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Now living in Oakville, Micallef specializes in classical animation -- images drawn by hand, frame by frame, rather than generated by computer programs.
His work can be seen in the new movie Osmosis Jones, currently playing in London.
Ever since he visited Disney World as a youth and finagled an inspirational tour of the animation department, Micallef knew that drawing images with pencil and paper was his art.
"I always loved to draw," he said.
Micallef attended Regina Mundi high school and spent a year in UWO's visual arts program before switching to the three-year classical animation program at Sheridan College in Oakville.
After graduation, he was hired by an Ottawa animation company to work on Saturday morning cartoons. Two years later, thanks to his colleagues' recommendation, he landed a prize position at Lucas Arts in San Francisco, owned by film producer George Lucas.
"They flew me down, I took a test and they offered me a job," he says.
During his two years with Lucas, he channelled his artistic energies into the "gaming end of animation," for personal computer games.
"It was a fabulous place to work."
Working for Lucas Arts gained him invaluable experience, but after two years, he and his wife, Cherie Pittock, were ready to come home.
"We wanted to move back to Canada," he said. "We missed our families and we wanted to start our own."
When Micallef heard about Walt Disney opening up an animation studio in Toronto, he applied for a position.
The possibility of being near home and working for a company that influenced him as a kid on Saturday mornings was a dream come true.
In Toronto, he worked on "direct-to-video animated films," such as Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas and Little Mermaid II.
A slowdown in the industry eventually led Disney to close its Canadian studios, however. With a family to support -- Ethan now is 2ae and has a two-month-old brother, Austin -- it would have been an awkward time to be out of work, but before the Disney dream job dried up, Michallef had landed a new one.
"My best opportunity was to work freelance, so I incorporated my company, Flip Book Animation," he says. He hired on as a freelancer with a Toronto animation company, Yowza! Animation Inc., which was looking for animators to work on Osmosis Jones.
The film, starring Canadian Bill Murray, Molly Shannon and Chris Elliot, combines live action and animated sequences.
Production required about 650 people and was a split effort between Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States and Yowza in Toronto. Michallef was one of many animators working on it in Toronto, while many more worked on it in Los Angeles.
Co-ordinating animation efforts with two teams sometimes posed challenges. Michallef was taking direction from Los Angeles "several times a week," by teleconferencing, e-mail and phone.
For every second of on-screen animation in Osmosis Jones, he had to produce 10 to 24 drawings.
Working six days a week over a 10 month period, Micallef said he went through "tonnes and tonnes of paper," before he was finished.
Despite the enormous effort involved and the demand on his family, it was a labour of love.
"It was a lot of fun to work on this project," Micallef said. "Because I love to draw."
Micallef has already been to the premieres of the film in Montreal and Toronto, but he returned to London this week to publicly view Osmosis Jones with his family.
Since the production of Osmosis Jones, Michaellef, 29, hasn't spent much time looking for freelance contracts.
He has already contributed to the animation for two subsequent feature films -- Eight Crazy Nights, from Adam Sandler's production company, and Lilo and Stitch, from Walt Disney -- and hopes to continue doing so on others.
"I'm very lucky to get up every morning and have this as a job."