When Kendall Wakefield walked across the stage May 2 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she was the first woman in her family to earn a college degree. The story of how she earned her degree in writing and media shows her grit, creativity and a refusal to wait for opportunities to come to her.
Wakefield grew up in Winfield, where she learned about art and theater through a local theater company. As soon as she graduated from high school, she packed her bags and moved to Birmingham, “which was like New York City compared to where I am from.” Working whatever jobs she could find, she got her first agent and began training as an actor.
She really wanted an education, so Wakefield decided to enroll at UAB and chose history as her major. Working with UAB’s Center for the Arts, first as a box office assistant, she then became a musical theater summer camp coordinator with ArtPlay Community Education, later teaching acting classes to kids and teens there. She also did outreach and after-school programs, even helping a local private school develop a full musical.
When Wakefield met Jackie Alexander, director of UAB Student Media, Alexander suggested she join UABtv, a student-run organization that helps people create their own podcasts, short films, documentaries, livestreams and more. Any student can do it completely free, and UABtv staff will teach them how. What started as curiosity quickly became a calling.
“I’ve always loved media, making advertisements, planning things out, creating,” Wakefield said. “Rather than talking about it, let’s do it. Do you want to make a little skit, a short film? I have always loved the creative arts, no matter what form it is — script writing, drawing, painting.”
Through UABtv, she learned how cameras worked and the basics of film production.
“I had been on a few movie sets and a few film sets, because I was an actor,” Wakefield said. “I was like, OK, let me try behind the scenes.’”
Within a year, she was named general manager of UABtv. When she started, there were seven or eight active members, and today there are more than 50, she says.
Wakefield created officer roles, added a production manager and marketing manager and expanded the organization’s output from a handful of videos a year to more than 30 podcasts and video series. She forged collaborations across campus and the city: a cooking show with the Department of Nutrition Sciences, livestreams for UAB hockey, workshops with Film Birmingham and hands‑on training sessions with professional cinematographers.
Wakefield also served as a social media and marketing intern for the Sidewalk Film Festival through a partnership between UAB Student Media and Sidewalk.
“We are teaching students things they can’t learn in a classroom,” she said. “And we are showing them that Birmingham’s film industry is real and growing.”
At about the same time, UAB launched the writing and media major, and she immediately swapped majors. The UAB Bachelor of Arts in writing and media is a 120-hour program in the College of Arts and Sciences designed for careers in content creation, technical writing and digital media. It combines concentrations in professional and creative writing, allowing customization through electives in art, film and communication.
Wakefield began filmmaking classes with Assistant Professor and Director of Media Studies Michele Forman in the Department of History, and Associate Professor and Director of Broadcasting Alan Franks and instructor Jessica Chriesman in the Department of Communication Studies. She discovered she loved the behind‑the‑scenes world just as much as performing. A class audio project she produced with Franks went on to win an Award of Excellence at the National Festival of Media Arts, her first major recognition as a media creator.
Wakefield learned how to properly format screenplays in the industry standard in class with the Department of Theatre’s Professor of Screenwriting Lee Shackleford. She found a mentor in Associate Professor James Braziel in the Department of English, who encouraged her to take her writing seriously and publish her works.
“He sat me down and said, ‘You can do something with this,’” she recalled. “That changed everything.”
Making films
& forging a career
In Forman’s class, Wakefield started one of her most personal projects: a documentary about her experience with craniosynostosis, a rare cranial condition she was born with and treated for at Children’s of Alabama.
Without treatment, doctors predicted, she could have become blind and deaf.
Her film explores her parents’ fears, the financial strain of a surgery not covered by insurance and the life she might have lived had she lost her sight or hearing. She plans to continue developing the project and hopes to one day support families facing the same diagnosis.
Wakefield continues to work as an actor, with roles in “Crosshairs” with Alec Baldwin (“So, if you see a paramedic running around with brown hair, she’s a UAB graduate,” Wakefield quipped) and “Neighborhood Watch” with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jack Quaid.
She uses every opportunity to advocate for UAB students on set.
“There’s a disconnect in the film industry right now,” she said. “I want UAB students to know this is a real industry. You can pursue this.”
Every few years, a student comes along who is “absolutely revolutionary,” with strong vision and a sense of purpose, Alexander says.
“That is exactly who Kendall is,” Alexander said. “Kendall makes everyone around her better, including myself. What she has been able to accomplish in a short time will reverberate for years to come.”
Wakefield’s years of hands‑on experience — producing, managing budgets, coordinating shoots, overseeing editors — paid off sooner than she expected.
While interviewing for internships in New York and working with local production studios, she applied for a digital content operations manager role with People Inc., the parent company of People magazine.
“I have years of experience under my belt, so I was like, ‘let me go for it,’” Wakefield said.
She was hired as the digital content operations manager.
“It’s exactly what I do for UABtv: being a producer, managing the roles for everyone, making sure the editors are on top of things, that we are releasing on time, everything is properly formatted, all the videos are correct,” Wakefield said. “And I just love that stuff, you know? I love the office side just as much as I love the production, hands-on camera side.”
The role is temporary, but Wakefield sees it as the perfect launchpad.
“It’s going to be amazing resume credit,” she said. “And they are supportive of my continuing acting and making my own films.”
Wakefield’s advice for students working on similar career paths is simple: Do not wait.
“If you are wondering about something, bring it up,” Wakefield said. “Talk to your professors. Teach yourself. Collaborate. Get with other UAB students to create your arts. You cannot make films without a film community, and you will not have a film community unless you make one.”
As Wakefield prepared to walk in the graduation ceremony at Bartow Arena, and as the first woman in her family to get a degree, she told her family to make her graduation a big deal. She had earned it.
“It’s been worth it to have a lot going on,” she said. “It’s worth it if you love it. And I just love it so much. I cannot do just one thing. I have to do it all.”
(Editor’s note: This article initially appeared online in UAB.EDU News and is reprinted here courtesy of the writer and UAB.)
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