Josh Morgan

Senior Lecturer of Computer Science Loyola Marymount University

  • Los Angeles CA

LMU Seaver College of Science and Engineering

Contact

Loyola Marymount University

View more experts managed by Loyola Marymount University

Media

Biography

Joshua J. Morgan is the Animation Program Supervisor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television after serving for over a decade as the Animation Technical Services Engineer at Loyola Marymount University, where he has taught Interactive Animation, Game Design, Game Development and Game History. He also teaches Interactive Animation at UCLA, and he has taught Game Prototyping and Game Programming at the Art Institute of Los Angeles.

A native to Southern California, Josh holds a BA in Communication Studies and an MFA in Animation, both from UCLA. He worked in feature animation as a technical coordinator and assistant editor on Shane Acker’s 9 (2009), and as an editorial coordinator on the blockbuster hit Despicable Me (2010).

Josh specializes in educational software development and he has programmed applications and games for the web and mobile devices. He was the lead programmer of Looney Tunes™ ClickN READ Phonics, which taught children to read and featured classic Warner Bros. characters. He has also developed enterprise desktop, mobile and touchscreen kiosk apps for corporate clients.

Education

University of California, Los Angeles

Master of Fine Arts

Animation

2012

Attended UCLA Animation Workshop from 2002 to 2005. Completed MFA Thesis in 2012

University of California, Los Angeles

Bachelor of Arts

Communication Studies

2001

Graduated Cum Laude

Major: Communication Studies (Mass Media concentration)
Minor: German

Social

Areas of Expertise

Interactive Animation
Game Design
Mobile App Development
Video Games
Adobe Flash
Unreal Engine 4
Unity3d

Industry Expertise

Animation
Design
Motion Pictures and Film
Education/Learning
Training and Development
Research

Media Appearances

A CONVERSATION WITH JOSH MORGAN

LMU Magazine  print

2018-06-01

Josh Morgan, an animation technical services engineer at LMU, is a lecturer in the School of Film and Television and the Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering. He has studied the films of Japanese animation filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and has published an article on the subject in Animatrix, an animation-based journal produced at UCLA. Morgan teaches interactive animation and game design. He was interviewed by Editor Joseph Wakelee-Lynch.

View More

Josh Morgan on the Intersection of Comp Sci & Animation, the Artist/Programmer Overlap, & Game Feel

Cara Elvira Salvatore  online

2022-09-26

A conversation with Cara Elvira Salvatore as part of her Unconditional Positive Reg(ART) interview series.

View More

Courses

CMSI 3752 (formerly CMSI 376) Game Development

Development, production, marketing, and distribution of electronic games. Technical details of game and physics engines. Modeling, programming, and interaction techniques. The course covers both two-and three-dimensional platforms.

CMSI 675 Game Design and Architecture

The design and development of games, both analog and digital, with an emphasis on modular and scalable video game programming patterns, rather than specific languages or game engines. Concepts are applied through iterative development of game projects and prototypes.

CMSI 3751 (formerly CMSI 375) Game Design

The art and science of games. Goals, rules, game balance, and other fundamentals are introduced, as well as implementation issues such as modeling, physics, animation, networking, and performance. Coverage of existing gaming platforms and languages is provided as needed. Concepts are applied in an appropriately scaled, team-implemented game project.

Show All +

Articles

Flying with Miyazaki: Flight as a metaphor for power in "Spirited Away"

Animatrix, Volume 12, 2003

Virtually every animated feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the “master of Japanese animation,” depicts fantastic scenes of flight. By granting his characters the power of flight, Miyazaki conceives visually stunning flying sequences, as his heroes and heroines soar to the outer limits of the dreamscapes he creates. It is just as easy, if not easier, for an animator to make a character fly as it is to make a character walk, and since his medium is animation, there are no limits to the scale or complexity of the flying machines that Miyazaki can construct. Moreover, Miyazaki’s characters do not even need airplanes to fly, because the magic of animation can give anyone the magic of flight. Despite the boundless freedom that animation affords him, however, Miyazaki is very deliberate about which characters he endows with the power of flight, how they are able to fly, and when they can take to the air. The dazzling displays of flying in Miyazaki’s films are not merely for show, but rather, they are masterful metaphors that symbolize the empowerment of the character in flight.