Talent

Jeremy Smith studied IT and VFX in Canada and later came to England where he joined Jellyfish Pictures.

Over the past ten years he has witnessed Jellyfish’s growth from an eight-man team to a facility that houses over 300 members of staff across 5 locations. He has overseen and managed several company expansions to different premises and has re-imagined the production pipeline using a hybrid of cloud-based and desktop-based technologies. He has become one of the most respected CTOs in the VFX industry always pushing technology to the absolute limit, helping to make Jellyfish one of the most advanced technical VFX facilities in the world. Through relationships built with leading players at companies such as Microsoft Azure, Teradici, Pixit Media, AMD and many others he has helped keep Jellyfish at the vanguard of what is possible, which always provides the company with a competitive edge.

Jeremy manages an IT team of six people helping to keep the day-to-day running of the facilities, two screening rooms and several editing suites. He is currently responsible for all technical management of Jellyfish Pictures (VFX) and Jellyfish Animation studios.

With an impressive career spanning over 20 years, Matthew has overseen hundreds of productions with an enviable roster of credits under his belt including; Aladdin (Disney), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (LucasFilm/Disney), Avengers: Age Of Ultron (Marvel) Guardians Of The Galaxy (Marvel) and in 2014 was honoured with the Advanced Imaging Society’s Lumiere™ Award for his work on Alfonso Cuarón’s Academy Award-winning Gravity. In other award-winning turns, Matthew led the One Of Us VFX team to success in the category of Best Visual and Graphic Effects at the BAFTA’s and Best Digital Effects at the Royal Television Society Awards for The Crown Season 1 and a further RTS award and BAFTA nomination in 2018 for The Crown Season 2.

As Jellyfish Pictures' Director of Operation Matthew uses his many years of experience to bring together creativity and strategy, balancing maximum productivity whilst ensuring the company provides the best possible creative environment for talent to perform to their optimum ability.

Prior to working with Technicolor and One of Us, Matt held senior positions at MPC and Prime Focus.

Joining Jellyfish Pictures as HR Director in 2017, Sarah Tanner brings over 15 years’ experience of high-level HR strategy planning. Working within the leadership team, Sarah has been a crucial part of streamlining and delivering Jellyfish Picture’s growth and implementing a structured employee HR and talent strategy.

In addition to her work at Jellyfish Pictures, Sarah is active across industry associations including, UK Screen Alliance, Animation UK, Screen Skills and Access: VFX.

As Head of Development for Jellyfish Originals, Natalie drives the development and strategy of our original animated children’s content, curating long-form animated series, serials and family features with global commercial appeal.

Bringing over 20 years’ experience to the role, Natalie has extensive knowledge of original IP development, TV production, international sales and character licensing having successfully brought many children’s productions to market.

Before joining Jellyfish Pictures, Natalie spent five years with independent children’s production company, Platinum Films, as Head of Global Strategy. During this time Natalie managed the international TV distribution, rights negotiation and consumer products roll out of children’s content, including, Matt Hatter Chronicles (CiTV/Nick).

Prior to this, Natalie enjoyed a four-year stint as Assistant Producer & Head of Creative Approvals on Everything’s Rosie (CBeebies) at independent children’s TV production and distribution company, V&S Entertainment.

Before working in children’s TV, Natalie worked for ten years in live action drama for independent production company, Bentley Productions as Series Script Editor and Associate Producer on Midsomer Murders (ITV) and Producer on SAS drama series, Ultimate Force (ITV). During this period, she also headed up the TV Drama division for talent agency ARG Talent, developing and packaging event dramas such as The Crooked Man with Ross Kemp and BAFTA award winning, Ahead of the Class with Julie Walters.

Manuel is an experienced VFX supervisor with over 10 years industry experience. With both a technical and artistic background, Manuel has a second to none knowledge of the production pipeline. Manuel joined Jellyfish Pictures in 2016 as CG Supervisor on CBeebies animated pre-school show Bitz & Bob and now oversees all CG on Jellyfish’s original content pipeline.

Starting his career as a 3D artist working specifically on commercials, Manuel progressed to work as a lead 3D generalist on Hiroku: Defenders of Gaia, a fully CG 90 minute feature film, which went on to be nominated for the Spanish Film Academy Goya Awards

Shortly after this Manuel began work as CG and On Set Supervisor for CBeebies animated preschool show, Messy Goes to Okido. During this time Manuel also directed, produced and supervised his own short entitled Nouvelle Cuisine. To date the film has garnered 11 international awards including, Best Animation Short film at Sacramento Underground Film & Arts Festival and Best Animation Short Film for Children at ANIMA2017.

