CHRIS GELLES
CREATIVE DIRECTION • TECHNICAL DIRECTION • PRODUCTION
My work sits at the intersection of animation, creative direction, and education through storytelling. A recent transplant to Cleveland, I've worked in the world of children's media in NYC since 1995, I was one of the original "Blue Animators" for Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues; I also ran a feature film visual effects studio until 2012, before moving on to become a creative director for HOMER, the number one children's learning and reading app in the US. I have a proven history of successfully directing, developing, and producing long and short-form content. As an independent contractor I've been privileged to be a part of educational marketing campaigns and exhibits for clients such as Bevel, Hachette Books, The Museum for Religious Tolerance, and National Geographic.
MY WORK
BEVEL: MEN'S SHAVING
CONCEPT • DESIGN • EXECUTION
A GENERAL SAMPLER
SAMPLER BREAKDOWN:
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1. Abbreviated clips for a promotion piece for Gretchen Rubin's "Happier at Home" Concept and Execution was all me.
2. Ending clips from a promotional piece for Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Moon" Concept, shoot, execution, etc. This is include to demo a drawn-on, "chalkboard" effect I designed as part of his personal brand.
3. HOMER, PBS Sponsorship Spot Animation Direction and Creative Direction for all animated elements. This seemed relevant as a stylistic example of combining live action with animation.
4. Samples of interactive elements in the HOMER App. A kids' educational app, this clean, graphic style seemed to fit the aesthetics the client is after. As an added bonus, these elements are completely made of "code," meaning they are fully ready to be imported in nearly any interactive app, website, etc.
5. Graph-iti Sample clips from an animated opening for an educational spot teaching kids how to use functions and graphs. Client's concept was to use a graffiti motif to run with the pun. I included this as one of my few 3D samples. Could have been done in Maya or C4d. I can't recall. Creative Direction, Animation and Execution is all me.
6. Speakaboos: Hand-crafted (web advertising and social media spot) Full concept and full execution. This spot, dollar for dollar out-performed our paid TV spot that year. Also, the character shown, "Robot" was their most popular property. And, it just so happened that I designed this guy.
7. Samplings of HOMER content: "Letter videos," demonstrating animated illustration, concept through execution. "Power Words": 'Puppy' and 'Dinosaur': Concept, animation and technical direction.
8. Ending clip of "Happy Robot" A personal work. Apologies for the water-marked audio.
FEATURE FILM VFX
My visual effects reel...​
& Company was a pioneering visual effects studio located in New York City. I'm proud to have co-founded and helmed the company before I left the enterprise to my business partner in 2012, removing my Executive Producer hat to fully focus on creative directing.
Upon founding the studio, I built the technical infrastructure as well as our client base and, I grew our talent pool, supervising teams as large as 15 artists spread over 5 projects at a time. During my ten year run, we worked on over 30 major motion pictures, a few samples of which can be seen here.