Jason Schleifer is an American animator, character technical director, and entrepreneur. Schleifer started his career at Alias/Wavefront where he was a product specialist during the development of Maya. His technical expertise in character rigging led him to work as a character technical director and eventually animation lead at Weta Digital where he helped create and animate the character, Gollum for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In 2003 Schleifer moved back to the U.S. to work at PDI/DreamWorks in Redwood City, CA where he became Head of Character Animation and worked on feature films including Madagascar, Over the Hedge, Megamind, and Mr. Peabody & Sherman.
Jason Schleifer has a B.A. in High Honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also received an Honorary Doctorate of Animation from the Digital Media Arts College in Boca Raton, Florida.
In 2014 Schleifer co-founded Nimble Collective with DreamWorks alumni Rex Grignon, Bruce Wilson and Scott LaFleur.
Filmography YearTitleCredits1998Bingo (short)additional character animation2001The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ringcreature technical director2002The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towerssenior animator2003The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kinganimation lead2005MadagascaranimatorThe Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caperanimator2006Over the Hedgeanimator2007Shrek the Thirdanimator2008Madagascar: Escape 2 Africasupervising animator2009Monsters vs. Alienscharacter development2010Megamindhead of character animation2011Megamind: The Button of Doom (video short)head of character animationNight of the Living Carrots (video short)supervising animator2014Mr. Peabody & Shermanhead of character animationRocky and Bullwinkle (short)head of character animation2017The Boss Babyhead of character animation (pre-production)Disrupted (short)animatorCoin Operated (short)animator
References
External links
Animation World Network profile for Jason Schleifer Jason Schleifer interview for the Animation Addicts podcast