JibJab and the rise of the independent creator
Last month at the Ottawa Animation Festival I had the pleasure of meeting Evan Spiridellis, who is not only a talented artist in his own right (visit his blog of life drawing sketches), but also makes up one half of the founding team of brothers from JibJab (along with brother Gregg).
JibJab was one of the first suppliers of original animated content on the web, and one of the few that survived the burst of the Dot-com bubble at the turn of the century. They’re probably best known for their political collage-style animations, including the sensation that was This Land that pitted presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry against each other in a duelling sing-along.
Evan turned out to be one of the friendliest, most engaging people I met in Ottawa. After getting a chance to talk, we realized we shared a lot of common influences inlcuding Walt Disney and Jim Henson — not only for their art, but for being technical innovators and finding new ways to combine their art with emerging technologies. It’s this fusion of art and technology that was the inspiration for the creation of JibJab and part of the focus of Evan’s seminar at the animation festival about being an indepedent creator in a big-business world.
One of the pieces of wisdom Evan shared was that he and his brother always choose long-term goals over short-term money opportunities — a mantra that he attributes to JibJab’s success. By trying to never sell out, bow to sponsors, or lose ownership of their creative properties, JibJab has thrived developing original content in which the creator has total control.
JibJab’s latest project launches today. It’s called The Great Sketch Experiment. Gregg and Evan invited 50 sketch comedy troupes from around the United States to submit a script for a police station set. The 6 winning troupes were flown to LA where John Landis (Animal House, Blues Brothers, Trading Places) directed their work. The idea is to connect young, up-and-coming talent with a master of traditional media, and distribute it all online. And while this foray into live action isn’t animated like JibJab’s usual fare (or Drawn!’s for that matter!), it does serve to illustrate Evan and Gregg’s philosophy of fostering independent creativity with non-traditional media. And to dispell the stigma of animators producing live-action work, Evan promises me that their next three projects are all animated!
Visit the site to watch the 6 winning sketches and various other videos about the project and the creators (and all the classic JibJab animations, too). To top it all off, both Evan and Gregg will be on the Tonight Show tonight with John Landis to talk about the project.
Jib Jab is a great team, innovative, creative and able to survive. Good on them!