Leaping the Divide

Another feature animation director crosses over to live-action.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson, best known for helming the Kung Fu Panda movies, will make her live-action directorial debut with Darkest Minds, Fox’s adaptation of the YA trilogy by Alexandra Bracken.

Shawn Levy and his 21 Laps banner are producing. ...

Nelson rose through the animation ranks working on shows such as Spawn and The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest before making her directorial debut with 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2, which nabbed an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. She directed Kung Fu Panda 3, which was released in January. ...

Jennifer Yuh Nelson broke into animation two decades ago, working as a board artist in television. Being multi-faceted, she also worked as a designer, a background artist, and writer.

She came to DreamWorks Animation a few years after its founding, and worked as a story artist on various DWA features before directing the hand-drawn segment of Kung Fu Panda, then directing the whole kaboodle on subsequent Pandas. Given the trajectory of Jennifer Yuh Nelson's career to date, the move to live-action seems as though it's part of a natural progression.

Jennifer talks about her artistic career at this link and this link.