Nassos Vakalis

Nassos Vakalis is a multiple-award-winning animation director, story artist, producer, and studio supervisor. He was born in 1966 in Athens, Greece. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, majoring in Character Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, California. He has multiple credits in the entertainment industry, and his great experience has won him one Emmy award. He has been nominated thrice by the Emmys. He participated in a Short Film Festival Drama Greece during his senior year, where he released his first animation film, Don’t Feed the Bear. The short film received attention from animation director Don Bluth, one of the legends in the animation industry. Don Bluth offered him a permanent position at his company.

Nassos started his career as an animation assistant at Sullivan-Bluth Studios. Later, he was quickly promoted to an animator. In that role, he finished the creation of the movies Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park, and Rock-a-Doodle, honing his aptitude and abilities in the context of actual production demands. He quickly rose to the position of Supervising Animator for "The Great Animal and Crocodiles" and "Footmen" in the Rich Entertainment picture The Swan Princess while concurrently working as a freelancer on several commercials, short films, and other feature films. He was tasked with designing and animating "Kayley," the main character of the feature animated picture The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot, when Warner Bros launched its new animation facilities in Los Angeles in 1995. His alma university, the California Institute of the Arts, hired Nassos to teach Character animation in 1997.

After a year, he joined the recently established DreamWorks, Character Builders, where he collaborated closely with Steve Hickner, the Prince of Egypt director, with whom he grew close. As a storyboard artist for DreamWorks between 1998 and 2000, Nassos finished Joseph: King of Dreams and the critically praised Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and the movies such as Outlaws, Tusker, Tortoise and Hare. On a business trip to London at the end of the 1990s, Nassos met Panagiotis Rappas, a fellow Greek animator and the proprietor of Stardust Studios. Together, they established Time-Lapse Pictures LLC and agreed to work with Klasky Csupo on the Rugrats in Paris: The Movie for Paramount film. The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences presented Nassos with an Emmy in 2006 for his excellent achievement in material for non-traditional delivery platforms for the ESPN program Off Mikes. In 2007 he was nominated for two EMMY awards once more for the show's second season.

Additionally, Nassos directed and wrote several popular animated shorts for the internet series Crime Time Crime Time is a cartoon series which is aired on t >> Read More... . Twenty-five million people have seen Crime Time worldwide. Animated Christmas specials "The Little Mouse That Wanted to Touch a Star" and "The Boy and the Tree," based on short stories by Eugene Trivizas, were co-produced between 2007 and 2009 by Nassos and Time-Lapse Pictures. "The Little Mouse That Wanted to Touch a Star" won awards at big events like Cyprus International Film Festival, ANIMFEST '09, International Film Festival of Patras City-11th International Panorama, and London Greek Film Festival. Nassos has also finished two animated shorts since 2009. "Dinner For Few," a symbolic portrayal of society, and "Human Nature," which won an honorable distinction in the 2011DIGI competition at the 34th Drama film festival.

Over 78 international accolades were given to "Dinner For Few" during its festival run, including the coveted 2015 Borge Ring Award. It was presented in connection with the Odense International Film Festival by the Danish Animation Society (ANIS). The movie received nominations for the Silver Méliès Award at the Lund Fantastic Film Festival and qualified for the 88th Academy Awards.