From West Virginia to Frozen II: Jillian Carney Howell’s Journey to Disney Animation

Former Marshall University student Jillian Howell, a production assistant for Disney Animation who worked on Frozen II, will participate in a public discussion after a screening of the film at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1, at Marquee Cinemas in Pullman Square.

In her discussion, “From West Virginia to Frozen II: Jillian Carney Howell’s Journey to Disney Animation,” Howell will talk about her path to Disney, which began with a Barbie video camera she got for Christmas that sparked her love of filmmaking. The Scott Depot, West Virginia, native showed an early interest in the field, winning online video contests in middle school, lobbying her high school principal to let her take a screenwriting course, saving money in a jar to attend the New York Film Academy summer camp, and bringing color to the Winfield High School’s morning announcements.

Howell attended Marshall University and went on to the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Film Studies program, where she wrote, directed and produced her own narrative and documentary short films and graduated in 2017. Since January 2019, she has been a production assistant at Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California, working in production management on Frozen II.

Howell’s discussion will also feature Justin McElroy of Huntington, a Marshall graduate and nationally renowned podcaster, who along with his brothers, Travis and Griffin, will voice characters in the upcoming animated film Trolls World Tour. The brothers’ podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me is the basis of a recent TV adaptation, and podcasts that McElroy co-hosts with family members, Sawbones and The Adventure Zone, have been adapted into New York Times bestselling books.

The event is free with the purchase of a movie ticket and open to the public. It is sponsored by the video production program in the College of Arts and Media and Marquee Cinemas.