Hi. I'm Michael B. Johnson) but if you have trouble using two syllables for someone's name, please call me wave (not a big fan of "Mike", the other one syllable alternative).

Before Pixar, I was in the Computer Graphics and Animation Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, where I did my Master's in Visual Studies ("Build-a-Dude", completed in 1991), and Ph.D. ("WavesWorld: A Testbed for Three Dimensional Semi-Autonomous Animated Characters"). Many thanks to my advisor David Zeltzer, and my committe members Pattie Maes and Ed Catmull.

These days (well, the past 13 years), I work for Pixar Animation Studios in the Research & Development. I run the Moving Pictures Group - we design, develop and support the in-house pipeline for Story, Art and Editorial. It's a lot of fun - we get to work with the directors, editors, producers, production designers, art directors, artists and production folks who help begin the process of bringing our movies to life.

My wife, daughter and I live in the Bay Area where we managed to find Edna Mode's house, built in 1949, it's a great mid-century modern house built of redwood, glass, and concrete. We fixed it up with some help from our friends at Slant Studio. There are pictures of the renovation here.

I'm also on the board of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. They're in a great new space near the Metreon and the Yerba Buena Center, right around the corner from SF MOMA - if you haven't seen it, you should.

In late 2005, I gave one of the two keynotes at China's first Multi-Media conference in Beijing (Nicholas Negroponte gave the other, about OLPC). I was very excited to visit China; neither Elizabeth, Margot or I had been before. We look forward to going back soon.

Mastermundo interview team: Irad Lee; Mark Ridder; Przemek Siemion; Rick Nijhout
Mastermundo visuals: Menno Steenvoorden; Rick Nijhout
Sound: Irad Lee
Editing / post production: Przemek Siemion
Mastermundo ( mastermundo.org/ )