Rob Shaw is a superfan who can recite animation history and statistics like an ace baseball card collector.

After graduating from Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, Rob chased two careers: one as a professional animator on high-profile tv series and the other – writing and directing award-winning animated shorts. In 2006 he decided to concentrate solely on directing and has been Bent Image Lab’s marquee director ever since.
Some of Rob’s accolades include “Best Television Program for Adults” in the 2012 Ottawa Animation Festival awarded for his stop motion rat segments in the hit show, “Portlandia,”  “Best Animated Short” from the Atlanta Film Festival for ’The Machine’  and a 2015 Annie Award nomination for his Hallmark TV special, “Polariffic.”
Rob ties his success to some of the first impressions animation made on him at a young age. “The first time I saw a touring animation festival, I was 15. Up to that moment, I had only seen mainstream animation offered from the entertainment industry. Here were films that were more like art museum work than cartoons. It clicked like a light switch and I knew that this was the medium I wanted to work in – this largely unexplored medium of animation.”