Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Jennifer Yuh Nelson, also known as Jennifer Yuh, is an American director and storyboard artist. She is best known for her directorial debut Kung Fu Panda 2. Yuh is the first woman to solely direct an animated feature from a major Hollywood studio...
NationalitySouth Korean
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth13 June 1972
ideas choices shapes
Every movie goes through that U-shape where you start with 'Oh that's a great idea. I love it.' Everything's possible and then you face 'Oh, we can't do that, and that's impossible, and that's a bad choice.' You go the practicality of it. And then you come up to 'Great.' But that middle part is when you don't have results yet.
transition tough aggressive
I'm not aggressive by nature and it was tough for me to make the transition to directing.
years sweat tears
We want to be proud of our work and make sure it's worth the talent of the animators, who spent four years of their love, sweat and tears on it.
furniture tantrums persons
I'm a very soft-spoken person. I don't throw furniture. I don't throw tantrums.
army people film
It's like being the general of an army [directing a film]. You send people out to die.
blessed thinking kung-fu-panda
We got the best actors imaginable [in Kung Fu Panda]. If we could have made a wish list I don't think there would anyone else we would have added. Yeah, we've been blessed with exactly how amazing a cast of actors we have. To have someone like Bryan Cranston, who is not just an amazing actor, but who has such a range.
voice people acting
You have to make sure that people are still motivated and happy and creatively challenged so that it can all be stitched together. The voice acting starts after a lot of the storyboards are done.
roots kung-fu-panda wish
Po's [Kung Fu Panda] unending enthusiasm is something we wish we could have. We can't help but root for him because of his geek energy.
ideas people important
When people feel safe, they can come up with ideas. It's important to listen to the actor who is there on the stage and living it.
two people style
We actually tried to put in [Kung Fu Panda 3] all the things we wanted to put into the first two films. We're all the same people who've been working on the other films and we all had things we couldn't do, and had to leave on the table. We just couldn't achieve them before. This time we have multiple new environments and different styles of animation.
two perfect chinese
We did two films [Kung Fu Panda], because the first two films were so embraced by the Chinese audiences we wanted to make something we could push further and since this is a co-production, it seemed like the perfect time to create something that felt native to Chinese audiences.
nice thinking people
I think it's really nice to have an authenticity, it's a huge source for us to be able to lean on people who have that knowledge.