Northern Michigan University alumni played important roles in two of the 2025 Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Feature Film. Three were involved in Disney and Pixar's Inside Out 2, the highest-grossing animated film in history: Kelsey Mann ('98), director; Dan Scanlon ('87), executive producer; and Neil Helm ('05), lead supervising crowds animator. Northern graduate Joshua Brock ('09) served as modeling lead for The Wild Robot, DreamWorks Animation's nominee in the same category. The Oscars will be presented Sunday, March 2.
Mann earned a BFA in illustration from NMU. While Inside Out 2 marks his first feature film directing credit (see related story), he has been involved in many previous projects. Mann served as story supervisor for Pixar Animation's Monsters University, The Good Dinosaur and Onward, and was part of the creative team for Disney's Lightyear.
Scanlon is Pixar's vice president of creative. He began as a storyboard artist on the award-winning feature films Cars and Toy Story 3, and made his animated feature directorial debut in 2013 with Monsters University. He also co-wrote and directed the 2020 film Onward, with NMU alumna Catherine Apple ('84) as lead editor, and served as executive producer on Soul.
Helm is a supervising crowds animator at Pixar. Some of the projects he has worked on include Lightyear, Coco, Toy Story (3 and 4) and Up. He also worked with Mann on Monsters University. Both were profiled in a 2017 NMU alumni magazine feature (available here, beginning on page 18).
Brock serves as a visual development artist for DreamWorks Animation and, according to his LinkedIn profile, is working on the upcoming Shrek 5. He joined the studio eight years ago as a modeler, then advanced to modeling lead, his role on The Wild Robot. Brock previously worked as a character modeler for Nickelodeon Animation, where he contributed to the TV series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
