With Valentine’s Day around the corner, the whole team here has been ‘getting busy’ making some romantically fun and funny eCards. If you can’t get enough of your babe’s love, then get ready for an awesome new Starring You eCard. We got out of the studio and went on location to one date spot that has let couples glide on a note of love through the decades. Can you guess where this new video is set?
After creating awesome Starring You and Year in Review videos both the office and studio tend to accumulate lots of art and props. This year we wanted to share our creations with you, our fans, and raise money for a great cause, so we decided to auction the famous puppets from our 2011 Year in Review video “2011, Buh-Bye!” on eBay. All proceeds will go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a pediatric treatment and research facility.
Fast sellers include: Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Newt Gingrich, the Schwarzenegger Baby, Amy Winehouse, Rick Perry! Bids are on Ben & Jerry, Pepper-Spray Cop, Mayan and The Royal Wedding Party and there are even more to choose from. So what are you waiting for? Get a piece of history & support a great cause: BID NOW!
The JibJab office has been going through a bit of a 2012 makeover. The company originally was divided in four separate rooms in our building. We wanted to feel more togetherness in one LARGE continuous room so walls needed to come down, desks needed to be moved and spring-cleaning started early. Check out the photos below of some before, during and after demolition photos.
We let the team get artsy on some walls before we tore them down.
We broke down some walls…
Then we broke down some more…
We now have one large creative workspace with the team together!
And though we sit so close to one another we still use instant messenger.
What do you think of our new space? We really enjoy it & are continuing to create more fun, new Starring You videos, kids books for the iPad & work on other new projects for you in the year ahead. Stay tuned!
Now that we’ve said “2011, Buh-Bye!“
…we wanted to get a glimpse of some the goals and resolutions for 2012 from the JibJab team! Check them out then let us know what you resolve to do this year in the comments below!
Glennie: Eat more kale and use all my Groupons.
Ashlyn: Document what clothes I wear every couple of days in a drawing blog…and marry George Clooney.
Andy: Stay focused.
Corey: Be grateful.
Chris: Make more delicious beer and get my co-workers drunk on it.
Mark: I resolve to eat resonantly vegan with heavy on the anti-oxidants.
Trish: I work near the beach… I should probably endeavor to put a foot in the ocean this year. That’s my resolution. Put a foot in the Pacific Ocean.
Dan:
My Anti-New-Year’s-Resolution Resolutions are as follows:
1) Improve my level of physical activity from the current 1 to a hard 6 on a standard 10-scale system
2) Continue my exploration of this city while meeting new people as I enter my first full year in LA
3) Improve the frequency of use of my left brain via art, music, photography, and other creative outlets
4) Not allow my dog to break her leg for a third year in a row by keeping her by my side at all times
Laura & Nicole: Kangoo jumping and Zumba dance classes at 220 Fitness.
Catherine: To find the positive in every situation.
Francisco: Sweat more
Alexandra: I resolve to explore more of LA.
Amy: This year I want to join a drum circle/learn conga drums and just about any type of hand drum.
Jeff G: I’m determined to go apple picking this year. THOSE MALUS DOMESTICA ARE GONNA PAY!!!
Liz: Create, facilitate, innovate.
Evan: I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because it’s a sure fire way NOT to accomplish the thing you set out to do. I make plain, old, non-New Year’s resolutions throughout the year then I find I’m able to stick with them.
Scott: I resolve to stop stressing about the end of the world, which should be really easy after December 21.
Robbie: I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I think they’re silly, people don’t stick with them. Any changes in my life tend to happen organically throughout the year.
Mike:
1) To make more puppets and update my blog more
2) To go for a run 5 days a week
Share YOURS below in the comments!
Did you send Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree this past holiday season? We saw a couple of famous names (Coldplay, Jillian Michaels) share their versions on Twitter! To take a closer look into the production of this popular video we chatted with Anthony our technical director to see what lengths he went to combining live actors with a computer designed background.
How was working with live actors?
I had a blast working with them! We only had three actors for the day, so we had to get tricky and film the actors from multiple takes and composite those shots together for scenes where there were five people on screen. They were very cooperative and great to work with! By the end of the day, they were exhausted. However, the end result made it all worth it.
Did you run into any problems while shooting?
Not too many, thankfully! We had to come up with some ways for us to imitate some props, but the actors had no problems working with imaginary and real objects. We made a pretty big mess using dry mashed potato mix for fake snow, which didn’t even really work out in the end, ha-ha!
How does the final video come together?
Once the head animation has been finished and the footage has been chroma keyed (process in which the blue screen in the background is removed, leaving only the actor’s), we combine the two with the background images to create the final video. Once all the steps have been approved, we publish the video for our website, and voila! You have a fun Starring You! video to create and share with your friends!
JibJab’s rocking version of the Christmas classic, Winter Wonderland, is sure to get even Scrooge on his feet dancing. But figuring out how to imagine the penguin’s band and their stage was tough. We spoke with character and background designer, Justin, who gave us the inside scoop of how he picked these waddling rock stars to take center stage in this eCard.
How did you approach designing costumes for the penguins?
I spent some time exploring the funny shapes penguins tend to have. I took a goofy approach for our Starring You penguin since it would basically be a human in a bird costume. For the non Starring You characters I played with a round and squat shape in order to play up the cuteness we would need in order to make the short humorous when the little guys started to play rock music.
What was the inspiration for the look of the backgrounds?
For the background concepts, I wanted to play with lighting and color schemes for a snowy landscape we haven’t really seen depicted before. It’s really easy to just go with a generic look-like white snow and blue skies, so I wanted to do something different. I first looked at a lot of reference pics of arctic landscapes in the late evening and nighttime. These times of day helped transform the scene into something really enchanting. In twilight and moonlight the icebergs have an iridescent quality that I loved. I initially thought it would be really nice to play with the northern lights and make them our key light source as well.
