Jay Oliva is an American director, producer, show-runner, and senior illustrator who resides in Los Angeles, California. He began his career in animation working on Fox's animated series "Spider-Man" in 1996.
Oliva's early work includes directing the CGI series "Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles" in 1998 and working on various other animated series such as "Extreme Ghostbusters," "Godzilla," "Heavy Gear," "Max Steele," "Spider-Man" (MTV series),and "Jackie Chan Adventures" for Sony.
In 2000, Oliva joined Mike Young Productions as Storyboard Supervisor for the "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" reboot, working on the series from 2000 to 2002.
Oliva's first foray into the DC superhero universe was when he was hired as a storyboard artist for "The Batman" (2004) series for Warner Bros. Animation. This marked the beginning of a long career in the DC animated universe.
In 2007, Oliva was involved in three different properties: Marvel/Lionsgate hired him to direct on their newly green-lit animated direct-to-video features, including "The Invincible Iron Man," "Doctor Strange," and "Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow"; Disney hired him to do storyboard work on the new CGI "My Friends Tigger and Pooh" series; and Warner Brothers Animation hired him to storyboard on their first direct-to-video animated feature, "Superman: Doomsday."
In 2009, Oliva accepted a position at Warner Brothers Animation and has been there since. While at Warner Bros., Oliva has story-boarded on many of the series and animated films in the WB library, including "Scooby-Doo: Mystery Inc.," "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," "Wonder Woman" (animated film),"Green Lantern First Flight," "Batman: Year One," "Batman/Superman: Public Enemies," "Batman/Superman: Apocalypse," and "Batman: Under the Red Hood."
Oliva is also known for his directing efforts, having directed a total of nine animated films and serving as the series director for the popular "Young Justice" (2010) series. His directing credits include "Green Lantern: Emerald Knights" (2011),"The Dark Knight Returns part 1 and 2" (2012-2013),"Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox" (2013),"Justice League: War" (2014),"Batman: Assault on Arkham" (2014),"Batman Vs. Robin" (2015),and "Batman: Bad Blood" (2016).
In addition to his work in animation, Oliva has also worked on live-action films, including "Man of Steel" (2013),"300: Rise of an Empire" (2014),"Batman V Superman" (2016),"Ant-man" (2015),"Deadpool" (2016),"Wonder Woman" (2017),and "Justice League" (2017).
In 2019, Oliva founded Lex + Otis animation Studio in Glendale, California, where he serves as CEO and showrunner on various projects, including animated shorts, series, films, and live-action features and TV series. The studio's first project was the critically acclaimed series "Trese" (Netflix),based on the award-winning Filipino graphic novel series of the same name.
Today, Oliva splits his time between running Lex + Otis, teaching, and directing for animation and live-action films.
