Dr. Michael Girard is a research software scientist and president of Unreal Pictures. His graduate work in computer science at Ohio State University's Computer Graphics Research Group in the late 1980's helped to establish the importance of robotics algorithms and physically-based modelling for the animation of legged animals and human motion. His current research focus is aimed at the problem of unifying motion capture editing, traditional keyframing, and behavioral animation techniques for the creation of crowd interaction dynamics and "emergent" dance composition.


Michael's artistic collaborations with Susan Amkraut include the animation "Eurhythmy" (1990), which won many international animation awards and "Menagerie" (1993), a virtual reality/behavioral animation installation that was shown at the Pompideu Center in Paris. Susan and Michael founded Unreal Pictures, Inc. in 1993. Their company develops "Character Studio", a high-end 3D character animation system published by Discreet (the multimedia division of Autodesk) for use in the professional film, games and broadcast production markets.
Character Studio was employed (and even beta tested!) by Riverbed Studios for projects with choreographers Merce Cunningham ("Hand-drawn Spaces", "BIPED ") and Bill T. Jones ("Ghostcatching").