The Animatrix

Peter Kunshik Chung is a Korean American animator. He is best known for his unique style of animation, as the creator and director of Æon Flux, which ran as shorts on MTV's Liquid Television before launching as its own half-hour television series. Peter Chung was born on April 19, 1961. Since... his father was in the foreign service of Republic of Korea, he has lived in Seoul, London, Nairobi, Washington, DC, New York and Tunis. Then his parents immigrated to U.S.; he lived in McLean, Virginia. Chung studied animation at CalArts from 1979–81, one year at the Character Animation program, and another year in the program in Experimental Animation. Chung started his animation career at a small animation studio in Maryland at age 18 working for Animator and Illustrator Dominic LoPiccolo. Later, James Gallagher from CalArts would be a significant mentor. From there at age 15 he was doing character design for Hanna-Barbera. It was around this time he also started working on the layout and animation on Ralph Bakshi’s Fire and Ice before being hired by Disney for feature development.
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Shinichirō Watanabe is a Japanese anime filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for directing the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. Watanabe is known for blending together multiple genres in his anime creations. In Cowboy Bebop, for example, Watanabe mixes... classic cowboy western with 1940s/1950s New York City film noir, Jazz music and Hong Kong action movies, and sets the entire series in space. In his later work, Samurai Champloo, Watanabe mixes the cultures of Okinawa, hip-hop, modern-day Japan, and chanbara. After joining the Japanese animation studio Sunrise, Watanabe supervised the episode direction and storyboards of numerous Sunrise anime, and soon made his directorial debut as co-director of the well-received Macross update, Macross Plus. His next effort, and first full directorial venture, was the 1998 television series Cowboy Bebop. It was followed by the 2001 film, Knockin' on Heaven's Door.
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Koji Morimoto , born December 26, 1959 is an animator and one of Japan’s premier anime directors. Born in Wakayama, Japan, he graduated from the Osaka School of Design in 1979 and a couple years later joined the studio Annapuru as an animator for the TV series “Tomorrow's Joe”.... While working there, he saw some animation by Takashi Nakamura in ‘Gold Lightan’, an otherwise standard mecha TV series by a rival studio. He was impressed, and it inspired him to quit his job and become a freelance animator. Morimoto often collaborated with Nakamura, most notably in Katsuhiro Otomo’s 'The Order to Stop Construction’ segment of the anthology film ‘Neo-Tokyo’. This opened many doors for him, from working as animation director on Otomo’s landmark feature ‘Akira’ and a chance to direct a short for the ‘Robot Carnival’ anthology. Around this time he founded Studio 4°C with producer Eiko Tanaka and fellow animator Yoshiharu Sato. Since then, Morimoto has focused almost exclusively on his directing work. His work became increasingly unusual with time.
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Andrew Jordan Jones is a Canadian comedian, and a former member of CODCO. Andy Jones was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. He is the brother of comedienne Cathy Jones and filmmaker Michael Jones. Jones wrote for one season of The Kids in the Hall, and played a small role in... their film Brain Candy. Jones also starred in, co-wrote, and co-directed the 1986 feature film The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood. Jones played "Phonse" and starred with William Hurt in the 2001 film "Rare Birds". Since 1983 he has written, starred in and toured 5 one-man comedy shows. In July 2006 he opened an exhibit at "THE ROOMS" museum in St. John's called "The Spirit in the House". A part of the "Intangible Evidence" exhibit.
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Mahiro Maeda is one of the most prominent Japanese anime creators working today, having worked as director, character designer, and animator for many of Japan's top series. He has been one of the top contributors at the anime studio GONZO for many years, having directed Blue Submarine No. 6, Final... Fantasy: Unlimited and Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. His design work ranges from 2 of the "Angels" in Neon Genesis Evangelion to production and mechanical design for such series as Magic User's Club , The Vision of Escaflowne and Last Exile. He was also the designer of the invaders in Gatekeepers 21. His earlier years were spent mostly at the famed Studio Ghibli, where he helped animate classics such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, and Porco Rosso. Maeda is also one of the select Japanese directors to actively collaborate with the international film media on various projects. He provided key animation for the animation sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1.
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Yoshiaki Kawajiri is a critically acclaimed writer and director of Japanese animation. He is the creator of titles such as Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Kawajiri was born on November 18, 1950 and grew up in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. After he graduated from... Yokohama High School in 1968 he began working for a few years as an animator at Mushi Production Animation until it closed in 1972. He then joined Madhouse Studio and in the 1970s was promoted to animation director and finally debuted as a film director with 1984's Lensman, directing jointly with the more experienced Kazuyuki Hirokawa . Gaining an interest in darker animation, he next directed The Running Man. Afterwards, he was instructed to make a 35 minute short based on Hideyuki Kikuchi's novels, which was released as Wicked City. After completing it, however, his producers were so impressed, he was asked to make it feature length. Kawajiri enjoyed the dark tone so much he agreed and managed to complete the entire film in under a year.
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Andy Wachowski is half of the Wachowski Brothers, responsible for writing, directing, and/or producing such films as the Matrix series.

Larry Wachowski, who is also now known as Lana Wachowski, is half of the Wachowski Brothers.  Larry and his brother Andy have written, produced, and directed the Matrix series of films, as well as V for Vendetta and others.

Takeshi Koike is a Japanese studio animator, illustrator and film director. Something of a protégée of Yoshiaki Kawajiri, he went straight from a high school education to beginning his career at Madhouse as an in-betweener on works directed by Kawajiri after being interviewed by him.... His first professional work as director is the title sequence of the 2000 film Party 7; while his first feature film is REDLINE, which premiered in 2009 and was released in 2010. Work outside of animation includes the artwork for the 2004 Dreams Come True single "Yasashii Kiss o Shite".
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