Have you sent this card to anyone yet?
Yup! Sent it to my Mom starring the 2 of us. Mom loves JibJab!
Now that you’ve discovered the inspiration behind this new Starring You video, turn all your friends into punk rockin’ penguins this Holiday season!
We just recorded vocals for our annual Year in Review and as usual, we called upon our mega-talented friend Jim Meskimen. Check out his holiday video…
We broke wind with our new holiday card, The Buttcracker. Ours though was not choreographed on a stage at all, but instead all the characters were molded, shaped and positioned by hand, bringing it to life! We got a chance to talk with Jeff, the lead artist on the project. Here is what he had to say…
What was the most challenging part of animating clay?
The most challenging part of this piece was NOT animating with clay! Because of the amount of use each puppet was going to receive throughout the month-long process of animation, a decision was made early on to use materials that are a bit more durable. The Jack-in-the-Box and the Doll were made with pieces of fabric and stuffing, however to make the Soldiers and Buttcracker look like they were make out of wood, these characters were made using foam-latex, a method commonly used in many stop-motion studios and special effects houses.
When building the foam-latex puppets, each piece was built with clay, given it’s own flexible wire, and created with mold-making processes that needed to be cut out from the left-over material known as ‘flashing.’
Once each piece was separated, they were dipped in balloon rubber and painted for their final color. Baby powder was used to help dull the look of acrylic, as well as keep the puppet from becoming too sticky.
After the puppets were built and assembled, the trickiest parts were figuring out ways to animate the puppets. For many of the shots that had animated objects I found it was easier to swap out objects using simple setups of whatever was nearby, which usually meant duct tape!
Plus, since everything was shot in camera, including the background, it was very important not to bump the set between frames so that there wouldn’t be any random jittering to distract from the focus of attention.
Did you record the sound effects yourself?
All the footsteps and clanks, etc. come from our sound effects library that we use in almost every production. However, if you’re talking about the actual FARTS, well, we went to a specialist. John Frizzell is our go to guy on many of our bigger production audio tracks and with his help we were really able to make the melody of this piece sing.
Where did you pull inspiration for the characters?
Many of the best holiday films I can remember seeing as a kid were made from stop motion. Rudolph is a great example of a holiday classic, but one that always stuck out in my head is Will Vinton’s Clamation Christmas…the waffleing song was my favorite growing up!
Have you sent the card to anyone yet?
Not yet… I’m waiting until Christmas is a bit closer. However my dad told me he saw it the other day, and it’s good to know I’m making my parents proud. :-)
So now that you know the backside, er, backstory of The Buttcracker send it out to all of your friends this Holiday season. It will surely be a gas!
JibJab’s hilarious eCards and enchanting children’s books take a lot of thought, time and planning. Not only do we have brainstorming meetings, draw storyboards and research for inspiration, we also have a weekly production meeting to keep the team up to speed on what is going on. We share breakfast, motivation and a few laughs. Our production team is so creative that even our agendas are decorated with cartoons and jokes. Check out the outline from last week.
Today is the last day of Movember, a month dedicated to growing mustaches and raising money for men’s health. If you haven’t already donated, take this final opportunity before December begins!
The guys here at JibJab did an awesome job spreading the word and fundraising for a great cause! Check out their progress from the beginning, middle and now the end:
We are so proud of their selflessness and ability to grow mustaches that match the likes of our JibJab guys and JibJab Jr. kids!
We have been very busy at JibJab over the last few months getting ready for the holidays!
We have been rockin around the office with our party hop version of Rockin Around the Christmas Tree.
Send a rockin' e-card to your friends and family!
We hit up the north pole and found out that penguins love punk rock versions of Winter Wonderland.
Rock out with this punk penguin band!
And lastly, we will toot our own horn at The Buttcracker, our gaseous version of a certain famous Christmas ballet.
Have a rip-roaring holiday with The Buttcracker
So spread some holiday cheer this season with one of our many fun Starring You e-Cards that are sure to warm-up any winter day! Also, stay tuned to the blog for more on how we created these NEW fun videos.
Our Movemeber men are looking quite dashing mid-way through Movember. Their mustaches have grown and so has the support for men’s cancer research and education! These guys are serious about awareness:
Our new Starring You video for Thanksgiving is a wacky rendition of the story of how the Pilgrims first discovered America. We were really impressed by some of the funny concept art that was used so we decided to check in with one of our artists, Romney, the director of the video, to see some of his early designs:
Early sketch of some of The Pilgrim Song
See the progression from pencil to paint!
Here is the first sketch of Plymouth Rock.
And here is the final product of Plymouth Rock!
The creative Process
The final product.
Pretty cool right? So what are you waiting for; make like a PILGRIM & cast yourself and four friends in this hearty tale!
Doesn’t it seem like just yesterday that Bennett and Anthony completed the month of Movember? Well, it’s that time again! A time when the men are separated from the boys and grow mustaches to raise funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically for prostate cancer & other cancers that affect men.
This year some of the men of JibJab came together to form a team. Want to support them? Click here to donate & make a difference.
Take a look at all of these faces ready to grow some fabulous mustaches & raise some money for a great cause. Soon they will be rocking ‘staches just like our JibJab guys and JibJab Jr. kids!
Donate today and check back here to see the fellas’ progress!
With Halloween quickly approaching many of us have found ourselves scrambling to find the perfect costume. Whether you go old school as a ghost or something topical like Charlie Sheen, thinking of something to impress fellow trick-or-treaters is sometimes a terrifying haunt. If you find yourself in a fright, here are a few ideas from JibJab that we have used in various videos shoots. See if any speak to the ghoul within!
