From left to right: Marina Antunes, Nathan Engelhardt, Jeremy Spears, Haojun Huang, and Mark Edwards
Go behind the scenes in this episode of SIGGRAPH Spotlight with SIGGRAPH 2025 creators Mark Edwards, Nathan Engelhardt, Jeremy Spears, and Haojun Huang in this special episode hosted by SIGGRAPH 2026 Computer Animation Festival Director Marina Antunes. Together, they explore the inspiration, collaboration, and creative process behind three standout films from this year’s Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater.
Register today for SIGGRAPH 2025 and check out the 2025 Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater!
About Our Guests
Marina Antunes joined the Spark Computer Graphics Society as Festival Director in 2014. Throughout her tenure, the festival has grown into Western Canada’s premiere animation festival, featuring a number of specialty programs including the “Made in Canada” program celebrating Canadian creators, “Mother of a Medium” featuring works from female filmmakers, and “Spotlight on France” which celebrates the best of French animation. In 2019, the SPARK ANIMATION FESTIVAL became Academy Award® accredited, the only festival in British Columbia to hold that distinction.
Marina is also a writer and podcaster with over 20 years of experience, first on a personal blog followed by a decade-long tenure on the now retired Row Three. In 2008 she joined the writing staff at Quiet Earth, becoming Editor-In-Chief in 2014, a role she held until the site’s closure in 2023. Over the years, she has produced and hosted a number of podcasts including Before the Dawn, a long-running podcast on the Twilight franchise, Girls on Pop, a podcast on film and popular entertainment from women’s perspective and After the Credits, bi-monthly film podcast with over 330 episodes.
Marina is a member of the Online Film Critics Society, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Visual Effects Society, ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH. She is the President of the Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH chapter, and has served on juries for several film festivals. Visit Marina at Spark CG Society or at After the Credits.
Nathan Engelhardt is an Animation Supervisor who has worked on films like Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Frozen 2, Encanto, Rio and more. Most recently, Nathan has written and directed an independent animated short film called “Forevergreen,” which will be his directorial debut..
Jeremy Spears is an Annie Award Winning Story Artist and has helped create beloved characters and stories for films such as Encanto, Wreck-It Ralph, Zootopia, Moana, and Frozen. In his free time, he creates unique wooden sculptures in his Whittle Woodshop. His latest passion project is directing the independent animated short film “Forevergreen.”
Haojun Huang is an animation director & art director based in Wellington, New Zealand. He crafts stories with emotional precision and architectural care. With roots in both spatial and animated design, Jun’s practice weaves together world-building, setcraft, and poetic image-making across mediums. He’s worked on productions like Power Rangers, large-scale installations for Bilibili China, and fine art collaborations such as Raised Up Sky by Joseph Michael. His latest animated short, End of Summer — a visual memoir exploring cultural identity and personal memory. Jun holds a Master of Design Technology and a Bachelor of Spatial Design. As a lecturer for Bachelor of Animation, he champions process as a way of thinking — inviting artists to explore animation as a site of discovery, honesty, and evolution. Driven by intensity and a restless curiosity, Jun is always redefining what “taste” means in a changing world—honing his eye through discipline, obsession, and joy.
You’ll likely find him pounding pavement around Wellington’s windy bays, working on a sprawling mural that spans his bedroom wall, or folding his love for experimental fashion into yet another unexpected creative form.
Mark Edwards recently served as the VFX Supervisor for the Academy Award®-nominated, and VES and Annie Award-winning “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”. Prior to this role, Mark was the VFX Supervisor on the VES and Annie Award nominated features “Abominable” and “Kung Fu Panda 3”. He worked as the Head of Lighting on the prehistoric family comedy “The Croods”, as well as a CG Supervisor on the critically acclaimed and Academy Award®-nominated “How to Train Your Dragon”.
In addition to production roles, he served for two years as the first Global Lead for Lighting, Surfacing and Matte Painting at the studio. Mark joined PDI/DreamWorks in 1997 working as a Lighting TD on their first CG feature release “Antz”, then as an FX artist on the Academy Award®-winning “Shrek”.
Over his 25+ year career at DreamWorks Animation, Mark has worked on various other live action and CG animated feature films including “Forces of Nature”, “Evolution”, “Over the Hedge”, “Flushed Away” and “Monsters vs Aliens”. Edwards received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science with a minor in Art
Studio from the University of California at Davis. He has won numerous training awards at DreamWorks including two 2012 Technical Achievement Awards for innovation.
