Jonathan Cooper is a video game animator from Scotland, and is author of GAME ANIM: Video Game Animation Explained. Starting professionally in 2000, he currently works in California at Sony’s Naughty Dog studio and has led teams on large projects such as the Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect series with a focus on memorable stories and characters, and cutting-edge video game animation.
In 2008 Jonathan started the BioWare Montreal studio, leading a team to deliver the majority of cinematic cutscenes for the 2011 British Academy of Film & Television Award (BAFTA) Best Game, Mass Effect 2, and in 2013 directed the team that won the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS/DICE) award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation on Assassin’s Creed III. He has since been focussing on interactive cinematics in the latest chapters of the DICE and Annie award-winning series, Uncharted and The Last of Us.
Jonathan has presented at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco and at other conferences across Canada and the UK, and holds a Bachelor of Design degree in animation.
Full resume available on LinkedIn.
Latest Demo Reel
Additional Links
| Presentations/Panels | ||
|---|---|---|
| AnimX | 2017 | Interactive Cinematic Sequences in Uncharted 4 |
| GDC | 2015 | Women Are Not Too Hard To Animate |
| GDC | 2013 | Animating The 3rd Assassin |
| Eurogamer Expo | 2012 | Assassin’s Creed III Developer Session |
| MIGS | 2010 | Cinematics Sans Cutscenes |
| IGDA Montreal | 2006 | Mass Effect’s Digital Actors |
| Press | ||
| Edge Magazine | 2019 | Motion Plus |
| Creative Bloq | 2017 | 15 Pro Tips For Crafting The Perfect Showreel |
| Game Informer | 2016 | How Uncharted 4’s Most Memorable Sequences Came Together |
| Kotaku | 2014 | How To Create A Game Character That Doesn’t Suck |
| Polygon | 2014 | Animating women should take ‘days’ |
| Game Informer | 2014 | Assassin’s Creed III Animation Director Moves Over To Naughty Dog |
| Kotaku | 2013 | A Man Who Makes Video Games Move |