This project was a fun one! We animated 12 miniature characters playing a dodgeball game. The idea was to show which type of packaging goes in the blue bin and green bin recycling.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Post-Production
- +1
Michael Kohlweg
- Calgary, Canada
- 14 projects
I'm an animation director and animator based in Calgary, Canada, with 11+ years in the industry.
About
I’m an animation director and animator based in Calgary, Canada, with 11+ years in the industry. After 4 years as an art director at an advertising agency, I moved into motion design — and eventually found my true focus: stop motion animation.
Stop motion is a craft that demands patience, vision, and a human touch — qualities that feel increasingly rare in a world saturated with AI-generated imagery. That’s exactly what makes it powerful. When a brand embraces stop motion, it signals something different: craft, character, and a genuine human presence that competitors relying on digital shortcuts simply can’t replicate.
It’s also more versatile than people expect. I’ve brought stop motion to utility brands, beer companies, marketing conferences, nonprofits, and libraries — the range of applications is genuinely wide.
I take every project from concept through to final delivery, giving you a single point of contact and a cleaner, simpler production process.
- Joined March 2026
Skills· 8
Languages
- EnglishFluent
Industry experience
- Agriculture & Mining
- Energy & Utilities
- Media & Entertainment
- Non-Profit Organization
- Professional Services
Projects · 14
This short stop motion, animated video will transport you to a magical world. When Calgary Public Library's doors close, Page goes on an epic journey to embrace growth and discovery. When we have access to different books, ideas, and ways of thinking, we have endless opportunities. We used stop motion animation to tell this story. The medium reflects the tactile nature of holding a real book and turning its pages. We spent 5 nights filming in the Calgary's Central Public Library, and what a dream location it was! Everything in this short film was shot in camera on location.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Colourist
- +3
Direct Energy approached us to help bring their idea to life using cut paper. We were hooked! What a dream it was to create everything - people, environments, the wee paper cat - from paper. What spoke to us most about this project was how rough the edges and seams could appear. We never wanted to gloss over the fact that we were in a paper world, and we wanted the paper to shine as a material.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Post-Production
- +2
We teamed up with Banded Peak Brewing to create these short animations. In Canada sometime we bring a can of beer or two up on the ski hill. What better way to connect with the beer drinker than to personify a can doing just that!
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Storyboard Artist
- +1
Most SocialNext speakers focused on AI that year, so we intentionally took an opposite approach. Everything was made by hand, with each frame meticulously moved by a human, embodying the human touch that contrasts with the digital topics being discussed. We focused on 4 central themes that stood out to us while attending these conferences: educate, inspire, connect, and engage.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Post-Production
- +2
Every holiday season, we bake and deliver homemade salted shortbread cookies to our clients. This year, we kicked it up a notch by using the cookies to make an animation. Now our clients can enjoy our handmade frames in a tasty way! We first digitally animated a loop of the snowflakes, exported each frame and cut them out. After baking the cookies, we sprinkled powdered sugar on each stencil to get the effect. Each frame was one cookie, and we used 24 cookies to complete this animation!
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Storyboard Artist
I took an online stop motion animation course with Kevin Perry and this was one of the assignments. For this we had to show the weight of characters by one pushing the other across a line. It was up to us to create the narrative around this idea.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Post-Production
- +1
I took an online stop motion animation course with Kevin Perry and this was one of the assignments. We needed to somehow break the shape of a ball and reform it back into a ball at the end of the animation. The narrative and in-betweens were up to us to create.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Post-Production
- +1
I took an online stop motion animation course with Kevin Perry and this was one of the assignments. We needed to somehow transform a clay ball into a cube, and this was my final output.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Storyboard Artist
We teamed up with Banded Peak Brewing to create these short animations. They needed an exciting way to show off their variety pack of beer, so we came up with having them literally pour beer to fill up this box. We used 20 physical boxes individually cut out to simulate beer pouring into a glass, frame by frame.
- Animation Director
- Animator
- Colourist
- +2
In this explainer animation we were tasked with taking the very complex process of creating Heartland Polymer pellets and communicating that process in a way that an every day human could understand.
- 2D Animator
- Animation Director
- Animator
- +4
FMC needed an explainer animation to explain how their new herbicide works and its benefits.
- 2D Animator
- Animation Director
- Animator
- +4
Work experience
Animation Director · Mountain Fold StudioJun 2022 – Present · 4 yrs 6 mos
I founded my own animation studio where focus shifted to video creation using stop motion animation.
Motion Designer · FreelanceOct 2016 – Jun 2022 · 5 yrs 9 mos
Created and executed long and short form animations for a wide range of clients.
Art Director · AdFarmJul 2013 – Oct 2016 · 3 yrs 4 mos
Education
Bachelor of Design · Alberta University of the Arts2009 – 2013
Majored in Advertising with a minor in graphic design.
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