We were lucky to catch up with Jill Gilbert recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jill, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear your thoughts about making remote work effective.

I launched my business in fall of 2019. I had just wrapped up a three-plus year stint building an original content division for a VFX/animation service studio. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next but colleagues at Supercell, the game studio best known for Clash of Clans, approached me about consulting for them. They are located in Helsinki and San Francisco and I live in Los Angeles. While I had worked remotely with animation partner studios around the globe, consulting remotely with Supercell was the first time I participated in a virtual working relationship. As my business grew in early 2020, I secured more clients who were also located in different places from my home city. When the pandemic shut everything down, I was already in the swing of working remotely and that momentum continued to build with clients who are located in New York, the Bay Area, and North Carolina. I even hired consultants who worked remote and we successfully partnered to deliver projects despite our distance. Phone, email, text, and Slack are all tools that have been a part of my everyday work experience and make it easy to connect with my clients. I do find that the in-person meetings are still meaningful so I make an effort to go visit clients once or twice a year. Those trips continue to build on the relationships we’ve developed virtually. Now that things are somewhat settling down on the Covid front, I do have a few weekly in-person meetings with my clients while still juggling the remote work as well. I find this to be a good way to navigate the work/life balance. I feel incredibly fortunate to have both remote and in-person work – it makes the workday more open to the possibilities.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m an animation producer and consultant. I started my career in Hollywood in live action but switched to animation when I joined DisneyToon Studios as an executive in 1997. Disney was the perfect place to learn how animated content is created. During my time at the studio, I gained experience as a storyteller of films that straddle that balance of hope/heart/humor, I learned how animated films are produced, I worked with many divisions of this large corporate entity, and I was taught how to manage beloved brands that have withstood the test of time.

From 2006 to 2019, I had the opportunity to see all sides of the animation industry, including being a content creator and working for animation service providers. I worked on animated films, TV series, web content, games, and theme parks. My experience is one of breadth, in that I have a lot of knowledge and experience about many different elements of the animation business. When I formed my company in 2019, I harnessed all that knowledge and experience so as to be a well-rounded resource for my clients.

The bulk of my work involves me partnering with an animation company to build infrastructure for a new endeavor. That infrastructure could be creative infrastructure (working on story development), production infrastructure (setting up an animation production pipeline and/or partner), strategic infrastructure (building strategic plans for growing an animated content business), business infrastructure (figuring out how to produce an animated film festival inside a game), or business development infrastructure (growing a new or existing business vertical). I am incredibly fortunate to be able to bring my talents to top companies such as Epic Games, Supercell, Moonbug, and Baobab Studios. I sit at the crossroads of storytelling and technology, which is a thrilling because our industry is evolving every day.

Two recent projects that I’m most proud of are the CG short, The Eye: Calanthek which I co-produced, and a graphic book proposal based on an idea of mine called Dahlia. The Eye: Calanthek is a 9-minute short produced for Epic Games entirely in Epic’s Unreal Engine, a real-time game engine that allows a content creator to meld the various aspects of filmmaking. Originally, this short was supposed to be live action in the spirit of Stranger Things. But due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to pivot at the last minute and make the entire short in CG using a meta-human. The director, Aaron Sims, rewrote the short over two days and I brought in another writer, Vivian Yoon, to further develop the main character, Val, who she also ended up voicing. Aaron and his team had six weeks to complete the short. It would not have been possible to do this without using Unreal. My producing partner and I were able to work with Aaron to address notes and make changes in real time. We not only made our delivery date, but we delivered a stellar short film. Since its release in October 2021, The Eye: Calanthek has reached almost 1.3M views on YouTube and won countless awards.

Dahlia is still in the early stages of its evolution. This is an idea inspired by my daughter who found her place in the world working at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market at age 11. Dahlia is about a nine-year old girl in her garden who realizes that a small seed can have a large impact in the garden, much as she, small Dahlia, can have a large impact on the world. I wrote a rough synopsis of a TV series for this idea and then hired an artist to design the character. Those designs didn’t capture the essence that I was looking for. So, I brought in a producing partner and we engaged a new designer who truly brought Dahlia to life. These are some of the initial designs and they continue to be the foundation for the project. My producing partner and I further developed the story, and we pitched the series to buyers. We didn’t make a sale and now, as I look back on it, I don’t think we did a good job developing the idea. Because I felt that there was still an opportunity to bring Dahlia to life, I refused to give up. Instead, we brought in a third partner and pivoted the project towards a graphic novel. As of August 2022, we had our first pitch to an editorial and creative director at one of the biggest graphic novel publishers in the business. While we still didn’t make a sale, we got closer. Because I am determined to see this IP brought to life, we’re now back at work pushing my Dahlia project forward.

Animation is the marathon business in the entertainment industry. When produced well, animated content can surprise and delight audiences of all ages, creating an emotional connection that lasts for years and years. I love the ride, but it requires patience and perseverance. I’ve got both, along with flexibility and a sense of humor. It’s important to me to bring this spirit to the work that I do for my clients as well as to my own projects.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I’m a big believer in being authentic in my communication with clients and industry colleagues. What bothers me most is when people reach out to me ONLY when they are looking for work. It shows me that they don’t value our relationship other than how I might be able to help them in that immediate moment. And that’s exactly what I don’t want to convey to current and potential clients and industry colleagues. My outreach falls into three categories: me congratulating them on good news, me sharing my good news with them, and me asking for advice or guidance. The first category is me congratulating them on good news. Who doesn’t love to get a pat on the back for good news? I tend to get quick responses from people because these are happy emails to receive. The same goes for the second category in that my clients and colleagues enjoy sharing in my success. And third, asking for advice, guidance, or even posing a question opens the door for a conversation that could go anywhere. All these strategies are meant to be positive interactions, methods for staying in touch and staying present without being a nudge or seeming too needy. I have had much success with kicking off conversations that led to collaborations throughout my professional life and carries on now with my business.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I grew up in Chicago with Midwestern values, which, in many instances, are different values from those in Hollywood. I believe in protecting my integrity and that my word means something. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt and working together as a team to accomplish our goals. While I have confidence in myself and in the work that I do, my ego stays in check. I’m authentic, trustworthy, genuine, and approachable. What you see is what you get. I have carried these beliefs with me throughout my life and I firmly believe that they have been the most important “tools in my toolbelt.” These qualities mesh well with folks in animation. Animation is a labor of love – you must really love it to be in it because it takes so long to produce. And because it takes so long to produce, you want to make sure you like the people you’re producing it with. Even though I have worked with people who do not share my values, I’ve stuck with my beliefs which, in turn, has allowed me to build and maintain my reputation in my field.

Contact Info:

• Website: jillgilbert.me
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-gilbert-8636512/

Image Credits
Dahlia (all images) – courtesy of JFG Consulting LLC The Eye: Calanthek – credits are all on the images