based on his own original pitch, "Spartacus Lobster" in 2004. In 2006, just prior to the birth of his own first born, Eaton was brought on to develop story concepts for ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS.

With his writing partner Ian Lendler, Eaton sold the live-action feature script "The Snitts" to Cartoon Network in 2006. Eaton and Lendler are currently adapting the novel The Facttracker into a live action feature film for MGM, with 21 Laps Entertainment ("Night at the Museum") producing and David Silverman ("The Simpsons Movie") directing.

LORI FORTE (Producer) began her career in feature animation at Disney, where she was the creative executive on the Academy Award nominees, "Toy Story" and "Runaway Brain." During her tenure at Disney, she was also involved with "The Lion King" and "Pocahontas."

Forte then became a producer for Fox Animation Studios, where she developed several feature film ideas. Having always been fascinated by the Ice Age and by the majesty of its unique creatures, Forte came up with the idea to make a movie that captured that icy world and its extraordinary inhabitants.

A movie franchise was born when "Ice Age" sub-zero heroes Manny, Sid, Diego and Scrat - and their incredible world - arrived in movie houses around the globe. Forte went on to develop and produce the sequel, "Ice Age: The Meltdown" and produced the Academy Award-nominated short "No Time For Nuts" (with John Donkin). Forte is currently developing several other CGI features for Fox.

Previously, Forte was a development executive at NBC-TV, where she helped develop the comedy series "Dear John" and "Empty Nest." She also held key duties on the series "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd" and "Alf." Forte then joined Columbia Pictures Television, where she was vice president of comedy development, overseeing a variety of pilots and series, including "Parker Lewis Can't Lose."

Forte resides in Los Angeles, except during production, when she's at Blue Sky Studios in Connecticut.

JOHN C. DONKIN (Producer) earned an Academy Award nomination in 2003 as the producer of "Gone Nutty," an animated short created at Blue Sky Studios featuring the popular Scrat character from the "Ice Age" films.

Donkin came to Blue Sky Studios in 1998, as a technical director; one of his first projects was to help complete the company's Academy Award winning short film "Bunny." He developed the production pipeline for Blue Sky's first animated feature film project, "Ice Age," before becoming the film's associate producer, managing the production and its 160 person production crew.

Since then, Donkin has produced several other Blue Sky Studios projects, including "Robots," directed by Chris Wedge, Blue Sky's Academy Award nominated short "No Time for Nuts" (produced with Lori Forte), "Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty" and "Surviving Sid."

Donkin began his computer animation career in 1983 when he joined the world renowned CGRG (Computer Graphics Research Group) at The Ohio State University. Shortly thereafter, he began working as a senior animator at Cranston/Csuri Productions.

He directed animation for the IMAX film "Antarctica" and was part of the development team for the visualization software toolkit apE at The Ohio State University.

Donkin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in cinematography and a Masters of Art Degree in computer animation and art education from The Ohio State University.

CHRIS WEDGE (Executive Producer) is an Oscar winning film director, producer, and co-founder of Blue Sky Studios, and the driving force behind the company's high standard of visual story-telling and character animation. This, along with the studio's commitment to research and development, has brought Blue Sky to prominence as one of the top computer animation studios in the world.

Beginning his career as a stop-motion animator, Wedge later joined MAGI/SynthaVision, where he was one of the principal animators for the groundbreaking Disney movie "Tron" (1982). He directed the character animation sequences for the Warner Bros./Geffen Films production "Joe's Apartment" (1996), and served as creative supervisor on numerous feature films and commercials.

Wedge wrote and directed Blue Sky's first film, the touching short, "Bunny" (1998), which won an Academy Award for best animated short film. It was first film to use radiosity, Blue Sky's own advanced ambient lighting technology. In addition to the Academy Award, "Bunny" has won more than 25 international awards for animation excellence. Wedge went on to direct Blue Sky's first two computer-generated animated feature films, "Ice Age" (2002), nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature film, and "Robots" (2005). He was executive producer of "Ice Age: The Meltdown" (2006), which has grossed more than $638 million worldwide, and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" (2008), the first Dr. Seuss CG animated feature film. Wedge is a 1981 graduate of the SUNY Purchase film department. He received his Master of Arts degree in computer graphics and art education from the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and at Ohio State University.

JOHN POWELL (Composer), born in the U.K., has a list of film credits that exemplifies his ability to transcend genre. Since moving to the United States less than ten years ago, he has demonstrated his unique talent by scoring over 40 feature films, including animated films, comedies, action films and drama.

Powell's ability to compose in a variety of genres stems from the wide array of styles present in his early musical studies. By the time he reached his late-teens, he had already been exposed to soul, jazz, rock and world music. Since age seven, he has had a deep classical music background, courtesy of his father, a musician in Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. In 1986, Powell began studies in composition at London's Trinity College of Music, where his skill was recognized with the John Halford and the Boosey and Hawkes Bursary Music College Prizes.

