Jonathan Ecklund

Job Title:
Marketing and Communications / Producer

What do I do?
I maintain our website and overal web presence, produce our marketing collateral, represent ghOst at tradeshows and industry events, and manage a lot of our client contact and outreach. I am also responsible for the final animation output (i.e. look and feel of an animation) for many of our clients, and I am intricately involved in the production process from start to finish.

What's the coolest thing about Ghost?
The people I get to work with here are fantastic, and I've known them for over 10 years now, so the relationships are solid and real. Even when we have to work late, it's still a great environment, and it's hard to keep from laughing all the time.

What do I do when I'm not working?
I love spending time with my wife, Ali. She's awesome and I love her more than anything. Board games are always a good distraction, and we also try to walk our dog, Harper, at least a few miles everyday. I like to go sailing and wakeboarding in the summertime, and love skiing and traveling to warm places in the winter. My wife and I are also very politically active. I really dig gambling, primarily of the Poker variety, video games are also an entertaining distraction.

My story:
I was born and raised in Minnesota, growing up in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. After a brief stint in the public schools, I went to Mounds Park Academy, where in 9th thought 11th grade I convinced the school to purchase Infini-D, a 3-D software package, Adobe Photoshop 2.0, and Adobe Premier, for the computer lab. Over the next 4 years I got hooked on 3D modeling, graphic design, and motion graphics. I graduated in 1998 and headed south to the College of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where i was enrolled in the Moving Images Arts department to study film and film production. In the summers of 2000 and 2001 I interned at Ghost Productions in Minnesota, an entertaining but often bruising time. Over my 4 years of study at CSF, I ended up developing a custom major for myself, a combination of film theory, video production, photography, art, and interactive video installation development. After graduating in 2002, I moved back to Minnesota and founded 444 Productions, a small indepenting graphic and web design studio. I ran 444 while concurrently working as a gaffer and miscellaneous crew on various television shoots and productions in the Minneaplis-St. Paul area. My first fully employed stint with ghOst was between 2003-2005. I then worked for several years at FirstTech, a local technology retailer, first as a video-equipment sales rep, then as Team Manager for a group of software/database developers. I returned to ghOst in Late 2007.

Favorite Internet Links:
www.wikipedia.org
www.fivethirtyeight.com
www.failblog.org

Email:
jonathan@ghostproductions.com

AIM Account:
lasthope444