- Owns and shoots with the camera that was used to shoot A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965).
- Although Hertzfeldt's approach to animation is traditional (pen, paper, and film), his methods are self-taught and unorthodox. Most of his films are created without a script; he usually begins with a concept that is created and shaped out as the months progress. This allows for creative experiments, improvisation, and an element of spontaneity.
- Hertzfeldt often does not use computers in his animation or photography process. This forces him to draw every element on the screen over and over again, lending his films their jittery, kinetic appearance. He also often forgoes animating traditional key frames and instead simply draws straight ahead.
- Creator of some of the most popular animated shorts of all time, which have been featured in over a thousand film festivals and theatrical venues worldwide.
- Hertzfeldt is the only filmmaker to have won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for Short Film twice: for "Everything Will Be OK" in 2007 and for "World of Tomorrow" in 2015.
- In 2001 was named by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the "top 25 directors to watch.".
- Hertzfeldt has had eight films compete at the Sundance Film Festival, which is a festival record: Rejected, The Meaning of Life, Everything Will Be OK, I Am So Proud of You, Wisdom Teeth, It's Such a Beautiful Day, World of Tomorrow, and World of Tomorrow Episode Two.
- His father, whose family is from Wisconsin, is of German descent. His mother is Swedish.
- Graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1998
- Co-founded "The Animation Show" in 2003, a festival of animation that put animated short films into more North American movie theaters than any in history.
- Received the San Francisco International Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award at the age of 33, for his "unique contributions to film and animation," and for "challenging the boundaries of his craft.".
- In 2012, Hertzfeldt was ranked # 16 in an animation industry and historian survey of the "Top 100 Most Influential People in Animation.".
- Uncle of Winona Mae.
- Since doing his intro for The Simpsons, Hertzfeldt has moved away from animating with his trademark analogue methods in favor for digital animation. Hertzfeldt says: "The speed at which I could suddenly get things done just by drawing on a tablet instead of paper - plus no longer shooting it all under a giant camera was a really big deal.".
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