Arts & Entertainment
Peter Ramsey: The ‘Rise of the Guardians’ Interview
Kam Williams
Special To
R
ise of the Guardians is
Peter Ramsey’s first feature
film after directing the hit
DreamWorks Animation Hal-
loween special, “Monsters vs.
Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from
Outer Space.” This project fol-
lowed the feature film, “Monsters
vs. Aliens” on which Ramsey
served as Head of Story. While at
DreamWorks Animation, Ramsey
also served as a story artist on
“Shrek the Third,” and as a story
board artist on “Shark Tale.”
Before joining DreamWorks
Animation in 2004, Ramsey’s tal-
ent as a storyboard artist was on
display while working on a
notable number of live action fea-
ture
films,
including
“Adaptation,” “Minority Report,”
“A.I. Artificial Intelligence,”
“Cast Away”, “How the Grinch
Stole Christmas,” “Fight Club,”
“Godzilla,” “Men in Black,”
“Independence Day,” “Batman
Forever,” “Far and Away,” “Back-
draft,” and “Predator 2” amongst
others.
Ramsey’s directing skills were
also honed early, as he served as
Second Unit Director on live
action feature films including
“Godzilla,” “Tank Girl,” “Higher
Learning,” and “Poetic Justice.” A
lifelong resident of Los Angeles,
California, Peter grew-up in Cren-
shaw, and graduated from
Palisades High School before
attending UCLA.
Here, he talks about his life and
career, and about being the first
African-American to direct a full-
length, animated feature.
Kam Williams: Hi Peter, thanks
for the interview. I’m honored to
have this opportunity to speak
with you.
Peter Ramsey: Oh, the plea-
sure’s all mine, Kam. The
pleasure’s all mine.
KW: I really enjoyed Rise of the
Guardians. Let me start by asking
you what it meant to make history
as the first African-American
hired by a big studio to direct a
full-length, animated feature?
PR: I thought about it a little bit
when I first got the job, but then
rapidly got lost in the work. It
wasn’t until later, when my mom
and dad read that fact about me in
the newspaper, and I saw how it
affected them, that it came back to
me. Since I talk to a lot of groups
at schools, one good thing is that
kids can look at me and have
direct knowledge of someone
who’s doing something they
might be dreaming of doing them-
selves.
KW: How did you get the gig?
Judging from your bio, it seems
like you’ve been a storyboard
artist most of your career until
now.
PR: Right. I got into film as a
storyboard artist, but my dream
was always to be a director. The
way I was able to get into the
industry was through drawing. As
a storyboard artist, you basically
pre-visualize the whole film
through drawing. So, I spent a lot
of my career doing that with many
different directors. That was real-
ly film school for me, my training
ground, because I got to work with
so many great people.
KW: So, what was your aca-
demic background? Did you study
art?
PR: I’m pretty much self-taught.
I took a couple of art classes in
high school, and I entered college
with the intention of majoring in
art. But I was a little too young
when I started at UCLA at 17, and
I wasn’t ready for the concept of
art that was being taught there. I
was intimidated by Art History,
and didn’t get it. All I was inter-
Peter Ramsey
ested in was drawing. I wish I had
been able to hang tough, but I
dropped out after a couple years.
Of course, I did learn a bunch of
that stuff later on.
KW: Editor/Legist Patricia
Turnier was wondering whether
the film is faithful to the book
series it’s based upon.
PR: An interesting thing about
the movie and the books is that
they were both being developed at
the same time. The books’ author,
Bill Joyce, in his talks with the
studio, said, “It would be really
cool, if I could do a series of books
about the origins of these charac-
ters, how they came to be and
their backs stories while you guys
were simultaneously developing a
movie about the first time they all
came together.” So, they’re all the
same characters and they share
the same mythology, but the
movie and the books are pretty
different.
KW: Patricia also asks: What
message do you want children to
take away from your movie?
PR: The main message of the
film is that you have the power to
create magic through your imagi-
nation and to bring it into the
world, whether that’s in the form
of the Guardian characters who
represent a lot of things we need,
or whether it’s just anybody creat-
ing something. That is the best
way to fight fear. That’s probably
the central idea of the movie.
KW: Why did you tweak these
familiar characters, like giving
Santa a Russian accent and mak-
ing him look a little different from
what we’ve come to expect?
PR: The basic idea behind the
books was to suggest that you
grew up with a made-up version of
all these characters, as if there’s a
See GUARDIANS page 12
Check Out
The Skanner’s
Turn-the-pages
WebPaper
www.theskanner.com
home page: click the ‘Full
Print Version Online’
button to view our full
newspapers, just as they
are printed, on-line. Just
click to turn the pages
and click to zoom.
December 5, 2012
The Portland Skanner Page 7