Faculty Bios
David Nethery
Associate Online Director
School of Animation
David Nethery has been teaching at Academy of Art University since July 2007. Prior to teaching for the Academy, David enjoyed 25 years of experience in the field of classical animation, specializing in theatrical feature film projects as an animation artist for various studios, including a long stint at Walt Disney Feature Animation. His work has been featured in animated films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear among others.
David has said that as a teacher he still considers himself a lifelong student of animation and is constantly interested in learning new techniques about the art and craft of drawn animation. In recent years he has focused on adapting his classical pencil-on-paper animation training to digital paperless animation using a graphics tablet and is enthusiastic about inspiring his students with innovative applications of classical hand-drawn animation principles to modern production pipelines.
Charles Keagle
Online Director of Animation
School of Animation
Charles has been part of the Academy family since 2003. He currently lives in Los Angele after many years in San Francisco as the on-campus Animation Lead during that time.
A doodler since birth, Charles came to the amazing realization while at Northwestern University that adults, not kids, created cartoons. He promptly dropped his political science major and majored in art, creating his first animated short using only Disney's The Illusion of Life as guidance.
His first job in animation was as a production assistant on the film Ferngully, the Last Rainforest. He then attended the Character Animation program at Cal Arts, where his animated short Are We There Yet? was selected for the "Best of the Year" show as well as the Spike and Mike Festival of Animation. After Cal Arts, Charles worked on The Ren & Stimpy Show.
Charles was hired as an animator at Pixar and then given the opportunity to work in story on Toy Story 2. Later, he storyboarded and animated for South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. As Story Supervisor for Pulse Entertainment, he oversaw production of Kung Fu 3D, an online series for Warner Bros, and co-designed an interactive Coyote and Roadrunner project.
Charles' work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
During his free time Charles likes to write. He has written a screenplay and is currently working on children's book ideas so that he can read them to his son Charlie and his daughter Alex.
Chad Josewski
Modeling Lead
School of Animation
Chad began his career in 3D over 18 years ago working in the field of industrial design and engineering gradually moving up the ranks to become a Senior Designer and 3D Technology Consultant. In 1995 he transitioned to a more creative path as a documentary film maker and cinematographer where he has worked as director/cinematographer/and CG artist on multiple documentary projects over the last 15 years. These projects have included World Expo 2005: Awaji Japan, funded by National Geographic and Treasures of the Nile, produced by the French National Science Foundation which aired in January 2010 on PBS.
In addition, he has worked on several AAA game titles for both Epic Games and Electronic Arts.
In 2009/2010 he was the senior environments modeler on an epic historical, yet fictional, theatrical film based on the myths of ancient Sumeria.
Currently he is once again making a documentary for National Geographic based on the biblical myth of Noah's Ark.
Chad has degrees in Film and Computer Science from the University of Utah and an MFA in Visual Effects specializing in Modeling, Texturing, and Lighting from Academy of Art University.
Annie Conn
Compositing Lead
School of Animation
Annie Conn, an artist, has worked in the television broadcast industry for 20 years. She is known in the industry for her visual sensibility, her keen sense of composition and design. She has worked with a collaborative approach to creating seamless visual effects. Fascinated with capturing unique and unconventional design, Conn studied photography and video at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. She later joined CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked on daily and live news graphics. While at CNN Headline News she headed "Special Design Projects" for CNN Newsource.
In 1993 Conn moved to San Francisco to work for Preview Media, a local post production company. As their in-house Art Director, she worked on such projects as Northwest Airlines inflight News Graphics and a Special Project for Disney Land. Conn, wanting to continually learn the latest technology, then later joined Discreet Logic as an application specialist for their product Flame. After a year with Discreet Logic, Conn went into production with the widely acclaimed San Francisco-based digital design and effects house Radium. During that year, Conn's credits include such technically-complex sports as "Room" for Dodge Neon, "Smoke Rings" for the Lexus Dealers Association and "Herd" for American Century. She then returned to Discreet Logic for four and a half years, where she worked as a Discreet trainer and application specialist in the sales office in Santa Monica, California. Now, Conn resides in Northern California where she has freelanced with such companies as Hallmark Entertainment, Ntropic, Digiscope and Pixel Envy, and has started her own content creation bureau, MeanwhileProductions.
Also to her credit, Conn has exhibited her personal work in over 22 exhibitions nationally. Her work is held in 11 private and museum collections and her work has been published in such magazines as "Photographer Forum" and "Darkroom Photography."
Shawn Nelson
Freshman Faculty Lead
School of Animation
Animation has always been my passion. I started drawing and sculpting at a very early age. Once it was time to go to college I knew what direction I wanted to go in. I attended the Academy of Art and received a bachelors degree in sculpture. From there I eventually landed in the California Institute of the Arts' Character Animation program. 2D was fun, but I knew the future was in 3D so I enrolled in a Master's program at the University of Southern California. I was a member of the first graduating class in the USC Computer Animation program. Interwoven in my studies I had the pleasure of working at Gumby Studios, Hannah Barbera and a premiere cartoon art gallery on Melrose.
After graduating from USC I had many options. It was the Golden Age of computer animation. I was courted by a video game company in Laguna Beach, CA and quickly started my animation career. Since that time I have worked at a few different companies and have many games such as MDK, Giants Citizen Kabuto, Alien Syndrome, and even a Dora the Explorer Game. I have been in the animation industry for a long time. I used Wavefront before it was Maya and 3D studio before it was Max. Software packages may change but the drive to animate stays the same. It's all about passion.
I started teaching in 2004 for that reason; to teach others who are just as passionate about animation as I am. I truly enjoy teaching.
Howard Gersh
VFX Lead
School of Animation
Howard Gersh's work has appeared in over two dozen major motion pictures including the Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter franchises.
Howard most recently worked at ImageMovers Digital (a Disney Company) where he lit and composited on the CG feature, Mars Needs Moms! Prior to Mars, Howard was part of the lighting team that was responsible for the exquisitely rendered Victorian London in Disney's A Christmas Carol.
During his tenure at George Lucas' visual effects division, Industrial Light + Magic (ILM), Howard wore many hats. From compositing the Viet Nam war memorial crowd scenes in the Academy Award winning Forrest Gump to more recently lighting the photorealistic Davy Jones character and his crew of computer generated pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean, Howard helped to create some of the most memorable and fantastic images ever to grace the silver screen.
Prior to ILM, Howard began working at Rhythm & Hues Studios in Hollywood. It was here where Howard first learned the software and computer graphics production techniques relating to the positions of Digital Modeler, Compositor and Technical Director. As a Digital Artist at Rhythm & Hues, Howard worked on a variety of television spots including the award winning and ever popular Coca-Cola polar bear campaign.
In addition to working in the motion picture industry, Howard's personal artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of American Illustration in New York City (a juried exhibition); at various art shows throughout San Francisco and has been published in leading illustration annuals including "Expose 1: Finest Digital Art in the Known Universe" and "Spectrum 8: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art". He has created artwork for private, corporate and nonprofit clients.
Howard earned his Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine. He also studied art and design, as well as animation, film and video production.
Howard currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their three boys.
External links for more info:
IMDb updated credit listing
My LinkedIn profile