Biography

Frequently animates with stick figures

His films tend to build slowly and steadily towards over-the-top climaxes

Often favors ambiguous endings

Tends to favor absurdism and surreal humor

The Fluffy Guys from Rejected and The Animation Show

Owns and shoots with the camera that was used to shoot A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965).

Although Hertzfeldt's approach to animation is traditional (pen, paper, and film), his methods are self-taught and unorthodox. Most of his films are created without a script; he usually begins with a concept that is created and shaped out as the months progress. This allows for creative experiments, improvisation, and an element of spontaneity.

Hertzfeldt often does not use computers in his animation or photography process. This forces him to draw every element on the screen over and over again, lending his films their jittery, kinetic appearance. He also often forgoes animating traditional key frames and instead simply draws straight ahead.

Creator of some of the most popular animated shorts of all time, which have been featured in over a thousand film festivals and theatrical venues worldwide.

Hertzfeldt is the only filmmaker to have won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for Short Film twice: for "Everything Will Be OK" in 2007 and for "World of Tomorrow" in 2015.