RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab 2024
Sabrina Mansfield
Sabrina Mansfield is an award-winning director, writer, and producer. She has directed commercials, music videos, multi-cam sitcoms, a reality show, more than 20 shorts, and a feature. As a writer, her brand is kids TV. Her voice can be described simply as: If Norman Lear wrote kids shows. Through comedy, she highlights stories about the working-class, people of color, environmental justice, and racial equality. Mansfield has a particular love for kids’ TV because of her experiences as a foster/adopt mom in LA County for the past 12 years, including many kids/teens who have been placed under “Intensive Treatment Foster Care.” Because of this, she has spent a lot of time thinking about children’s social & emotional development and how to help kids recover from trauma and deal with adversity.
Multi-camera is Mansfield’s super-passion – in fact, she was the first grad student at USC to shoot an original multi-cam pilot (& an Episode 1) in front of a live audience. Because of this focus, she was privileged to have been offered 17 different prime time television observerships with some of TV’s most accomplished directors. Most of all, Mansfield has serious grit and refuses to let her disability and health challenges get in the way of her goal to write and direct for television and ultimately become a showrunner.
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After an extensive search and interview process, 5 individuals were invited to participate in an intensive session for disabled writers interested in writing for children’s animation, taking place May 20-23, with additional virtual sessions taking place in partnership with the virtual cohort, May – September 2024. Participants include people with a variety of disabilities ranging in age from the 20s through the 40s. This intensive elevates disabled creatives, focusing on building community, networking, and career advancement through a variety of speakers and a pitching workshop. This intensive is in collaboration with Disney Television Animation, DreamWorks Animation, LeVar Burton Entertainment, and PBS KIDS.
