Eric Darnell

Eric Darnell is an American director, writer, songwriter, animator and occasional voice actor. He is best known for codirecting Antz with Tim Johnson, as well as codirecting and cowriting Madagascar, Madagascar EscapeAfrica and MadagascarEuropes Most Wanted with Tom McGrath.

Darnell was born in Prairie Village, Kansas. He attended Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kansas, where he was a writer for the school newspaper the Harbinger. He studied broadcast journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. After graduating in 1983, he spent four years working on experimental films in his basement, which helped him get accepted into the Experimental Animation program study at the California Institute of the Arts. Meanwhile, he directed the music video for the 1989 R.E.M. song Get Up.

Source: Wikipedia