Nassos Vakalis is one of the most famous 3D animators of the world. His work in DreamWorks as well as in his own movie has demonstrated fully his potentials.

N. Vakalis was born and raised in Athens. He studied Film and Video at the Pratt Institute in New York, where he excelled and completed his studies. He got the V.F.A in Fine Arts and Animation from California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. After finishing his studies he started working for the Sullivan-Bluth firm as an animator. Some of his projects were: “Rock-a-Doodle”, “Troll in Central Park” and “Thumbelina”. Soon after that, he became Supervising Animator for the film “The Swan Princess” of Rich Entertainment.

In 1995, N. Vakalis joined Warner Bros and took over the animation-planning and movement of the lead character “Kayley” in the animated film “Quest for Camelot”. He also worked in visual design, development issues and ideas for original cartoons.

In 1997 he was invited by the California Institute of the Artsto teach animation and a year later he worked for Dreamworks, a company that Steven Spielberg and Jeffry Katzenberg had just started and cooperates with the production director of the much discussed “Prince of Egypt”, Steve Hickner.

After completing the Dreamworks’ production “Joseph King of Dreams”, he planned storyboards for the movies “Outlaws”, “Tusker” and “Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron”. In the late ’90s, during a business trip to London, he met Panagiotis Rappas, who owned an animation studio at the time.

When they reconvened in Los Angeles, they founded the Time-Lapse Pictures LLC and sign collaboration with Klasky-Csupo for the animated productions of Paramount. A year later, the studio moved to Greece where Vakalis returns to, to complete parts of the movie “Eight Crazy Nights” on behalf of SONY Pictures, “Rugrats go Wild” for Paramount, “EI Cid the Legend” for Spanish FILMAX and “Jester Till” for the German Munich Animation.

He also integrates and releases the comic book “Tinella Kallinikos”, concerning the Olympic Games in antiquity.

In 2006 N. Vakalis was awarded by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with an Emmy for outstanding achievement in content for non-traditional delivery platforms for the ESPN show “Off Mikes” and in 2007 he was again nominated for an Emmy award for the second season.

Vakalis worked with Dreamworks as additional story artist for the animation “Kung-Fu Panda”. The animation won an Oscar nomination as the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year and in total 14 awards and 39 other nominations. He then worked as a story artist for the action animation “Monsters vs. Aliens” (2009) and “Human Nature” which received an honorary distinction at the 2011DIGI competition at the 34th Drama film festival.

From 2010 Nassos Vakalis worked as additional story artist for the action and comedy animation, “Megamind”, which was awarded with 2 awards and another 16 nominations, as story artist for the animation “Puss in Boots” and in 2014 directed the animation “Dinner for Few”, which represented an allegorical depiction of society. The animation won over 65 international awards including the prestigious 2015 “Borge Ring Award” hosted by the Danish Animation Society (ANIS).