I've worked on a lot of amazing, entertaining, and challenging animation projects the past few years here at JibJab.  Whether its an eCard, a Storybots short, or one of the dozens of iPad Storybook titles I've worked on, I always give it my all and learn something new.  All of the animation in my reel was accomplished using at least one (if not all three) of the following programs:  Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, and Flash.  

Thanks for taking a look and I hope you like what you see :)

Song: "Hungaria" by Latché Swing.

I had the wonderful opportunity to do some After Effects character animation with the Storybots for the Super Songs episode series available on Netflix.  Each episode is a clip show featuring a number of great songs and short, educational music videos from the  deep Storybots catalog.  To help set up the songs and tie the episodes together, we animated original character-driven vignettes.

Director - Jeff Gill

Supervising Producer - Meridith Stokes

Animatic - Nate Theis

Animation - Kurt Hartfelder, Chris O'Hara, Colin Lepper

Character Design - Nikolas Ilic

Sound Design - Nick Ainsworth

Voice Talent - Judy Greer, Erin Fitzgerald, Fred Tatasciore, Jeff Gill, Evan Spiridellis

You can’t have an educational series without including numbers, and I got to bat leadoff and animate The Number One.  It’s exuberant bluegrass ditty with charming designs and clever camera work!  Speaking of firsts, I became a father during the final week of this production so extra thanks to Jeff Gill and Nicole Stafford for helping me wrap this short up while I dove head-long into parenthood!

Directed By – Jeff Gill

Animatic – Anthony Holden

Design – Nikolas Ilic

Animation:
Kurt Hartfelder
Jeff Gill
Nicole Stafford

Sound Design – Nick Ainsworth

Every so often during a rare slow period at JibJab we're given a couple weeks to come up with a completely new and original eCard of our own creation.  I've always been fascinated by the evolution of one's wheeled, human-powered vehicles as the years go by, so I felt there was a nice message for a birthday eCard in there somewhere.

Bicycles have always been a constant theme in my life, so most all of the bikes depicted represent my own two-wheeled autobiography thus far.  And yes, I can ride a unicycle ;)

Direction, Design, and Animation:
Kurt Hartfelder

Sound Design:
Nick Ainsworth

In the twenty fourth installment of the twenty six part Storybot “ABC Jamboree” series, I was handed the eXceptional, eXacting, and eXhilarating artwork of the eXcellent Chris Garbutt – an illustrator who's work I've secretly admired for years.  EXciting! 

The Stroke and Shape Layer tools in After Effects are some of my favorite features to animate with, and the precise, vector-y graphics of Chris’ illustrations leant themselves well to those tools.  Oh, and as of January 2017 it’s racked up 1.3 million YouTube views!  EXcelsior!

Directed By – Jeff Gill

Song – Parry Gripp

Animatic – Nate Theis

Design – Chris Garbutt

Animation – Kurt Hartfelder

Sound Design – Nick Ainsworth

I’ve got a lot of educators in my family, so the opportunity to animate the Teacher short from the Storybots Professions series was as welcomed as a fresh red apple on the corner of teacher's desk.  Nikolas Ilic did a fantastic job (as always) with the designs and characters.  This project marked the first of many, many times he and I would combine our powers over the coming years.

Directed By – Jeff Gill

Animatic – Amelia Lorenz

Design – Nikolas Ilic

Animation – Kurt Hartfelder

Sound Design – Nick Ainsworth

In part four of the twenty six part Storybot “ABC Jamboree” series I had the privilege of bringing to life Dentists, Doctors, and Delivery men designed by the delightful Welsh illustrator Wayne Harris.  Any day I get to animate Donuts and Dinosaurs is a good day.  As of September 2016, this short had amassed 2.4 million YouTube views, too!

Directed By – Jeff Gill

Production Coordinator - Liz Dubleman

Animatic – Nate Theis

Song – Parry Gripp

Design – Wayne Harris

Animation:
Kurt Hartfelder
Nate Swinehart

Sound Design – Nick Ainsworth

In the seventeenth installment of the twenty six part Storybot “ABC Jamboree” series, animator Eddie West and I teamed up with designers Alex Chechik and Hobo Divine to play around with the most infamous letter on the Scrabble board.

