The JibJab Blog

Stick Your Face In It!

Buy Something Awesome… get a Free Membership!

We’re trying something new this month with the help of TrialPay, a nifty service that gives you free goodies when you purchase stuff like Netflix subscriptions and online wine. Up until February 14th, when you purchase something through their site you’ll earn a 6-month JibJab membership as an incentive. All-in-all there are 17 ways to earn a free 6 month subscription, from ordering t-shirts at BustedTees.com to gift certificates at Restaurant.com. We recommend having flowers delivered to your Valentine… they go particularly well with eCards!

February 3, 2010
Valentights

We have so many cool Valentine’s Day pieces to share that we hardly know where to start, so let’s begin with “Let’s Get Physical”! We were psyched last month to strike a deal which gave us the go-ahead to use the classic 1982 jam by Olivia Newton-John. In homage to her 80’s workout video, we hit the gym ourselves at the Marina Fitness Center in Marina Del Rey.

We pulled another all-nighter on this project, pushing ourselves to the max by shooting video until the break of dawn, but our efforts paid off in the form of one of our most ridiculous videos yet, a Valentine’s Day work out that’s sure to get your heart pumping. More on how we made it as February 14th approaches, until then, cast yourself and your Valentine for a great laugh!

February 2, 2010
Messaging Make Over!

We’ve just given our messaging system an overhaul and changed up our layout for sending and receiving cards, allowing you to add a note onto our eCards for special occasions and holidays.

This is the page that you will see when you are done creating an eCard. It is ready to be sent!

And this is what the person receiving your eCard will see. Clean, crisp and to the point!

So what does this mean for you guys? Well, for one, sending still images is a lot more fun when you can add your own message in! The best way to see how we’ve restructured the cards is to try one out, and there’s no better area to give it a go than within our selection of new Valentine’s Day eCards (more on these this week). Spread the love!

February 1, 2010
Phillip’s Heads

Sometimes we need to update our database with a horde of new heads for use as background characters in videos, or just to update our business cards (which feature our faces). So we call impromptu photoshoots and nab a variety of photos for every occasion. Here is Phillip displaying a range of emotions that would make William Shakespeare proud!

Almost everyone in the company has a few dozen goofy photos taken of them as soon as they join. We’d post more, but those are for our eyes only.

January 29, 2010
The Fixer of all Things Computer

Managing 40 computers of all shapes, makes and sizes is no easy task. Something is always buzzing, beeping or generally on the fritz and we’re lucky to have Mark around for when things go awry. When Mark isn’t working like crazy to keep our network alive at our datacenter, he is always ready to get his hands tangled in a mess of cords, unscrew a harddrive and rug burn his knees up to keep us all connected. Here is to you, oh fixer of computers!

January 28, 2010
Thats a Wrap Chart!

We have a big ol’ whiteboard up in our studio that lets everyone know what date we need to aim for when wrapping animation on projects. Usually, taking a photo of this board would be giving away many months worth of stuff, but since we’re launching all of our new Valentine’s Day videos this Tuesday, February 2nd, we’re going to show you our upcoming slate and let your imaginations run wild for a few days!

Credit to Amia for the fun fonts and drawings. The best part? This isn’t even the half of it! Get ready!

January 27, 2010
Extra Figure Skating Photos

We took far too many awesome photos while shooting our Figure Skating ‘Starring You’ not to share them all. For that everything we missed, check out our latest album of behind the scenes pictures posted up on Facebook!

January 26, 2010
Avalanching

To get the look of our skiing ‘Starring You’ video, we used half licensed footage of a real person skiing and half in studio footage of us playing around on skis in front of a green screen. The last step was creating an avalanche of snow for the ‘Starring You’ skier to escape. So we up and bought 20 pounds of baking soda, got out some black cloth and trash bags and got creative as we tried to recreate the look of moving snow.

We built miniature mountains, spun snow with drills attached to paper towel rolls and pushed loads of baking soda all over the ground, requiring a massive cleanup effort! Check out our array of techniques below and the finished video here!

January 25, 2010
When it Rains, it Hails

Hail pelted the skylights above our studio today and caused a bit of a ruckus as our staff ran to catch a rare glimpse of ice falling from the sky in Southern California. Meanwhile, a week’s worth of torrential downpour has caused random power outages in our building, shutting down our computers more than a few times. We’re on our toes, saving our work every few minutes so that we don’t lose any progress!

