Kyle Balda

Kyle Balda is an American film director and animator. He has been working for Pixar for several years and is now working with Illumination Entertainment. His most notable works include popular films like Jumanji, Despicable Me, Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc. His mother is Maltese, and he was born in Tucson, Arizona. Although he was studying at California Institute of Arts, he dropped out from college because of a job offer that he received. He started working at Industrial Light & Magic.

His first film as an animator was 1994's The Mask as graphics animator, followed by Jumanji in 1995 where he was animation supervisor and Mars Attack in 1996 as the character animator. He animated Grim Reaper for The Frighteners when he worked at the Weta Digital in New Zealand. Once he started working at Pixar, his works included A Bug's Life (additional animator), Toy Story 2 (directing animator) and Monsters Inc.(animator). He joined Illumination Entertainment in Paris in 2010 and worked as a head layout for Despicable Me.

While working with Illumination, he co-directed the film Titled The Lorax in 2012. Recently, he directed yet another film titled Minions, in 2015 and it grossed over $916 million. Besides direction and animation, Balda lectured at several animation schools and had also worked as a director on several animated short films.