Biography of Director Chris Renaud:

Director Chris Renaud has established himself as a heavyweight in the world of animation following the phenomenal box office success of recent movies Despicable Me (2010) and Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012). Renaud comes from the world of comic books, and worked at Marvel and DC Comics from 1994 to 2000. After a stint as an animation production designer at Shadow Projects and Big Big Productions, Renaud moved to Blue Sky Studios/20th Century Fox Animation. While there, he worked as a story artist on projects like Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008) and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009). Renaud conceived, wrote and storyboarded the animated short No Time for Nuts (2006), which featured the popular Ice Age character Scrat, and obtained an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Film, Animated. Renaud and Pierre Coffin are currently directing Despicable Me 2 (2013), which is scheduled to open over the Fourth of July weekend in 2013.

Biography of Director Kyle Balda:

Kyle Balda has been working professionally in feature animation for the past 15 years, most notably with Pixar Animation Studios and Industrial Light & Magic. He began his career studying traditional animation at The California Institute of the Arts in 1991, and continued his training at summer internships with Lucas Arts and Pacific Data Images. In 1993, Balda joined the crew of Industrial Light & Magic where he participated in such films as The Flintstones (1994), The Mask (1994) and as supervising animator on Jumanji (1995). After animating on Peter Jackson's The Frighteners (1996) at Weta Digital in New Zealand, Kyle returned to California to work at Pixar as an animator on A Bug's Life (1998) and Monsters, Inc. (2001) and as directing animator of Toy Story 2 (1999).

Presently living in Paris, Kyle has been conducting animation workshops at film schools and production studios worldwide for the last six years. As well as leading a 3D animation workshop at Richard Williams 2002 Master Class, Kyle has repeatedly lectured at Les Gobelins in Paris, The Animation Workshop of Denmark , Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttembergand and the Art Academy of San Francisco. Kyle continues to be heavily involved in animation production as both director and animation director/consultant at a number of European and Asian studios. Recent credits include layout supervisor for Despicable Me (2010) and co-director of The Lorax (2012).