Hal Miles is the Founder of the Savannah International Animation Festival and is an international award winning animation and visual effects film maker with a impressive 30 plus year career in the motion picture, television, and amusement park industries specializing in animation, visual effects, and animatronics as a director, producer, supervisor, and technician. Hal has helped to or personally created numerous classic and ground breaking techniques and moments on many animation and visual effects Academy Award and Emmy winning projects.  

Nancy Miles is the co-founder of the Savannah International Animation Festival and has had a long term affair with the art of Animation and Film. She was fortunate to know and call many entertainment pioneers Friend along with current industry notables. Her working knowledge of old school industry techniques gives her a great foundation and perspective towards today’s animation and entertainment  processes and how they are ulitilized. She has been a long standing founding member of the Women In Animation New York chapter, member of the Washington DC ASIFA chapter, and the President of the Animation Collectors Club of Washington D.C. .  

Kevin Thomas is an award winning entertainment editor and compositor who has been working as an editor since 1983 and a compositor and motion graphics artist since 1995; and is considered one of the leading individuals in his field. He has also been involved with stop motion animation and visual effects in general for 30 plus years and continues to have a love and passion for both. 

Larry Lauria is an award winning animator, director and instructor who’s animation career spans 35 years and includes animation and direction on feature, television, commercial, interactive and internet projects. The projects he has worked on have garnered over 50 awards including Emmys, Addys, Codys and even a few BAFTA awards.

Besides being a working animator and artist, Larry is much sought out internationally as an animation, layout and character design instructor. He has worked in Cologne, London, Dublin, Belfast, Windsor, Lacoste, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and many cities across the U.S.. 

Prior to moving to Wilmington Island, Georgia, Larry was head of animation at the Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida. Before Disney he solidified his reputation as being a renowned educator and curriculum expert as the Course Coordinator and an Instructor at the European School of Animation in Dublin, Ireland - one of the top three animation programs in the world.

In recent years, Larry has been recognized by WHO'S WHO AMONG AMERICAN TEACHERS, five times.

Larry has been a moderator at Animation World Network since 1999. His website, LARRY’S TOON INSTITUTE is recognized around the world as a trusted animation resource.  

His blog, ALWAYS ANIMATED is featured on awn.com.

Jason Maurer has been working in computer animation for fifteen years. His passion lies in exploring storytelling through animation, writing and photography. He has created computer graphics and interactive design work for numerous clients, including, the Sci-Fi Channel, the Weather Channel, Leo Burnett, and J. Walter Thompson as well as produced and directed an award winning animated tutorial series, Windows Without Headaches earning seven tellys and one regional Addy over the course of his career.

Lucilla Hoshor has been teaching computer art, acting and animation at the college level for 23 years. She started by pioneering the Savannah College of Art and Designs first performance art group The Expressionist Café using the first 20 Amiga Computers off the assembly line for a wide variety multi-media performances in 1988. Since then Lucilla Hoshor has published in Animation Magazine and has had computer art, animation and oil painting exhibited internationally.

Hoshor has supervised production and 2D/23 compositing for award winning animation. “Skoffee” screened at Animex, and Siggraph Space, and “Escape”,won a Gold Remi Award at Worldfest  2002.  Hoshor has exhibited oil and digital paintings internationally. “Maria Theresa and Gramps” was a finalist in the Fractal Design Contest and made an international tour in 1996.

Additionally, she served as Course Organizer for Siggraph’s “Acting and Drawing for Animation” workshop in 2004.  She does reviews and final copy editing for Focal Press. Lucilla Hoshor was the founding advisor for the Contemporary (formerly Classical) Animation Society in 1995.  She continues to contribute to CAS with pantomime lectures and workshops.  She is a contributing member of ASIFA. 

She is currently finalizing a book Acting Through Animation – Igniting the ‘Toon Spirit in collaboration with world renowned movement theater artist James Donlon.

Peter Weishar is Dean of the School of Film, Digital Media and Performing Arts at the Savannah College of Art and Design. The School of Film and Digital Media has over 2,300 students majoring in Animation, Dramatic Writing, Equestrian Studies, Motion Media Design, Film and Television, Interactive and Game Design, Sound Design, Performing Arts, Production Design, and Visual Effects. Weishar’s digital media work has appeared in the pages of Newsweek and US News and World Report, Disney’s EPCOT, the Siggraph Electronic Theater in 1998 and 2000, and The Museum of Native American Culture. Before joining SCAD he was professor at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts. At NYU, Prof. Weishar taught computer animation and design in the graduate interactive program and later animation at the Undergraduate School of Film and Television where he served as Director of their New Media Program as well as the Director of the Computer Animation. Dean Weishar is currently on the Board of Directors of the International Digital Media Art Association as well as co-chair of the Educational Resource Committee for Siggraph. 

Stuart Robertson began his motion picture career with a day job while he was pursuing his graduate degree at the Art Institute of Chicago as an optical printer cameraman. As a member of the technical and creative staff at R/Greenburg Associates in New York, his first supervisory credits came in 1983 as Visual Effects Co-supervisor (with Joel Hynek) on the Woody Allen film Zelig, and in 1989 Visual Effects Supervisor on Allen’s New York Stories – Oedipus Wrecks. 

Joining Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and magic in 1989, Stuart supervised optical effects for The Abyss, Back to the Future II, Die Hard II, and Ghost. Recognizing early potential of digital technology, in 1991 Stuart led the ILM Digital Compositing Department, supervising digital effects on Backdraft, Terminator 2, and Memoirs of an Invisible Man. 

In 1993, Stuart rejoined R/Greenburg Associates in their new venture in Los Angeles, to serve as the lead digital effects supervisor for the film The Last Action Hero – one of the first feature films to rely exclusively on digital techniques for its hundreds of visual effects shots. 

Stuarts career as an independent supervisor began in 1996 with Paramount’s The Ghost and The Darkness.  

His film and television credits throughout the years are extensive and have garnered him several awards and accolades including being nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Visual Effects for Zelig in 1983 and nominated for the Visual Effects Society Award for Red Rose in 2002. In 1999, he won an Academy Award for his visual effects work on the film What Dreams May Come. 

Stuart is a member of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences and serves as a board member of the Visual Effects Society. 

In 2004, Stuart accepted a position as Filmmaker in Residence at the Florida State University Film School, teaching courses in filmmaking and visual effects production. He joined the Savannah College of Art and Design as Chair of the Department of Visual Effects in 2008.

Cheryl Cabrera was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and has lived in the South her entire life.  An Autodesk Certified Instructor in Maya and author of An Essential Introduction to Maya Character Rigging, Cheryl taught as Professor of Animation at the Savannah College of Art and Design from 2001 to 2009 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Media at the University of Central Florida.  

Cheryl holds a B.A. and M.Ed. in Education and an M.F.A. in Computer Art with a specialization in 3D Animation. She is a digital artist and animator that blends the lines between digital imagery and the traditional painting medium. She has participated is numerous group and solo exhibitions in the US and her works are featured is several private collections.  

She has additional experience in acting and directing theatre for several years. Her award-winning students have been featured in animation festivals worldwide, and many have gone on to work within the Entertainment Industry. She currently resides in Orlando, Florida during the academic year and the Savannah, Georgia area when she isn’t teaching.