Ryan Hildebrandt is an independent animator known for his distinctively surreal visual style. Through the use of digital collage, traditional animation, and found-object art, Hildebrandt has developed a unique creative process that transforms everyday materials into tactile reveries that provide a multi-sensory reprieve from the sterility of today's digital media.

Working entirely from his apartment studio, Hildebrandt acts as an auteur. Each and every aspect of his productions is originally created in some way. Meticulous sound design, foley, and musical compositions accompany his handmade work—his technique involving overlapping hand-drawn or sculpted elements with manipulated photographs, often cutting or morphing images to achieve a desired form.

Hildebrandt's animations evoke a dreamlike experience of his bizarro city-scapes populated by eerie or uncanny characters. Mundane scenes of quotidian life are ornate with muddled analogue and digital textures, and the effect is an unsettling "real".

Entirely self-taught, Hildebrandt mastered various animation software programs through persistent experimentation rather than formal training. His work incorporates a growing array of materials, including clay sculptures, photographed fragments, hand-drawn elements, and found scraps assembled through a meticulous collaging process.