A site feature that we added a little while ago, and that we love, is called ‘Staff Picks’. It’s exactly what is sounds like: It shows a JibJab employee, their favorite eCard and an explanation of why they like it.
Here’s an example showing Lauren (yes, she does always look like that):
You can find the Staff Picks section on the bottom right of the eCards page.
Fun fact: The Staff Pick picture of each employee is the same one that appears on the back of their business card; here’s Lauren’s:
As much fun as it is to work here at JibJab — see here and here and here — even we need a vacation. However, the JibJab elves, who have apparently not left the building for the season, like to punish those who dare to take some time off.
While Tim was away, all the JibJab Art, Tech and Business talent joined forces to implement the ole Wrap-The-Desk-In-Plastic-Wrap Trick on him.
Please note the extra care they took to individually wrap any tool that could be used to help cut the plastic off; it’s been three days and Tim is still removing the plastic.
Summary statistics:
Plastic wrap used = 500 square feet
Employees involved = 36
Employees dumbfounded after dragging themselves in early on a Monday morning after an exhausting vacation = 1
We had so much fun with the video tutorial yesterday that we decided to do another one!
You ever upload a head to one of our Starring You cards and found that the head just doesn’t fit right? Well, we now have a solution for you: last week we added the ability to move your head around and resize it once you place it within the card.
Please watch the video below for the tutorial:
Do you like these video tutorials? If so, please let us know by leaving a comment.
If you hadn’t noticed it already, we’re excited to let you know we added five new ways to sort content within each Category page (Ex: Movies):
1. Videos
2. Pictures
3. Starring You
4. Top Picks
5. Newest
Rather than try to explain this all out for you in words, we decided to have some fun and put together a little video tutorial on this new “Sort by” functionality. Needless to say, we are incredibly excited about it and hopefully browsing JibJab will be easier than ever as our content library grows in girth!
Happy Tutorialing!
Our second update in less than a month to our site’s structure has much to do with sharing JibJab on facebook. Among the features we are ecstatic about is the ability to post directly to a friend’s wall from our site. Before one had to copy and paste the link from JibJab, then sign into facebook, go to their friend’s wall, paste the link and write a little message. Now, if you log into JibJab using facebook connect, you have your friend list available for posting directly on their space!
Additionally, we have added two ways to make sure you never miss another birthday again. First, we have added a great facebook app called ‘Birthday Alert’ to our product lineup. Second, if you login with your Facebook account, you can see your friends with upcoming birthdays right on JibJab. Two more reasons to make JibJab your place for online greetings!
We’re consistently scouring the net for unique viral styles in hopes of collaborating and making a greeting that’s way unique. With his beatboxing flute videos scoring over 18 million views, Greg Pattillo was high up on our list of possible people to collab with. His funky style of playing the flute while adding his own beat was perfect for our off-beat eCards, and we had him come down to our studio for a recording session that covered a great number of classic holiday tunes. The first of those tunes has gone live today in time for the 4th of July, so click away and groove along to the classic American marching tune “Stars and Stripes Forever” with a new beatbox twist! It’s free, just like the good ol’ US of A.
Have a favorite viral star? Know someone with an insanely unique talent? Feel free to hit us up in the comments with anyone you would like to see in a JibJab greeting!
We’ve been slacking on our company-wide workshops this month, as our noses went to the grindstone for “He’s Barack Obama”, but today the workshops have returned! For the uninitiated, we have so many talented people here with so many different , every once in a while we all sit down and try to pass along our unique abilities. Trish took the time out of her day to share her plushie making powers with the team, teaching techniques on cutting felt patterns, double threading and general tips to make cool cushy critters. As you can see, we created a JibJab squid in the process! What shall we name it?
In 2007, my brother and I had the incredible honor of meeting President George W. Bush when we premiered a video satirizing the news media at the 2007 Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner.
Back in 1999, when we started the business, we never would have believed that someday we would have the opportunity to entertain a sitting US President.
