Film

Stephen Malcolm Jennings

Princess Grace Award:
Undergraduate Film Scholarship, 1995

FOUNDER / CO-PRESIDENT GRASSHORSE TECHNOLOGIES, INC. Stephen M. Jennings

Stephen, Founder and Co-President of Grasshorse Technologies, Inc., opened Grasshorse in 2002 as a sole proprietorship offering animation, visual effects and graphics services. He is an award-winning animator and filmmaker with over twenty years experience in animation and visual effects. His clients include Walt Disney Television Animation, Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. and Nickelodeon.

Jennings studied at University of North Carolina – Greensboro, Southern Illinois University -- Carbondale and California Institute of the Arts. He was honored by California Institute of the Arts by being named Film School Representative to the Board of Trustees for his graduating class as well as receiving a graduate film scholarship from them. Part of his studies included participation in a foreign exchange program for a semester; he was placed in Austria.

Jennings developed his skills at Digital Domain and Sony Pictures Imageworks where he was trained as a compositor, managed technicians and gained intimate knowledge of studio operations and technical infrastructure. His work included Spiderman, O’ Brother Where Art Thou?, Fight Club and the AFLAC duck campaign.

Jennings worked with Roman Coppolla’s Directors’ Bureau as Stop Motion Animation Supervisor for the commercial announcing the launch of Rhapsody Online. In an early digital stop motion project, the team digitally acquired the footage and designed a proprietary software and hardware setup that allowed the team to capture imagery and watch the progression of the animation in real-time.

Stephen developed a proprietary process for Grasshorse that integrated 3D animation seamlessly with 2D animation to create the digital “Townsville” used in Power Puff Girls. This technique created dynamic and better quality animation that could not be realized in any other way. He has continued to use this animation technique on additional projects, including Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: Clone Wars. He was Director of Photography (DP) for two feature films: Peter Calvin’s debut feature, “Sleep” and Marcel Sawicki’s segment of “3 Pauls”, and the music video “Shattered” by the hip hop group, Swollen Members, which was in regular rotation on MTV Canada.

Jennings has directed Max Factor – Japan and Plan B Skateboards commercials for the advertising firm, Leo Burnett Co. In 2004 he directed, edited and executed motion graphics for a Datatel presentation which won an Addie award. Jennings is knowledgeable in all aspects of animation, compositing, and visual effects; he is a visual artist who can translate conceptual and creative ideas into reality.