| Birth Date: | [1] |
| Birth Place: | Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada |
| Yearsactive: | 1999–present |
| Employer: | Blue Sky Studios (1999–2021) |
Michael Thurmeier is a Canadian film director and animator.[2] He is best known for directing the Blue Sky Studios animated films (2012) and (2016), which are the fourth and fifth installments in the Ice Age franchise. Along with Chris Renaud, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the Ice Age short film No Time for Nuts (2006).
Thurmeier was born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and went to Archbishop M.C. O'Neill High School.[3] Although he enjoyed drawing for much of his early life, he was more interested in becoming a lawyer, but he changed his mind after seeing Aladdin in his last year of high school.
After he joined Blue Sky Studios, Thurmeier served as an animator for Fight Club and The Sopranos. He later served as a supervising animator for Ice Age, Robots, and .
His first directing job was in 2006, when he co-directed the short animated film No Time for Nuts, starring Scrat for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He was a co-director on (2009), and made his feature directing debut with (2012). Thurmeier returned to direct (2016).
| Year | Title | Director | Animator | Other | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Fight Club | Animator: Blue Sky Studios | ||||
| 2002 | Ice Age | Additional Story, Lead Animator | ||||
| 2005 | Robots | Supervising Animator | ||||
| 2006 | Supervising Animator | |||||
| 2008 | Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who | Senior Supervising Animator | ||||
| 2009 | ||||||
| 2012 | ||||||
| 2016 | Voice of Gravedigger Beaver/Party Molehog | |||||
| 2019 | Spies in Disguise | Senior Creative Team |
| Year | Title | Director | Animator | Layout Artist | Other | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Gone Nutty | ||||||
| 2006 | No Time for Nuts | Also 4-D extended version | |||||
| 2010 | Scrat's Continental Crack-Up | Act as Teaser Trailers #1 & #2[4] [5] | |||||
| 2011 | Scrat's Continental Crack-Up Part 2 | ||||||
| 2015 | Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe | Acts as extended Teaser Trailer[6] | |||||
| 2016 | Scrat: Spaced Out | Ice Age: Collision Course archive and deleted footage[7] | |||||
| 2022 | Disney+ Original Short Films; Ice Age Creative Trust; Story - Episode: "Nut the End" |