Matthew Guinibert – Programme Development Team
Matthew was the winner of the prestigious Panprint Contest in 2005 being the first 3D submission to win the contest in its 25 year history. He was also the Director of Lifeway's 48-Hour Film Festival submission in 2007 selected for the national awards ceremony. Matthew joined Lifeway in 2007 after completing his Bachelor of Visual Communications. He is now purusing research at graduate level at one of New Zealand's best universities. As a member of the PDT he provides, advice and guidance on elearning in the 3D visualisation.

Abhishek Kala – Moderator
Abhi is an experienced Digital artist with nearly 12 years of working experience in the 3D Animation Industry during which he worked with various studios in roles such as Lead Effects Artist, Lead 3D Artist, Effects TD, Environment TD etc. Currently he is working with AUT as a Lecturer in Digital Media with School of Communication Studies and also finishing his Masters in Creative Technology in Stereoscopic Filmmaking. During the last year he has been actively involved with local studios exploring stereoscopic workflow and has also worked as a stereoscopic consultant for companies like 3DLive(http://www.3dlive.co.nz/) and Pure Depth(http://www.puredepth.com/) dealing with on set supervision while shooting and post production.
He recently shot a S3D(Stereoscopic 3D) short film in collaboration with 3D Live, currently he is in the process of adding visual effects to the short film.

Yugu Lee – Guest Animation Lecturer

Lifeway is excited to have Yugu with us, lending his advise and guidance to Lifeway students. Yugu Lee is the leading artist of the game-art outsourcing studio Star Painters. Yugu has 6 years experience in next-generation gaming experience. Coming from his highly regarded 5 years professional sculpting experience, Yugu has much to share. As a CG artist who has worked for Virtual Mechanix, Bizarre Creations UK, Sega UK and Box Rocket Animation, Yugu has worked on titles including Microsoft’s Project Gotham Racing 4, Sega Rally Revo, Terminator Salvation and Tak 3. Yugu is one of the senior 3D artists that helped Binary Star Limited win the sorted-after Award for Best New Start-up and the coverted Award for Best Unsigned Game (Professional) at the Australian Game Developers Conference 2004. Yugu contributes to the specialities section of the 3D Animation Qualification at Lifeway College.

Eric Farmer – Guest Animation Lecturer

Eric has a degree in Multimedia Systems, providing both general and focused multimedia skills. Eric is responsible for the 5 day3D Animation Short Course at Lifeway and has personally taught over 110 students through the course. Eric is a key VFX member of Huhu Studios as well as an avid Film Competition producer.

Cindy Bond - President & COO, Promenade Pictures
An entertainment industry veteran, Cindy has become acclaimed for her pioneering work in developing and making films that appeal to families and people of faith throughout the world. Ms. Bond began her producing career at Wild Horse Entertainment and Management where she served as President and produced Total Stranger starring Lindsey Crouse, Zoe McLellan and Jay Thomas as a Lifetime Channel premiere.

Next, Cindy served as President of Norann Entertainment – a production company she founded in 1996. As a producer, Cindy recognized the power of distribution and marketing and the growing demand for family and faith films. So in 1998, she co-founded Providence Entertainment, a domestic theatrical distribution and marketing company.

Currently, aside from her corporate responsibilities at Promenade Pictures, Cindy is producing and launching a new CGI animation movie franchise – The Epic Tales of the Bible. The Ten Commandments (Sir Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Christian Slater and Elliott Gould), the first of six theatrical releases, is set to release Fall 2007. The Great Flood (the story of Noah), the second in the series, began production late 2006.
Cindy is married and lives with her husband and two children in Hidden Hills, California.

John Stronach

Tim Johnson - Director, Dreamworks Animation
Tim Johnson most recently directed the upcoming computer animated comedy Over the Hedge (together with Karey Kirkpatrick). He previously co-directed the animated action adventure Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and before that co-directed DreamWorks’ first computer animated comedy Antz. An animation devotee since his college years, Tim
Johnson produced two animated films while earning a BA in English Literature at Northwestern University. Upon graduation, he worked for two years as a freelance cel animator and director. His introduction to computer animation came in 1985 while he was on staff at Post Effects in Chicago.

Tony Bancroft
Animation award winner Tony Bancroft brings over a decade of feature Animation in the mid 90s. Tony is most notably known as the award winning, co-director of Walt Disney’s Mulan. In addition, Tony also contributed his talents to such popular Disney features as The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. He was also the Supervising Animator, creating the loveable warthog, “Pumbaa”, in Disney’s The Lion King. Following his work as the Supervising Animator for “Kronk” in The Emperor’s New Groove, Tony decided to leave Disney. En route to starting his own animatoion studio, Tony took a transitional post at Sony Entertainment where he served as the Animation Supervisor for Stuart Little 2, released in the Summer of 2002. Having established himself as an accomplished director, gifted animator and animation supervisor and accomplished director, Bancroft co-founded Toonacious where he oversees all creative aspects of pre-production, production and post-production.

Bill Boyce - Animation Director, Huhu Studios
Prior to working for Huhu as Animation Director, Bill was a freelance animator for seven years, working for clients such as Sky Digital, Television New Zealand, 3M Pharmaceuticals, Electronic Arts, K-Mart and Pepsi.

In addition to his personal ability in animation, Bill has led the team at Huhu Studios since it was founded in 1999 directing Buzz & Poppy and most recently directing the feature, The Ten Commandments for Promenade Pictures.

Bill is married to Megan and has two children, Cameron and Rebecca.

Markus Kristensen
Markus was a top graduate of Lifeway College’s Animation School in 2005, his end of year project being selected to represent New Zealand in the international Saatchi and Saatchi World Show Case. Markus was recruited by Huhu Studios as the Head of Secondary Animation for their movie, The Ten Commandments staring Christian Slater, Alfred Molina, Elliot Gould and Academy Award® winner, Sir Ben Kingsley and he was also the lead animator on the Angel of Death sequence in the movie. Markus joined the lecturer team for animation in 2007 and continues to work for Huhu Studios.