January 22, 2010
Never a Typo Like 09′

Ouch. Grammar fail. When we put out our 2009 Year in Review, the images and text whizzed by too fast for most to get picky about sentence structure, but an eagle eyed fan found us out! In a customer support e-mail, a fan named Debbie wrote:

“You have an embarrassing grammatical error in your video, 0:17 minutes in. Please fire your copy writer for not knowing that “than” is a conjunction used in comparisons, not ‘then.’”

Embarrassing indeed! With our copy checkers blushing we quickly re-rendered the video and popped the correct lyric in there for a grammar win! Debbie got back to us after we alerted her to the change with

“Awesome! I didn’t think you guys would even acknowledge my email– let alone fix the problem! The email was sort of a joke but that’s pretty awesome that the video was actually edited. Now I love you guys even more! P.S. Sorry if I sounded pretentious, I didn’t think it would actually be read.”

Happy to help! So typos, tremble in fear at our user base, because they’re watching and we’re listening!

January 21, 2010
Indoor Skiing

In order to get the awesome angles and movements of an airborne downhill skiier, we couldn’t follow suit with our figure skating video and shoot on location. Instead, Devin donned a whole mess of ski gear and made the moves for us against our green screen, sitting on ledges and wiggling his skiis around for a few hours.

While much safer than outdoor skiing, the situation was also much hotter. We wouldn’t be surprised if Devin lost a few pounds sweating it out in the snowsuit. We aren’t lying when we say we sweat the details! Check out the final version over here, where you can cast yourself as the skiier for free!

January 20, 2010
On Location: Our All Nighter Figure Skating Shoot!

Several months ago we posted a flyer up at the Pickwick Gardens skating rink in Burbank, looking for a pair of professional figure skaters to show us their stuff and hopefully put on an impressive display for a new ‘Starring You’ video. Boy did we luck out!

Soon after our posting, we were contacted by Lloyd Eisler, two time Olympic medalist and 1993 World Champion figure skater, expressing his interest in the project and offering to bring in 2007 U.S. Adult pairs champion Choeleen Loundagin. The pair had been training to compete together at the 2010 U.S. Adult championships and happened to be available. Incredible!

We took over the rink on a late October night after the facility had officially closed and shot footage all through the night until the break of dawn. There were a few close calls while carting our video equipment onto the slippery ice, but we can report no major tumbles or spills occurred while filming the figure skaters. It was exhausting but totally worthwhile work, as you can see from the finished product.

January 19, 2010
A Happy Birthday from Hobo Divine!

We’ve been working with some new artists to expand the variety of birthday cards in our collection and we’re psyched to share our collaboration with Jamie Mason AKA Hobo Divine. Jamie recently posted a behind the scenes blog on the graph paper sketches he made up for the new birthday card, which is definitely worth checking out. To view and send the deliciously lo-fi greeting, click right here!

January 18, 2010
We Made the Local News!

As the elves of ElfYourself prep to make their voyage back to the North Pole this weekend, we’re looking back at all the cool milestones we hit this year, including the impressive number of local news stations that elfed themselves! So many states had their news teams elfing, and many were thanks to fans tweeting and emailing ElfYourself videos to their favorite news casters. Thanks to everyone who helped build buzz, and check out the number of stations (that we know of!) which got their elf on!

January 15, 2010
Heads Up! One Month Till Valentine’s Day!

It’s one month’s time until Valentine’s Day, and while we won’t be launching our newest JibJab Valentine’s Day cards until February, now is the time to order hard good gifts in order for delivery by Feb the 14th. Ready to avoid the lameness of stopping by the drug store the day before and picking out something dull? Good! Here’s what you do… follow this link and create a JibJab still card. Once created look for the “VISIT STORE” button to see what goods you can purchase for your Valentine. These still image cards will remain free until February 1st, so get creative and make away!

Since these are created individually, it can take up to a week to manufacture and without premium shipping, up to an additional 14 days for the USPS to deliver. We would recommend ordering before January 25th for the best rate, and before February 1st to make it in time for Valentine’s Day!

January 14, 2010