Through his company Chiodo Bros Productions, Stephen has established himself as a highly creative special effects director with expertise in stop-motion animation.
Fascinated with stop-motion animation at an early age, Stephen perfected his animation and directorial skills at Rochester Institute of Technology. During this, he was awarded "Best Young Director" at the Cannes Film Festival for "Cricket," a ten-minute short he wrote, produced, and directed. His first major professional credit was animation director on the first feature-length clay animated film, "I Go Pogo," based on Walt Kelly's "Pogo" comic strip.
Moving from New York to Los Angeles in 1980, Stephen quickly established himself in a new market and co-wrote and directed the award-winning ABC After School Special, "Cousin Kevin."
He served as co-producer and visual effects supervisor for Sid & Marty Krofft's "All New Land of the Lost" TV series and directed several episodes. Additionally, Stephen developed, and executive produced the innovative effects-filled CBS series "The Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys" with Howie Mandel.
For his feature film, the popular cult classic "Killer Klowns from Outer Space," Stephen served as writer and director. Bouncing back and forth between movies, television, and commercials, Stephen and company have received Emmy Awards for animation work on "The Simpsons" and the Sci-Fi mini-series "Dune" and the Cannes Film Festival's Lion Award two years in a row for the Nissan "Cup-A- Noodles" campaign.
Over the years, Stephen has worked with notable Hollywood directors such as Joe Dante, Jon Favreau, John Landis, Matt Stone & Trey Parker. He also worked closely with Tim Burton on several projects, most notably as a Technical Director and animator for the acclaimed short "Vincent" for Disney and animating Large Marge in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure."
Stephen has developed and directed pilots for CNN, ShowTime, Nickelodeon, and the Disney Channel and directed "Alien Xmas," a stop motion holiday special for Netflix, based on a book he co-authored. In his most recent project, "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" Stephen functioned as supervising animation director.