Fast-forward a year and a half and Ivan Goldberg, the wonderful woman who manages the RTCA dinner every year, sent an email introducing us to Heather Dahl, Chairwoman for the 2009 event. They wanted to know if we would consider doing a video for the 2009 dinner.
Entertain the next leader of the free world with one of our creations? HELLS YEAH!
Following the inauguration there was an air of invincibility surrounding Obama. Sure, the world was falling apart, but it had all just fallen in his lap and he hadn’t had enough time to either help or hurt the situation. These two facts made it very difficult to find a comedic angle. Then we realized that the absurd expectations WAS the angle. We would turn Barack into a super hero.
After three grueling months of creation and production we were ready to show our creation to the leader of the free world. We were even more eager to meet our second President. That meeting almost didn’t happen.
The tradition at the Radio & Television Correspondents Association dinner is for the President to attend the VIP gathering beforehand. I guess Barack Obama’s plans for “change” in America included not following the RTCA traditions. A few days before the event we got a call from Ivan who told us that Obama was not going to attend the pre-dinner reception where we were scheduled to meet him.
To say we were bummed out would be an understatement. That said, we understood that the POTUS is a pretty busy guy and probably had more important things to do than hanging out with two guys who spent three months creating something to make fun of him (like monitoring the election crisis in Iran). Luckily, Ivan Goldberg wasn’t going to give up that easily.
“That man is not leaving the building without seeing you boys”, she told us before hanging up the phone. A few days later we heard back; we would meet the President on his way out of the building.
When we arrived at the dinner, Ivan gave us the plan. As soon as John Hodgeman started his performance, she would grab us and lead us backstage. That’s exactly what happened.
Ivan led us through the maze of tables towards the curtains that shielded the President’s entrance into the banquet hall (and soon to come exit). It was surreal to be guided past people like David Axelrod, at the next table, and countless media luminaries, all looking up at you and thinking, “Who the @#$% do you think you are getting up and walking out while the President is being entertained?”
We dipped behind the curtain and landed by the service entrance for an industrial kitchen. We could see the President 20 yards away, on the stage, watching John Hodgeman’s performance. We had been deposited directly in his exit path.
I remember thinking at the time that it was funny that someone would be so busy that they would have to have people positioned in their path to maximize use of every second of every day. Then I thought, “Of course, he’s that busy. He’s the leader of the free world you moron!”
Behind the curtain there were numerous Secret Service agents buzzing around. That said… you got the distinct feeling that you didn’t see the half of it. Like if you made one wrong move a flying secret service ninja would come out of nowhere and kick your ass. Hard.
While Evan and Ivan chatted with a secret service officer (who was telling them something about an incident with a lady trying to bring her Chihuahua into the event), I chatted with a nice guy named Jordan who worked on the President’s advance team. Jordan told me this wasn’t the first time the President had seen our work. He had been in the room in the past when the President was watching.
Suddenly, the entire organization snapped into action.
Seconds later, the President stood up on the dais and we heard the applause of the audience on the other side of the curtain. He stepped down from the stage, waved, and made his way along the edge of the curtain shielding him from the audience, towards my brother and me.
As he got closer (but before he noticed us), Evan heard him say to a guy he was walking with, “I have to get a copy of that that CD.” Then, when he looked up and saw us, two things were obvious. First, he must have recognized us from when we stood up to take a bow after the video screened and, second, he really enjoyed the video.
“HEY GUYS!”
He had a really big smile on his face as he extended his hand for a shake.
“I can’t wait to show this to the girls.”
As we stood there exchanging hand shakes, my fragile brain was trying to wrap its arm around the fact that the leader of the free world was going to show our video to his kids.
“Come over here”, the President said to Evan, who standing two down from him.
When Evan came over the President put his arm around him and we all posed for a few photos. As the President lowered his arms, we exchanged a few more seconds of small talk.
He told us we do excellent work. I think I remember telling him, “So do you”, which is an exceptionally retarded thing to say to a President. (Unless you have stood in the presence of a POTUS, don’t judge! It’s intimidating!)
