Disney XD will premiere Yonatan Tal’s student short film, Nightmare in the Morning on Saturday, March 24th at 9:00pm ET/PT, marking the first time the channel has run a short film created by a student. Tal made the film during his third year in the Character Animation program at CalArts, and completed it while on an exchange semester at the acclaimed Gobelins l’école de l’image animation school in Paris. The film was named a Vimeo Staff Pick when it first premiered online and has played in several major festivals around the world.

Featuring an original song by Abby Lyons and sung by Natalie Perez, Nightmare in the Morning is a music video about how director Yonatan Tal feels every morning when he wakes up. Tal says, “With Nightmare in the Morning, I wanted to capture the haziness of that time of the day in a blown up, extravagant way — from the moment I get up to the moment I drink my coffee. Pop music videos and dance culture heavily inspired the film as far as its structure, staging and editing, characters, costume designs and background design.”

Born and raised in Israel, Tal most recently served as a story artist on Disney TV Animation’s Tangled: The Series and the upcoming Amphibia.

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.

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