The artist, programmer, and researcher Rob O’Neill will conduct a masterclass for New York University Tisch School of the Arts Asia Animation and Digital Arts students the second week of November, 2008.

Over 5 days of special workshops, Rob will cover illustrations and examples of topics like “12 animation principles”, “the study of motion”, “motion, time, space”, “planning motion and animation” as well as “character design and animation”.

Mr. O'Neill is the Director of the Pratt Digital Arts Lab and founding partner of Kickstand: Animation Research + Design. His work, which often lies at the intersection of art and science, has been shown in collaboration with Kidrobot at Visionaire Gallery, the Exit Art “Studio Visit” Exhibit, the New York Hall of Science, and the New York Academy of Sciences. He continues to create work for both screen and gallery settings and is actively publishing, speaking, and producing work in the realms of character technology, animation production, and developing new tools for creative expression.

Previous professional experience includes: Researcher in Cultural Resources in the Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History; Production Fellow at Eyebeam; Character Technical Director at PDI/Dreamworks on “Shrek 4D”, “Shrek 2”, and “Madagascar”; Character and Research Technical Director at Charlex/Launch; and Studio Technical Director at Eyebeam.

Mr. O'Neill's textbook "Digital Character Development: Theory and Practice" will be released by Morgan Kaufmann in November 2008 and is a software agnostic overview of the process of creating animated characters for animation and games.

Mr. O'Neill holds an undergraduate degree in anthropology from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York where he focused on anatomy and biological anthropology. Rob holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design in Design and Technology with a focus on animation and visualization.