SVAD - School of Visual Arts & Design

Born and raised in Orlando, Darlene Hadrika has over twenty-five years of industry experience creating 3D computer animation for various short films, television shows, commercials and feature films. For over eight of those years, she worked as a CG Animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where she animated a number of computer graphic elements on the feature films Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear, Tarzan, and Fantasia 2000. Before joining Disney, Darlene worked at a number of studios in Southern California, and Atlanta, including Universal Studios-Hollywood, Rhythm & Hues, NBC, Lorimar, Rick Zettner & Associates, Novocom, and Crawford DESIGNefx. Over the years, she has animated commercials for AT&T, BASF, Coca Cola, and Culligan Water, and graphics for Cartoon Network, Weintraub Entertainment, Lockheed Martin, Chevrolet, TNT, NBC, the 1996 Olympics, and the Fernbank Science Museum among others. Her personal work includes the independent short animated films, "Spring Blanket" and "Dentophobia".

She earned her MFA in Theater, Film and Television: Animation from UCLA in Spring, 2010. Since 2004, she has taught a number of traditional and computer animation classes in UCF’s Visual Language/Character Animation specialization and has been involved with every class production since its inception. She directed the class of 2008 production of "Ladybug: Action Hero" and was the directing faculty advisor for the class of 2012 animated short film productions, "Box Forts" and "Flower Story".