Chris Neuhahn is an American animator, author and producer from San Diego, California. He is best known for his key roles in bringing the penguin characters from Dreamworks Animation

DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. is an American animation studio based in Glendale, California that creates animated feature films, television program and online virtual worlds...

's two Madagascar

Madagascar (2005 film)

Madagascar is a 2005 computer-animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation, and released in movie theaters on May 27, 2005. The film tells the story of four Central Park Zoo animals who have spent their lives in blissful captivity and are unexpectedly shipped back to Africa, getting shipwrecked...

 movies into cable TV series format for Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon (TV channel)

Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...

. He has won three Telly Awards

Telly Awards

The Telly Award is an award presented by the namesake, New York City-based organization. The stated purpose of the award is to "honor the very best local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions, and work created for the Web." The...

 for public service announcements that he directed and animated. Chris describes himself as a "burning mass of heaving animation energy."

Early life and career

Chris was one of four brothers who grew up in the eastern county area of San Diego. His father was a US Air Force veteran and later a bus driver for the city of San Diego while his mother developed a real-estate business operating in greater San Diego. Chris worked across a vast spectrum of employment opportunities while he was growing up, including fast-food restaurants and automotive performance equipment manufacturing and rebuilding. He attended El Capitan High School in Lakeside and Granite Hills High School in El Cajon. Popular movies developed into a passion while still in his teens and coincided with his work at a Continental Graphics where he worked on Part Catalogs for the Boeing

Boeing

The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...

 747-400 and Air Force One

Air Force One

Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In common parlance the term refers to those Air Force aircraft whose primary mission is to transport the president; however, any U.S. Air Force aircraft...

. Exposure to computer-automated design ignited his interest in computer graphics and he started using commercial software packages to develop his production and narrative storytelling abilities. Chris' burgeoning skills led to work with Legal Arts and teaching classes and seminars for Autodesk

Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...

. Chris also worked at Presto Studios

Presto Studios

Presto Studios was a computer game development company of the 1990s, especially famous for its award-winning The Journeyman Project series and the 2001 sequel to Cyan's hit Myst series, Myst III: Exile....

 where he worked on popular computer games like Myst III Exile. He also maintained a freelance work regimen working with Artemis and Autocannon

Autocannon

An autocannon or automatic cannon is a rapid-fire projectile weapon firing a shell as opposed to the bullet fired by a machine gun. Autocannons often have a larger caliber than a machine gun . Usually, autocannons are smaller than a field gun or other artillery, and are mechanically loaded for a...

Chris moved to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 in 2002 and worked for Brain Zoo Studios on Activision

Activision

Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...

's Pitfall Harry game re-release in 2003. Other work projects included the SciFi Channel

Syfy

Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...

's Tripping the Rift

Tripping the Rift

Tripping the Rift is a CGI science fiction comedy television series. It is based on two short animations published on the Internet by Chris Moeller and Chuck Austen. The series was produced by CineGroupe in association with the Sci Fi Channel...

series at Film Roman

Film Roman

Film Roman is an animation studio founded by Phil Roman, best known for producing the animation for The Simpsons, King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox, as well as the Garfield and Peanuts animated TV specials....

 and Nickelodeon Animation Studios' Tak

Tak

Tak or TAK may refer to:Places*Places in Thailand:* Tak Province* Tak * Tak district, a.k.a Amphoe Mueang Tak*Other places:* Tak, Azerbaijan, a.k.a. Dağdöşü* Tak, a former kingdom in India, a.k.a...

.

In 2006 Dreamworks Animation Studios chose Nickelodeon to produce a series for TV based on the penguin characters from the Madagascar movies. Chris helped outline the production processes and methods that permit expansive and lush computer-rendered imagery based upon tight and minimal television budgets. Chris helps direct story content while supervising the visual aspects of the production across a team of eighty-five staff artists. As of June 2009, The Penguins of Madagascar

The Penguins of Madagascar

The Penguins of Madagascar is an American CGI animated television series airing on Nickelodeon. It stars nine characters from the DreamWorks Animation animated film Madagascar: The penguins Skipper , Kowalski , Private , and Rico ; the lemurs King Julien , Maurice , and Mort...

was the highest-rated animated television show playing on American cable networks.

Author

Chris is the author of two books on narrative storytelling through computer graphics, The Maya 6 Handbook and Professional Short Films with Autodesk 3ds Max.

Extracurricular

Chris pursues activities of animation with focus equal to his work with computer graphics. He is a certified private pilot and owns a Grumman Tiger A5-B that he flies for fun over greater Los Angeles. And he is an Advanced Open Water SCUBA

Scuba diving

Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

diver.

External links

• Vacant Planet http://www.vacantplanet.com/
• McSteed http://www.mcsteed.com/