Michael Thurmeier

Michael "Mike" Thurmeier is a Canadian animator and director at Blue Sky Studios.[2] He is most famous for co-directing Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Thurmeier was born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and went to Archbishop M.C. O'Neill High School.[3] Although he liked to draw, he wanted to become a lawyer, but he changed his mind when Aladdin came out in the last year of high school.[3]

After he joined Blue Sky Studios, he served as an animator for Fight Club and The Sopranos. He later served as a supervising animator for Ice Age, Robots, and Ice Age: The Meltdown.

His first directing job was in 2006 when he co-directed a short animated film, No Time for Nuts, starring Scrat for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) was his feature directing debut, followed in 2012 by Ice Age: Continental Drift. Thurmeier returned to direct Ice Age: Collision Course along with Galen T. Chu. It is the fifth film in the franchise, and was released to theaters on July 22, 2016.