About

JasperLark is about creative direction… from many directions.

From theme parks to computer games… from masterplanning to screenwriting… from museum and expo design to educational websites and riverboats. Our background is a smorgasbord linked only by a dedication to turning ideas into enlivening experiences.

We bring narrative punch to architecture and parks, structure and technique to fantasy, and narrative delight and game structure to education.

JasperLark is headed in one direction, on three distinct but interlocking paths, towards design, entertainment and education.

 Who 

Jefferson Eliot has a varied background as a designer and writer in theme parks, television, corporate communications, and computer games.

In the nineties, Eliot incorporated JECD – Jefferson Eliot Concept Design. JECD developed concepts for theme parks, urban entertainment centers, attractions and restaurants. Clients include Universal Studios (for various attraction concepts) and Golden Harvest Films for movie treatments and projects in Singapore and Hong Kong. In corporate communications, JECD developed concepts, theatrical presentations and graphic design for Brainstorm Creative in the early 2000’s.

Since then, Eliot has designed various large-scale theme park concepts for projects in Xi’an and Tsing Tao, China, changing his company name to JasperLark, Inc. More recently Eliot worked at Riva (Art Director on Motiongate), Rethink (projects in Dubai, China and the UK).

JECD designed and produced art and animation for various edutainment games for McGraw Hill Home Interactive. Prior to founding JECD, Eliot was Creative Director at Activision. In 2000, Eliot was Creative Director for FreakinBrilliant.com, a homework activity site for teens.

Eliot wrote and designed an attraction for the German pavilion at Expo Hanover 2000 that dramatized ideas for change in the German economy using pepper’s ghost technology and computer animated characters. For the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Eliot wrote and designed a computer animated movie that tells the story of the Cherokee creation myth. Both were produced by Technifex inc.

In television, Eliot was Production Designer on the first four episodes of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre, a groundbreaking Showtime cable series, and Director of Visual Effects on Captain Power & The Soldiers of the Future, the world’s first (and, I think, only) interactive TV series (1988).

Eliot sold a TV pilot, “Downtown” to ABC Studios and a TV movie, “Team Julia” to Lifetime Network, both of which he wrote with his wife and partner in JasperLark, Inc., Kendell Shaffer.

Prior to incorporating JECD, Eliot worked with Landmark Entertainment Group as Chief Concept Designer and Executive Art Director. He designed attractions, major theme park concepts and mixed-use developments, including a masterplan for a multi-billion dollar park for Warner Brothers and another for Coney Island (unbuilt). He designed and art directed extensively in Japan on two theme parks for Sanrio: PuroLand and HarmonyLand. Eliot started in theme park design at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Eliot grew up in Europe and studied theater at Pomona College, specializing in Kabuki. He did further studies at Oxford University, Harvard and New York University.

Kendell Shaffer has had a multifaceted career in entertainment, most recently working in VFX (visual effects) on ‘Knight and Day,’ a 20th Century Fox film due out in June. During the shoot she traveled with the film to Boston, Salzburg, Austria and Seville, Spain.

In  2007 she joined the WGA when she sold a TV pilot, ‘Downtown’ to ABC Studios and a TV movie, ‘Team Julia’ to Lifetime Television, both of which she wrote with her writing partner, Jefferson Eliot. In 2009, Kendell and Jefferson turned their TV pilot, ‘Affairs of State’ about interns on Capitol Hill, into a stage play, which was performed at Electric Lodge to sold-out houses.

She has been teaching screenwriting for the Writer’s Guild Foundation in their High School Screenwriting workshop, bringing screen writing into inner city schools throughout Los Angeles. Her work with teens inspired her to write a YA novel, KALIFORNIA BLU, which she has just finished. It is the first of a series set in Venice, California.

Kendell has been Associate Producer on the movie ‘Sirens’ for Showtime; ‘King of the World’ for ABC; ‘Nash Bridges,’ ‘Orleans,’ and ‘Texarkana’ for CBS. She’s worked as Graphics Supervisor on ‘CSI:NY,’ and Visual Effects Supervisor on ‘VR.5,’ ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,’ and ‘Titanic,’ the CBS mini-series. She put in her time with Roger Corman in the art department on four Concorde-New Horizon movies, and was set decorator for various music videos and commercials. She is a voting member of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences and an annual judge the Scriptwriters Network Screenwriting Competition.

In addition to spending time with her family, she is co-founder of Garage Band Venice, a musical jam where kids learn to play music together in individual bands.
Kendell is a graduate of New York University, Tisch School of the Arts. She is a former dancer and grew up in Baltimore, the daughter of two ballet dancers.