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Jeff Lew is a self-taught computer animator, writer, producer, and director who is known for his Killer Bean animated film series.[1] He is sometimes mistaken for the education activist Jeff Lew, who has campaigned to remove school lunch debt from schools across Washington state.[2]

Early Life

Lew grew up wanting to be a film maker and collaborated with friends throughout middle school, high school, and college to make kung fu and sci-fi movies.[3] During college, Lew took 4 years of Tae Kwon Do and studied Karate and Kung Fu as well. Although he aspired to be a film director from a young age, he majored in engineering in college and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts between between 1994 and 1995. During College

Career

After college, Lew worked as a web designer during the day and began teaching himself computer animation at night. Lew first developed the character of Killer Bean in 1996 to practice 3d animation; the character, by his own admission, was never supposed to be famous.[4] Despite this, Lew's 1996 Killer Bean Episode 1: The Interrogation enjoyed mild success on the internet, garnering 3,000 views. Killer Bean Episode 1: The Interrogation has since been reuploaded to YouTube in August 2009.[5] From 1996 to 1999, Lew began working as a web developer while working on Killer Bean 2: The Party, a 7-minute film, for 3 years at night.[6][7] While Hollywood producers noticed Killer Bean 2 's success and began talking to Lew about another film, no contract came to fruition. Lew began working on Killer Bean 3, a significantly longer version of Killer Bean 2, which he eventually renamed Killer Bean Forever after deciding to make it a feature film and lengthen it from 45 to 85 minutes. During this time, Lew worked as the series supervisor for the TIVO animated icon, the character animator for the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios, and the lead animator for the Matrix Reloaded.[8] Another animation work Lew did during this time included X-Men, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, The Simpsons (Universal Studies Ride), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief, and Tron Legacy.[9]

In 2003, before taking his four-year hiatus to work on Killer Bean Forever, Lew released a three-part instructional series titled "Learning 3D Character Animation" through DivX video.[10] In August 2005, while working on Killer Bean Forever, he answered questions on the CG Talk Series hosted by the CG Society.[11]

Killer Bean Forever

To make Killer Bean Forever, Lew lived off his life savings from previous Hollywood films and worked on the project up to 14 hours a day, 6 days a week for 5 years, only taking breaks to work side jobs to support his family.[12] With a paltry budget, limited technology, and no hired staff other than himself, Lew's 5-quad core computers were rendering animations for 24 hours a day, roughly 2 years. Due to his admitted lack of drawing talent, Lew subcontracted some of his character designs to concept artist/illustrator Von C. Caberte. Lew estimates that the total cost for Killer Bean Forever, including his own man hours, was roughly a million dollars.


 * 1) ↑  "Killer Bean Forever". web.archive.org. 2011-08-19. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
 * 2) ↑  Verador, Jenny. "One tray at a time, a Seattle dad helps erase school lunch debt around the state". UW Magazine — University of Washington Magazine. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
 * 3) ↑  The Making of a Masterpiece: A Killer Bean Story, retrieved 2020-01-22
 * 4) ↑  The Making of a Masterpiece: A Killer Bean Story, retrieved 2020-01-22
 * 5) ↑  Killer Bean Episode 1 The Interrogation, retrieved 2020-01-22
 * 6) ↑  The Making of a Masterpiece: A Killer Bean Story, retrieved 2020-01-22
 * 7) ↑  The Killer Bean 2: The Party, retrieved 2020-01-22
 * 8) ↑  "Killer Bean Forever". web.archive.org. 2011-08-19. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
 * 9) ↑  "Killer Bean Forever". web.archive.org. 2011-08-19. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
 * 10) ↑  "Renowned Animator Jeff Lew Releases Instructional Animation Series in High-Quality DivX Video". DivX Video Software. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
 * 11) ↑  "Meet the Artist: Jeff Lew". CGTalk. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
 * 12) ↑  "Killer Bean Forever". web.archive.org. 2011-03-20. Retrieved 2020-01-22.

