Jonathan Cooper

Jonathan Cooper is currently the Animation Director on Assassin's Creed III at Ubisoft Montreal.

Biography
Originally from Scotland, Cooper has been animating a variety of character & story-heavy videogames since 2000, before which he spent his formative years animating sprites and gaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Design & Animation from the Universit of Dundee (1996 – 2000). Cooper immediately began his animation career in the computer game industry with the aim and ambition to bring this medium into the public consciousness as the most formidable cultural art-form of our time. Cooper noted that his passion lays not just in individual animations themselves, nor even just within the discipline of animation, but how animators/designers work cohesively as a team to bring amazing worlds and stories to life.

In 2004, Cooper moved to Alberta, Canada to work at BioWare, assuming the role of Lead Animator on Mass Effect and later moved to Montreal to lead the animation team on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, however in 2008 was called back to BioWare to start the Montreal studio, creating Mass Effect 2 cutscenes. It was this drive and passion that Ubisoft sought his talents for and he is now at Ubisoft Montreal directing the animation for its biggest and most ambitious project to date, Assassin’s Creed III.

Career

 * Animation Director, Assassin’s Creed III, Ubisoft
 * Lead Animator, Mass Effect 2, BioWare Montreal
 * Lead Animator, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Eidos Montreal
 * Principal Lead Animator, Mass Effect, BioWare
 * Cinematic Animator, Jade Empire, BioWare
 * Lead Animator, NARC, VIS Entertainment
 * Animator, Tom & Jerry, VIS Entertainment

Specialties

 * IP creation and refreshing.
 * In-game and cinematic animation creation and direction, both motion-capture and keyframe
 * Designing and creating animation systems for gameplay and story, player controls, cameras and procedural content generation.
 * Building and maintaining realistic schedules that track thousands of assets throughout development to completion, ensuring milestones and dependencies are met