Biography
David G. Derrick Jr. is an American film director and storyboard artist. He was born on 22 June 1978 in Farmington, Utah. He studied at the University of Utah and CalArts before beginning his career at DreamWorks Animation.
Derrick worked as a story artist on films including Bee Movie (2007), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Megamind (2010) and Rise of the Guardians (2012). He later joined Walt Disney Animation Studios, contributing as a story artist on Moana (2016), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Encanto (2021) and Strange World (2022).
He made his directorial debut as co-director of Moana 2 (2024), alongside Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller. Of Samoan heritage, he had previously storyboarded key sequences for the original Moana.