After that, Barack bid us adieu, heading out with his entourage of secret service agents in tow. As Evan said in the voicemail that we recorded moments after it happened to make sure we wouldn’t forget, “It was a ridiculously awesome experience.”
Having met both a Republican and Democratic POTUS, we can say it’s an amazing honor to meet a President, regardless of his political affiliation (or ours). We are grateful to the JibJab team for all of their efforts that helped to make the night such a big success!
One of the greatest honors we’ve had in the nearly ten years JibJab has been in business was being invited to the 2007 Radio & Television Correspondents Dinner to premier a new JibJab video with President Bush in attendance. Regardless of your politics, my brother and I are of the mindset that when you get a chance to entertain the leader of the free world, that’s pretty darn cool. So we were equally excited when the organizer of the dinner contacted us last summer to see if we’d be interested in releasing a new video for a new President at their 2009 dinner. The answer: @#$% yeah! When we started JibJab we never could have dreamed of entertaining one sitting US president, let alone two! God bless the Interweb.
The writing process is normally difficult but coming out of the inauguration of Barack Obama, it seemed damn near impossible. His approval ratings were sky high and comedians everywhere were lamenting that there was no “angle” on the guy. He was too smooth! Our problem was compounded because of the long production cycles involved in animation. We had to find something funny about him that would still be funny 3 months later.
Finally, we had a break through. Rather then try to predict what would be funny about Barack Obama in 3 months, we thought it would be funny to satire the unrealistic expectations surrounding his presidency and portray him as a superhero solving impossibly difficult problems with a wiggle of his super ears. After two weeks of brainstorming, we wrote the first verse on March 1, 2009 to the tune of the American Civil War song, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”:
Barack came marching to DC,
Horah! Horah!
And proved we weren’t racist, see-
We’re not! (white people)
You are! (black people)
He’s a man of might,
No known Kryptonite,
Smooth as glass,
Born to kick some ass.
He’s Barack Obama,
He’s come to save the day!
While the verse did not make it into the final lyrics, my brother and I felt confident enough in the ‘hook’ (He’s Barack Obama; He’s come to save the day!) to start the process of producing the music track.
After we have a first pass of a script that we feel pretty good about, we need to “hear it” in order to work out the timing and make sure the lyrics flow. Gregg and Evan go off to a quiet place with a laptop and a crappy microphone and screech out the lyrics to the best of their ability. If you listen to the clips below, you can tell that they have virtually no ability when it comes to singing. Be warned. You might want to cover your ears!
Here is a pass from 4/1/09…
Here is an early pass from 4/16/09…
After we’ve got a solid first pass of the script in place our artists take it and begin to play around with the characters and concepts. In some instances they’ll illustrate ideas straight out of the script (like Obama wrestling a bear) and in other cases they’ll just begin to flesh out the world. The purpose of the visual development stage is not necessarily to create finished art that will make it into the piece but rather to get a “feel” for what works and what best supports the story we’re trying to tell. In this case we knew we were going for a comic book vibe but finding the proper balance between old school campiness and kick-ass action took some figuring out. Here’s some sample of early art that was generated to get the ball rolling…
Once we knew we were going the superhero route, our Production Designer, Ian, went to town! In addition to just making something that looks super cool, we had the challenge of designing a costume that would enable us to make the President emote. Not only did the balaclava mask let us slap ridiculously large ears on the guy, it also lets us change his expressions mid scene. Here’s some original concept art working out the costume…
Once we had the look worked out and knew what we wanted it was time to make the costume but first we had to cast the Obama body model. Luckily, we didn’t need to look any further than our own office! Our Director of Community, Tim Gillons, is not only a great sport, but also one of the few people in the studio that visits a gym on a regular basis. After he agreed to climb into the red leotard we shot some tests to make sure it’d work…
Once we felt good about the approach, we laid out some sweet designs and called upon our amazing costume-making friend Leighton Aycock Bowers to work her magic! Here are the initial designs and samples we sent her..
And here is the finished product in all it’s glory. We can proudly state that we largest library of “Tim G. punching, chopping and kickin photos” on the face of the earth…
