Deirdre Creed entered the field of Animation as a trainee camera operator in London’s west end and spent two years working on television commercials, music videos, and documentary films before returning to Dublin in 1990 to work at the Murakami Wolf Studio on the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" television series.
Returning to London in 1991 at the invitation of Universal Studios, Deirdre worked on the Animation Feature film An American Tail, the last fully traditional animated feature film made in England.
Next it was on to the Steven Spielberg film "We’re Back" a dinosaur story, which was one of the first digital ink and paint feature films to be made in England.
At the end of the film, it was back to the west end and freelance camera operator work on the award winning BBC television series "The tales of Beatrix Potter" and a newly commissioned channel four animated television series "Chickenwire". A stint as animation director on the documentary film "Berlin", a combination of live action and animation about the lives of contemporary artists working in Berlin, shot with much difficulty on location as the Berlin wall collapsed.
In much need of a rest and a change of direction, it was onto the next feature film, Amblimation's "Balto". Swapping the Camera for a computer, Deirdre was now working in the digital checking area of the movie.
Following the completion of the film Deirdre got the opportunity to work as a director and camera operator on two live action documentaries "The Cover up Culture" and "Party Girls" broadcast on channel 4 1995 "OUT" series.
From here, Deirdre was invited to work in Los Angeles by DreamWorks SKG on the studios first animated feature " The Prince of Egypt " compositing the 2D and 3D elements of the film.
Deirdre loves working in feature films, but she also has a real love for quality low budget films. She feels it’s a real pleasure to be involved in the creative process of garage animation, and long may it live.
Doug Cooper got an early start in the fields of Computers and Art. He received his first computer as a gift when he was 9 years old, and was presented with an award for designing poster art for a fire prevention campaign while attending eighth grade art class.
His interests lead him deeper and deeper into computers, and he was writing his first programs by the age of 12. However, through his years of growing up, he continued to sketch and draw, often dreaming of a career combining computers and art.
Again, at the early age of 17, he started his first career job as a Computer Production Artist at San Diego based American Film Technologies. After two years at AFT, he was given the opportunity to be sent to London England, to work on-site at the Amblimation feature animation studio. Not passing up such an opportunity, Doug packed his bags and took his first steps outside of California.
While working on-site at Amblimation on the film "We're Back", Doug learned the production processes behind traditional animation, and digital Ink & Paint. There he also continued to develop his computer programming skills writing software tools for use by the artists working directly on the production.
After the completion of "We're Back", Doug applied directly to Amblimation, and was hired on as scene planner for "Balto". During Balto, Doug learned the concepts of composition, and scene planning for traditional animation. After a stretch in scene planning, he returned again to computer programming and developed several pieces of software which were key to the creation of the snow blizzard effects on the film. Here he began his journey into the world computer generated special effects.
At the ripe old age of 24, Doug Cooper is now employed as a Technical Director at DreamWorks Feature Animation in Burbank, CA. Here he works as part of the team responsible for parting the Red Sea in DreamWorks' first animated feature titled "The Prince of Egypt", an animated telling of the story of Moses.
In what remains of his spare time, Doug likes to work on his own personal animation projects, with the help of associates and friends within the animation industry. Occasionally he gets the opportunity to fly his radio control gliders off the cliffs of the California coast, but most importantly he's busy building a long lasting relationship with the love of his life.
