James Cunningham

James' long and successful career in animation has seen him directing and supervising 14 Visual Effects or Animation driven short films. James started out as an animator/director, creating the crazy worlds of DELF, BLINDER while completing his Masters degree at Elam School of Fine Arts. His next film INFECTION competed at Cannes 2000, Sundance 2001 and dozens of other international Film Festivals and started off two key paths in his career. The first path being Director, wherein he has continuously developed his story and drama skills, and the second path is that of a Visual Effects Artist and Supervisor. James worked as a Lighting Technical Director on The Lord Of The Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring, at Weta Digital in 2000/1. As a 'shots' TD he learned from the best what it meant to produce quality. From there James was Head of 3D and VFX Supervisor for six years at Digipost in Auckland where he ran a team of artists delivering high level visual effects for TV Commercials and film. During this time, James was nurturing his directing path and developing feature film projects of his own. In 2009 he took time out to make his second NZFC funded short film, POPPY - a ten minute CGI motion captured WWI drama about a man finding salvation in the midst of hell. After a solid block of time on commercials James saw a new creative opportunity in teaching at New Zealand's top educator for animation and visual effects, Media Design School. Here he is responsible for the productions created as part of the Bachelor of Art and Design. In just 8 years in this role he has been able to direct, produce, supervise and edit 11 more short films. These films have been nominated for VES Awards, qualified for Oscar nomination, won many prizes at dozens of international festivals and been seen by over 2 million people online. These films have not only been a great way to train the animators and VFX artists of tomorrow, but they have also become a fantastic playground to experiment and develop his skills with minimal restraints. His most recent film ACCIDENTS, BLUNDERS AND CALAMITIES has competed at over 60 film festivals and won 7 prizes, including Best Animation at ComicCon and Jury Prize at Siggraph Asia.