A dream finally came true on the morning of January 6, 2017 for Kendall Haney, a 2013 graduate of NYU Tisch/Kanber: "The Trail to Udugu" her first script for the new series The Lion Guard appeared on The Disney Channel. She has been writing full-time for the series since September.
"This ["Udugu"] was the first episode I wrote on freelance," she explained in an email. "Boy, this whole animation thing takes a long time!"
Prior to Disney, Kendall was at DreamWorks Animation for over two years as Story/Editorial Coordinator on Kung Fu Panda and Trolls.
Kendall works alongside another 2013 NYU Animation area alum on The Lion Guard: Isabelle Gedigk, a storyboard artist at Disney TV since August 2015."Isabelle and I share a life long love of the Lion King characters," writes Kendall, "so it's incredible to both be telling stories with them."
Above is a photo of five year old Kendall in a Simba Halloween costume; on the right is Kendall on her first day working at Disney. Yes, she marvels, "This has been many years in the making!"
Jeremy Jensen, a former NYU Animation area student, recently completed a short film for Disney Junior, a romantic comedy titled "A Lobster to Remember": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ofFNt0bhw In 2015, Jeremy was a Production Coordinator for the Disney Junior series Sheriff Callie’s Wild West.
