Jed Diffenderfer
Writer & Director (Feature Animation)
After 25 years experience shaping the stories of award winning animated features from the blank‑page stage through studio development (Kung Fu Panda, Wreck‑It Ralph, Big Hero 6, The Secret Life of Pets, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, K‑Pop Demon Hunters, etc), I'm currently writing for clients at home and abroad on new features and series.
I’ve spent my career in the story departments of Sony, Pixar, Illumination, Disney, DreamWorks, and more in roles as a writer, director, head of story, story lead, story artist and more - consistently leaned on to solve major problems, allowing scripts and story reels to be greenlit for development and/or production. In short, I'm hired to solidify the narrative bedrock of characters, worlds, and storylines that produce franchise-spawning, box-office & streaming hits.
World Class Storyteller & Filmmaker
25+ years experience as a world class storyteller in story departments across the industry's top studios in a range of key creative and leadership roles, forming stories successfully into the narrative bedrock of globally beloved characters and worlds of record breaking franchises!
Character & Worldbuilding
A central part of our story work is creating original characters from blank page into personas of worldwide celebrities. Understanding what makes a character and their world not only work, but worth returning to is something I excel at consistently whenever the opportunity arises.
Examples of character story & persona development from past films
Yes, Writing AND Storyboarding!
One of the biggest misconceptions about story artists is that they are storyboard artists (like in live action, tv, or games). All of our ‘script pages’ are actually adapted to screenplay format AFTER we write & re-write them as part of the boarding process. This method of working has been the norm for nearly 100 years for feature animation, but you might also recognize it as the Pixar model, or “Hayao Miyazaki Style” writing.
The main reason it’s done this way is that our ‘editing process’ happens BEFORE the footage is shot/animated, instead of after - so we need to serve a role that is all at once writing, directing, and acting. It’s also very similar to the role of a narrative designer for games, creating the narrative road map that unites departments around a central vision, eliminating the misinterpretations that come from text-only guides. Our Story Reels allow us to ‘make the movie, before we make the movie’.
I do traditional screenwriting as well, but depending on the needs of the project, I offer both.
KPOP Demon Hunters | Head of Story, Writing, Co-Direction
Hired from Pixar to be Head of Story for KPOP Demon Hunters in 2022. Maggie and Chris asked me to also help write and co-direct the film with them, based on an original story concept of Maggie’s. I oversaw assembly of our first screening draft so we could launch artists, then built that story department, hired a story team I was asked to also train. I oversaw the first story in our first two screening cycles of story development, an unprecedented amount of which ended up in the final film from the very first outing.
KPOP Demon Hunters became the most watched film on Netflix of all time, becoming an international phenomenon that has now spawned sequels, spinoffs, and games.
“Original Pixar Feature Film” | Story Lead
While at Pixar, I helped out early on Inside Out 2, and Hoppers, but most of my time was spent as Story Lead on an Original “Magical Girl” genre film at Pixar, being Directed by Kristen Lester, Written by and with Head of Story Sunmee Joh. This was all remote, during the Covid era.
Later on, when it became clear we couldn’t afford to relocate to the Bay Area for Pixar, I arranged a smooth roll-off and left for an offer as Head of Story for KPOP Demon Hunters at Sony.
Super Mario Bros Movie | Story Development, Story Artist
I was brought onto the Super Mario Bros Movie in early development to help create a pitch that ultimately earned Illumination the greenlight from Nintendo and Miyamoto-san to create the film. In a first, Illumination continued using my work from the first film as material for sequels, hence the prohibition from sharing much publicly.
The Super Mario Bros Movie became the highest grossing animated films of all time, the biggest success Illumination had ever seen, and unsurprisingly has opened the floodgates to sequels and spinoffs.
Minions & Monsters | Creator, Writer, Director
In 2018, I was hired to create an original concept for the minions as part of a first-look deal, and prep for a feature (the shorts program is the full feature pipeline). Inspired by introducing my son to D&D, I created the “Minions & Monsters” concept for them. My original ‘Minion-size story’ was very simply a party of them setting out to be hero’s in a D&D world to slay a dragon, but ending up working for it instead, then ride it back to destroy the village they were supposed to save. One of the many challenges with the pipeline was to reuse as many pre-existing assets from the Minions film as possible - so I pitched a kitbashing approach to utilize rigs from other films as well. With the help of my co-director Chloe Leseur in France, we greatly expanded the scope of what was possible for thier short film program.
This concept inspired an entire feature film, also titled “Minions & Monsters”.
Secret Life of Pets | Story Artist
This was the first project I worked on exclusively remotely and ended up creating the first sequence to lock the tone of the film, and be sent into production. I was also asked to fill in as a director on the first short film spinoff.
The success of Secret Life of Pets led it to become the newest original franchise for Illumination Studios following their Despicable Me/Minions Universe.
Big Hero 6| Story Artist
This was the first Marvel/Disney animated feature film which we began pre-Avengers as part of the initial MCU lineup. I was brought on as the first story artist by our Head of Story Joe Mateo, also working with Marvel Legend Joe Quesada to develop what was statistically Marvel’s least popular comic book, and turn it into one of its most successful by adapting it, and re-conceiving the story, characters, and world into a new Disney feature film.
Big Hero 6 went on to win a best animated film Oscar, and launch an entire franchise of theme park attractions, tv series, games, and sequel.
Wreck-It Ralph | Story Artist, Narrative Design
Originally titled “Reboot Ralph”, I was hired to help steer the show through an avalanche of story notes it was getting, one of the top ones being that it didn’t feel like a ‘video game movie’ which was the central premise. My unique background in game design as well as being a story artist made me uniquely suited to solve this for them - and along with my story work creating scenes, I also developed each of our main game worlds (Hero’s Duty, Sugar Rush) as games in and of themselves - as an extension of my job. I was also asked to help in meetings with Disney’s legal team to help strategize which IP to fight for rights to from a story-perspective. One of our other directives for this film was to shake up a stagnant story culture at the feature animation studio.
Wreck-It Ralph’s success spawned a new franchise for Disney of Sequels, Games, Toys, and more, and internally helped pave the way for a number of hits that followed.
Kung-Fu Panda | Writing, Direction, Story Artist
My contributions to Kung-Fu Panda cannot be overstated. I played a central role in creating the character of Po in my earliest sequences, getting me thrown into the executive level of the films development, and tasked with writing/re-writing scenes to launch other story artists on, then work in the initial voice records with Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman to find the voices for the characters. Asked to share ‘my vision for the film’, I wrote and storyboarded the opening 2D sequence of the film, convincing Dreamworks to open a shuttered 2D animation division. My concept for our kung-fu action “Animals doing Animal-Style without human anatomy limitations” was something I also spearheaded with my midpoint ‘bridge fight’ setpiece, and was then was tapped to create our first spinoff direct-to-video sequel “Secrets of the Furious Five”.
Kung-Fu Panda went on to become a major franchise of sequels, televisions series, games, theme park attractions, and overall one of the primary pillars of IP Dreamworks Animation was built on - it’s second major franchise following Shrek.