Directed By – Kurt Hartfelder

Animatic – Nate Theis

Design:
Alex Chechik
Hobo Divine

Animation:
Kurt Hartfelder
Eddie West

Sound Design – Nick Ainsworth

What kid doesn't want to be a firefighter when they grow up?  As part of the Storybots Professions series of animated shorts I got to team up with the exquisitely talented Chris O'Hara and my head honcho Evan Spiridellis.  It was a real treat to experiment with a much more limited, UPA-style animation approach for this project.

Directed by - Jeff Gill

Design - Evan Spiridellis

Animation - Chris O'Hara and Evan Spiridellis

Sound Design - Nick Ainsworth

For a special holiday treat we here at JibJab created this Storybot Thanksgiving animated short on the Storybots Learning Videos app for iPhone and iPad.

Using the JibJab’s famous Starring You feature each of the five main characters were castable with photos of you, your friends, and family.  Keep a keen eye out for the manic turkey character - those smear drawings were fun to animate!

Directed By – Jeff Gill

Song – Parry Gripp

Animatic – Amelia Lorenz

Design – Nikolas Ilic

Animation:
Kurt Hartfelder
Jeff Gill
Rajive Eipe

Sound Design – Nick Ainsworth

Loop de Loop is known in animation circles (see what I did there?) as an awesome, bi-monthly animation challenge site with one simple request:  Make a fun, short, looping animation that satisfies the prompt!  When I learned my employer was hosting a screening in Hollywood, I took it as an opportunity to dust off some 3D skills with a friend and play with FOOD (the prompt).

Concept, Design, and Animation:
Kurt Hartfelder

Modeling, Lighting, Rendering:
Orey Spear

One of the most beloved JibJab traditions has been the annual Year In Review short.  The studio often has a lot of small teams working on a myriad of short subject films and projects most of the time, but at the end of the year we come together and put all hands on deck for this.  It’s our chance to have one collective effort in-house and a great way to look back (and poke fun) at all the crazy things that happened in the past 12 months.

2014

Production - JibJab Bros. Studios
Director - Jeff Gill, Evan Spiridellis
Lyrics - Scott Emmons
Composer - John Frizzell
Design - Nikolas Ilic, Natan Moura, Jacob Streilein
Animation - Jeff Gill, Kurt Hartfelder, Eddie West, Chris O'Hara, Megan Nairn, Edlyn Capulong, Taylor Clutter, Nate Swinehart
Sound Design - Nick Ainsworth
Technical Direction  - Robbie Harrison

2013

Production - JibJab Bros. Studios
Director - Jeff Gill, Evan Spiridellis
Lyrics - Scott Emmons
Composer - John Frizzell
Design - Romney Caswell, Nikolas Ilic, Kristen Ritter
Animation - Jeff Gill, Kurt Hartfelder, Eddie West, Megan Nairn, Mike Chiechi, Nate Swinehart
Sound Design - Nick Ainsworth
Technical Direction  - Robbie Harrison

2012

Production - JibJab Bros. Studios
Director - Jeff Gill, Evan Spiridellis
Lyrics - Scott Emmons
Composer - John Frizzell
Design - Romney Caswell, Nikolas Ilic, Carrie Hobson, Eusong Lee
Animation - Jeff Gill, Kurt Hartfelder, Eddie West, Megan Nairn, Mike Chiechi, Amelia Lorenz, Nate Swinehart
Sound Design - Nick Ainsworth
Technical Direction  - Robbie Harrison

A simple eCard to commemorate another trip around the sun and the joy of getting nekkid.

Directed by Jeff Gill

Animation and Design by Kurt Hartfelder

Typography by Greg Mako

Becoming a parent is a huge task, but you learn how to conjure up strength and power you didn’t know you had.

Direction, Design, and Animation by Kurt Hartfelder

Sound Design by Nick Ainsworth

Type Design by Greg Mako

Gazing out into the vastness of cosmos can be an awe-inspiring trip to the outer reaches of the universe.  It can make one question our place in the solar system as well as the purpose of life itself.  It can also simply be a setup to a fart joke. 

This is my first birthday eCard for JibJab from the fall of 2011.  

It still makes me laugh.

Directed by Jeff Gill

Design and Animation by Kurt Hartfelder