At Trinity, Powell studied composition, percussion, electronic music, and experimented within the new medium of performance art. He joined the group Media Arts, and with longtime collaborator Gavin Greenaway, composed music and sound for the group's performances. After the group disbanded, Powell and Greenway continued to create many mixed-media installation pieces with artist Michael Petry.

Powell's first foray into professional composing came soon thereafter, when he landed a job writing music for commercials and television at London's Air-Edel Music. There, he met other composers including other Air-Edel alumni, Hans Zimmer and Patrick Doyle.

Later, Powell and Greenaway founded London-based commercial music house Independently Thinking Music (ITM), where they collaborated on more than 100 scores for commercials and independent films.

Powell shifted his focus from commercials to longer-form composition with the opera "An Englishman, Irishman and Frenchman," also co-created with Greenaway and Petry. After a series of successful performances at Germany's state-funded art gallery, Powell moved to Los Angeles to take on additional film projects.

Arriving in the U.S. in 1997, he scored two DreamWorks TV projects: the second season of Steven Spielberg's "High Incident" and the pilot "For the People." Powell also arranged songs composed by Stephen Schwartz for DreamWorks' animated feature "Prince of Egypt" (1998).

Powell's hair-raising score for John Woo's blockbuster "Face/Off" garnered critical acclaim. He composed one hour and forty-five minutes of riveting music, which utilized unresolved harmonies, tragic melodies and thundering percussion to build a heightened state of tension.

He has since scored a wide variety of films in different genres, including the animated hits "Antz," "Chicken Run," "Robots," "Shrek," "Ice Age: The Meltdown" and "Happy Feet," in addition to the action films "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," "The Italian Job," "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy." His interest in musical diversity continued in the creation of scores for "Drumline," "I Am Sam" and "Alfie," the latter with Dave Stewart and Mick Jagger. Powell also scored the superhero blockbuster "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "United 93."

He composed the score for the final segment in the Bourne Trilogy, "The Bourne Ultimatum." He also scored "Stop Loss," "P.S. I Love You" and "Jumper," as well as three animated features - "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" for Twentieth Century Fox, "Kung Fu Panda" for DreamWorks Animation, and "Bolt" for Disney Animation. In addition, he scored the summer 2008 blockbuster "Hancock" starring Will Smith for Sony Pictures.

Powell is the recipient of two Ivor Novello Awards for best original film score, from the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters - for "Shrek" in 2001, and for "Ice Age: The Meltdown" in 2006. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2008 for his work on "Happy Feet." He is the winner of an Annie Award for "Shrek" in 2001 and two Annie Awards for "Kung Fu Panda" in 2009.

PETER de SÈVE (Characters Designed by) was born in Queens, New York in 1958. He began drawing as a child, inspired by the comic books he collected, as well as science fiction and fantasy illustration. At Parsons School of Design, he was introduced to contemporary and nineteenth century American and European illustration, all of which continue to inform his style.

In his twenty-year career, de Sève has been published by nearly all major American magazines, including Time, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, Premiere, and Entertainment Weekly. He also frequently contributes covers to The New Yorker. In 2002, he illustrated Mark Twain's A Murder, a Mystery and a Marriage, published for the first time by W.W.Norton.

De Sève has designed posters for Broadway shows, as well as characters for numerous animated feature films, produced by Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar, and Twentieth Century Fox (Blue Sky Studios). His credits include "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "The Prince of Egypt," "Mulan," "A Bug's Life," "Tarzan," and the box office hit "Ice Age," for which he created all of the characters. In addition to his extensive work in animated feature film, de Sève has provided designs for television commercials, including a Nike spot, titled "Destination Moon," which won a silver Clio® award. In 2002, he received the distinguished Hamilton King Award from the Society of Illustrators.

MICHAEL KNAPP (Art Director), a graduate of Ringling School of Art and Design, joined Blue Sky Studios' art department in the fall of 2000 as a character and environment designer on the movie "Robots." He has designed sets for "Ice Age: The Meltdown" and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! and created several matte paintings for the original "Ice Age' movie. Knapp's first credit as art director was for the Academy Award nominated Scrat short "No Time For Nuts."

HARRY HITNER (Editor), with more than twenty-five years experience in both live-action and animated films, brings his skills as a storyteller to the art of editing. Originally from South Africa, he lived and worked in Los Angeles until relocating to New York and Blue Sky Studios, where he edited 'Ice Age: The Meltdown."

(C)2009 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved. Property of Fox. Permission is hereby granted to newspapers and periodicals to reproduce this text in articles publicizing the distribution of the Motion Picture. All other use is strictly prohibited, including sale, duplication, or other transfers of this material. This press kit, in whole or in part, must not be leased, sold, or given away.

Movie search