About Michael Cawood

Michael Cawood, has been creating animated films since 1994. He’s a multi-award winning British/American Animation Director and Supervisor based out of Los Angeles with credits in Film, Commercials and Games working with Dreamworks, Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Microsoft, Activision, Nintendo, Sega and many more.

Michael has a broad creative skillset including directing, story development, animation, game design, character design, storyboarding, producing, previs, layout, rigging, editing, and supervising. He has a unique strength in directing online collaborations as first showcased in his 'Orson Welles Award' winning short film, 'Devils Angels & Dating', which attracted over 19 millions of views online. He repeated this success again with 'The Wrong Rock' which toured various Oscar qualifying festivals worldwide. Both films won 'Best Short Film' at the Burbank Film Festival (2012 and 2019). He also served as Head of Story for the multi-award winning 'The OceanMaker' which was screened at South by SouthWest. All three films screened at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, at the Hollyshorts Festival.

Michael supervised both, the previsualisation for Universal's new take on 'The Mummy' with Tom Cruise, and the postvis animation for 'Bumblebee'. Credits also include 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes', 'Happy Feet', 'Pete’s Dragon', 'Ghostbusters', 'Pirates of the Caribbean 5', and 'Night at the Museum 3'. He was the Animation Director for the game cinematics in 'Skylanders Giants' and Lead on 'Starfox Adventures' and the XBox 360 launch title 'Kameo'.

In 2025, Michael shipped his first game as a Director, Game Designer, Producer and Generalist. The Phoenix Gene is an exceptional expereince in VR gaming with unique mechanics that really takes advantage of wireless VR. It's availble on Steam and the Meta Quest.

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info content

Dinosaur Planet to The Phoenix Gene
The Making of the Wrong Rock
Devils Angels and Dating Deleted Scenes
Head of Story on The Ocean Maker
Pitching the Wrong Rock

Recommendations

  • Justin Barrett,
    Reel FX

    "I had the pleasure of working as a voice talent for Michael on his short film, "Devils, Angels & Dating." Through that work and later interactions, I came to know of Michael's amazing talent, versatility, and organization. He's got tons of experience in numerous disciplines in the CG animation industry, and brought all that experience to the table as director of the short. His goals for the project were very clear, and he did an awesome job of keeping the team on task in order to achieve those goals. And on top of all that, he's just a great guy; very relaxed and easy to work with at all levels. Michael would be a great asset to any company or project. I highly and heartily recommend him!"

  • Stuart Allan,
    Previs Supervisor at Proof

    "I've worked with Michael on several feature projects, and always find him to be a talented addition to the team. Regardless of the assignment he finds a way to produce good-looking, well-thought-out work. He's an artist to rely on when creative challenges arise and when rock-solid results are needed quickly."

  • Chris Knott,
    VFX Supervisor for Passion Pictures / Disney

    "I look forward to working with Michael again, he has broad experience, and is a serious talent: throughout his previz work and animation on a 'pressure' project, he was calm and assured, a great anchor point for other members of the crew. Highly recommended."

  • George Antzoulides,
    Previs Lead on Fast & Furious 7

    "Michael is a very gifted artist who possess the rare ability to be both creative and technically proficient. Not only is he a great animator but he knows how to interpret storyboards into Previs and how to shoot a sequence with logic and excitement. I could always count on Michael to be a team player and help solve problems. He was a great asset to have on my team. I look forward to working with him again."

  • Matt Gibson,
    Previs Lead - Proof

    "I recently had the pleasure to work closely with Mike whilst he was Previs Supervisor on an upcoming Tom Cruise movie. Mike knows his stuff. With acres of industry experience under his belt he pretty much knows it all. He knows Maya inside out and is an organizational wizard. He has a brilliant eye for camera work and how to get a sequence to flow together. He also proved completely unflappable no matter what hurdles the director might throw at him (and there were a few!). An altogether outstanding supervisor. He has a very bright future indeed."

Press, Interviews and Presentations