Hal Miles
CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder
Hal is an international award winning animation, visual effects, and live action director, producer, and visionary film maker as well as owning and overseeing several production companies during his impressive 50 years in the motion picture, television, and amusement park industries. He has also been instrumental in pioneering new and innovative techniques and styles for numerous classic and ground breaking moments on many animation and visual effects Academy Award and Emmy winning projects. Additionally, he taught and developed numerous animation and visual effects programs at the college level for 12 years. Although his career has been very diverse, he has always had a love for every style and technique of animation, especially stop motion. To many professionals and historians, he is considered to be the chief authority and archivist of that art form, which he is very humble to accept. Over many years Hal started to sense that animation's pioneers and artists were being forgotten about; and the works that they created were being neglected or destroyed. So in 2011 he co-founded the Animation Hall Of Fame.
Nancy Miles
Executive Vice President and Co-Founder
Nancy has always had a passion for art of any kind since she was a child. She particularly loved illustration art. In the 1970's she purchased at a church thrift sale (for 25 cents!) what she thought was a children's book illustration of a flower with human characteristics; only to discover it was "animation art". This led her on the road to discovery of the process of animation and it consisted of many various forms; and the realization that many fine artists had worked in the industry. After meeting and working with many of the greats of the day she realized that she found a life long passion. Along the road she worked with independent animators, founded and was President of the Animation Collectors Club of Washington, DC, and was a founding member of the NYC chapter of Women in Animation. The Animation Collectors Club of Washington had yearly show & sales and meetings with famous animators of the day. She also served on the Board of Directors of the National Foundation of Caricature and Cartoon Art (expertise animation), and ran the museum programs and Gallery operations on a daily basis. Along the way she worked with Corporate Risk Management and insurance of corporate owned properties of First Virginia Bank.
Later she owned and operated her own shop for fine art and antique furniture for a number of years in Washington, DC. She was frequently sought out to appraise or testify on the subject of animation artwork and represent clients at auctions and shows. After moving to Savannah, Georgia she met her husband Hal Miles and together they opened their own production studio where she found a new passion for creating miniature sets and props for stop motion animation. Missing her animation festival in Washington, DC, she and her husband co-founded the Savannah International Animation Festival in 2009. In 2016 Hal and Nancy Miles started the AHOF traveling exhibits that travel to museums and venues across the country. She particularly likes to lecture on the women who worked on the animation in them; and meet animation fans from around the world. Nancy is currently working on a paper about the career of one of her former mentors and very dear friend Animator Philip Duncan. She is also in the process of curating AHOF's newest traveling exhibition Animated Once Upon A Time: Stories, Fables, and Rhymes.
Cheryl Briggs
Director of Education and Academic Affairs
Cheryl was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and has lived in the South her entire life. A life-long educator, she is an Autodesk Certified Instructor in Maya and author of An Essential Introduction to Maya Character Rigging, Reel Success: The ultimate guide to demo reel creation and animation portfolio development, and has a new book in press entitled Animating Short Stories: Narrative Techniques and Visual Design. Cheryl is an Associate Professor of Animation at the University of Central Florida. She taught as Professor of Animation at the Savannah College of Art and Design from 2001 to 2009 and holds a B.A. and M.Ed. in Education and an M.F.A. in Computer Art with a specialization in 3D Animation. She is a digital artist and animator that blends the lines between digital imagery and the traditional painting medium. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in the U.S. and her works are featured in several private collections.