Jonathan is a highly adept VFX Supervisor and Senior VFX Artist, with a career spanning over 23 years. Jonathan’s extensive experience ranges from VFX Supervision, Compositing Supervision, Creative Team Leadership, Compositing and Graphic Design.

Starting out in the industry as a runner for London based VFX house Rushes, Jonathan soon rose through the ranks holding senior positions at a number of high-profile outfits including First Post Productions, Motion FX, uFX and Method Studios, working as 2D and VFX Supervisor on titles such as, The Hateful Eight, Ant Man, Terminator Genisys and The Fifth Estate.

Since joining Jellyfish Pictures in 2016, Jonathan has headed up the 2D team, overseeing all 2D work on the company’s VFX portfolio, with TV credits including Watchmen (HBO), The Innocents (Netflix), Black Mirror – Hated in the Nation (Netflix) and feature film credits including Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Award-winning children’s animation director Kitty Taylor has over 35 years’ experience in directing commercials, promos, short films and children’s animated series for companies including BBC, HIT Entertainment, CITV, Tiger Aspect, Blue Zoo and Jellyfish Pictures.

Kitty’s early credits include the BBC educational film Muzzy in Gondoland and the World of Eric Carle animated shorts, including the global classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

In 1998 Kitty began her partnership with Grand Slamm Children’s Films (GSCF) and Hit Entertainment, directing Percy the Park Keeper and Angelina Ballerina, of which she won a British Animation Award and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2002.

In 2003 she joined forces with Tiger Aspect and notably developed and directed three series of the celebrated CBeebies series Charlie and Lola, based on Lauren Childs’ illustrated book series. Kitty picked up a plethora of awards, including three BAFTAs, a British Animation Award, Annecy Best Children’s Series and a Daytime Emmy Nomination.

Following the success of Charlie and Lola, Kitty completed Gaspard and Lisa, a 52 x 11 CGI Pre-School series for Chorion Silver Lining, based on the award-winning books by Anne Gutman.

In 2016 Kitty joined Jellyfish Pictures as an in-house series director on Cbeebies pre-school animated show Bitz & Bob. Kitty is currently directing the second series of Beano Studios Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed!, bringing a great British heritage brand to 21^st century audiences.

With more than 20 years of Production experience in the VFX and animation industries, Cate Elliott is a veteran animation producer with experience overseeing VFX, CG, 2D Digital and traditional animation projects, from bid stage through to delivery.

Most recently, Cate has been collaborating with Jellyfish Pictures as Senior Producer on various animation projects, including Bitz & Bob and a DreamWorks feature animation, where she managed inhouse crews of up to 65 people, as well as managing the junior production team members, assuring high organisational standards for in-house productions. Responsible for all budgeting, production scheduling and client management on projects, Cate successfully handles the running of shows, with a keen interest in increasing quality and pipeline efficiency.

Cate worked up the ranks of animation production, initially out of CineGroup in Montreal and moved to the UK to oversee the production of the first animated series of Mr Bean the Animated Series with Tiger Aspect Productions. As Head of Production for Children’s and Animation at Tiger Aspect, she oversaw the development and production of many series, including the BAFTA award-winning Charlie and Lola and the Live Action Puppet series Me and My Monsters. More recently, Cate collaborated on the development of the BBC and Netflix series Watership Down as well as the Sky Moominvalley series of short Animation Films.

With a career spanning over 10 years, Lucy started her life in production at creative agency, Knifedge. Here she entered the world of live entertainment, cutting her teeth on the set, video and lighting design for Josh Groban’s World tour. At the beginning of her career, Lucy focused mainly on projection work and set design, boasting clients such as, Snow Patrol, Cameron Mackintosh and Glyndebourne Opera. Following her three year stint at Knifedge, Lucy joined a branding agency specialising in design packages for sports broadcasting, working with industry heavy weights such as, UEFA, FIFA, FIBA and FEI.

Further honing her skills, Lucy moved to a freelance position, focusing on both production and post-production for clients including, Sky, Saatchi, Netflix, BBC and PBS, before joining Jellyfish Pictures in 2018.

Since joining Jellyfish, Lucy has specialised in bidding, instrumental in securing some of the company’s biggest clients to date and has recently been nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy for her work on PBS documentary Neanderthal.