28 April 25 • 2019 jn 28 April 25 • 2019 jn ALLISON JACOBS DIGITAL EDITOR with Jeremy Shuback Schmoozing The JN chats with the former animation director at BimBam. B imBam (founded as G-dcast) ended active operations this spring after 11 years of cre- ating groundbreaking Jewish content online. Its library of more than 400 original videos will remain online as the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) will integrate nearly all of BimBam’ s content into its website. BimBam was founded by Sarah Lefton in 2008. She wanted to share her Jewish learning expe- riences online, through short animated videos featuring teachers, rabbis and artists she admired, including former Detroiter Jeremy Shuback, 34, who worked as the animation director and video producer at BimBam from 2012 to 2019, directing more than 100 videos that have been featured in many Jewish film festivals and seen in classrooms across the country. Q. Where did you grow up? JS: I was part of the B’ nai Israel community and lived in West Bloomfield. My best friends growing up were Dan Horwitz (a rabbi in Metro Detroit) and Josh Foster, who is now a rabbi in Cleveland. It’ s funny to me how many friends I have who have gone on to become rabbis. I went to Hillel Day School, and my parents were always involved in the community. Q: What were some of your early career moves? JS: I went to school at Syracuse University for illustration. I knew people were doing animation out in Los Angeles, so I moved there. Right out of college I was doing web design, but I swore it off thinking, “I didn’ t move out to LA to do web design!” The weekend I swore off doing web design I got two calls — one from a web design company and another from an animation company, where I ended up working. After that I did some anima- tion internships. Then, for five years I worked as a title sequence designer and background painter, doing matte paintings for movies like Don’ t Mess with the Zohan and Date Night. Q: What was your reaction when getting the job offer at BimBam? JS: Six years and nine months ago I got for- warded the job posting for BimBam. As part of the submission, they wanted a script proposal for Tisha b’ Av or Ruth. Instead, I sent in a video of me rapping about Tisha b’ Av I made in an hour, and it turned out pretty well! Sarah Lefton hired me on as an associate producer in 2012. I felt it was an overlap of all the things I’ m good at. Q: What were some of your initial projects? JS: I was there for three months and Sarah was five or six months pregnant. She was essentially like, “Lead these projects now — I’ m going to go have a baby.” The first few projects I started on were four animated shorts about the Book of Judges, a com- petition about the Book of Psalms and eScapegoat (eScapegoat involved a digital goat collecting sins for Yom Kippur that ended up getting crazy cover- age in the Wall Street Journal, CNN and NPR.) The second year the challenge was more lifecy- cle pieces — videos about birth, baby namings and topics like, “What is a chupah?” I also created a Jewish Guide to Helping Your Friend in Mourning. That was a piece I’ m proud of. The guide had three sequels, and I formed a close relationship with David Zinner, the executive director of the Gamliel Institute, an organization dedicated to helping people with burial, death and mourning. We did another 12 lifecycle pieces the next year, and the third year we transitioned to Judaism 101. Then we started covering the holidays and formed that concept into a cohesive 50-part video set. jews d in the COURTESY OF JEREMY SHUBACK An image from Samson: The Final Judge, illustrated by Nadav Nachmany Jeremy Shuback An image from a Shaboom! episode Jeremy directed COURTESY OF JEREMY SHUBACK An image from Samson: The Final Judge, illustrated by Nadav Nachmany An image from a Shaboom! episode Jeremy directed ! overlap of all the things I m good at. Jeremy Shuback