This was probably the longest scene in the whole short so we had to figure out how to keep it engaging and evolving with each new idea presented. We knew we wanted to do a lot of stuff with popsicle sticks on this project and this felt like the perfect opportunity! Below are some shots…

This is another shot that combined paper cut-out character animation with a live-action background. Here’s the print sheet for the Sotomayor assets as well as the character and flags underneath the down-shooter You’ll notice some of the Obama Nobel Prize assets tucked on there as well. Below that are some sample camera moves taken on…

Nothing like taking the opportunity to show President Obama with his biggest supporters!

For this shot we knew we wanted to have live-action arms mixed with a janky puppet. The inspiration for having Kadafi burst through the roof of the UN building was Animal at the end of the Muppet Movie. Unlike Animal, Kadafi went cookoo on the international stage instead of a deserted ghost town! Here is…

If you don’t know about Three Wolf Moon you can check it out here.  The shirt received a bunch of fake reviews on Amazon claiming that it had amazing healing powers and that whoever wears it will become irresistable to woman and strike fear into other males.  There are over 17,000 customer reviews and some of them…

This is our first Year in Review that enabled us to give a shout out to some of the cultural icons that passed away in the past 12 months.  While only a few names were worked into the lyrics we knew we would start the heaven sequence with an array of angels.  (It was just…

We knew from the get go that Farrah Fawcett would be perched atop the piano but originally Walter and Ed were gonna be sitting side by side tickling the ivories.  Once we started building the puppets it became clear Walter should be rockin’ the harp… Here’s an early test to see how they looked on…

We debated putting Ted Kennedy at a bar but we figured it would be a party up there so why not? It’s nice see the Kennedy boys reunited and Papa Joe is behind the bar pouring the Chivas… And here you can see us filming the scene for the video. Ted, Jack and Bobby’s arms…

Building the King of Pop was one of the most fun puppets of all.  Originally we had toyed around with the idea of making him Moonwalk across a golden stage but ultimately decided his classic crotch grabbing gesture was the way to go (plus it was way easier to build!)  Here’s a little clip that…

It wouldn’t be a 2009 in Review without Keyboard Cat!  If you’re unfamiliar with the magic that is Keyboard Cat you can read about him here and watch him in action here.  As for our silly little puppet, here it is…

The hardest thing we come across when writing the annual Year in Review is how to squeeze in all the crazy stuff that happens over the course of 12 months.  This year the line “Sure there’s stuff we missed” gave us the opportunity to get in all kinds of good stuff that would have normally…

For the grand finale we knew we wanted it to be just that… GRAND.  The question was how to take all the madness that appeared in the previous 2 minutes of the video and tie it all together.  The answer was a giant cake and fireworks.  As Ian began filming and compositing everything together in…

We fully recognize that JibJab is nothing without the people that come to visit our site and share our work so we wanted to send out a heart-felt thanks and some good New Years wishes from us to you. What better way to let you know who we are then to include our mugs!  Every…

Once all the animation is complete we always have a blast adding sound effects to the piece. Sound always gives it that extra little juice to help drive home what we’re going for. Sometimes it can make a piece feel more ‘real’ and sometimes it just makes it funnier. Whatever the case, sound design gives…

As usual, if you’ve made it through all the “Behind the Scenes” posts we want to thank you for taking the time to check it all out.  More importantly, we assume if you’ve read all these posts then you must be a fan and we want to thank you from the bottom of our JibJabby…