Pinoy co-director of Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’ to dreamers: Share your work, get feedback

The Filipino co-director of Disney-Pixar's latest offering "Inside Out" said he never planned to be part of the "friendly, plushy, lovable" industry that is animation. But that is where he ended up after following his heart.

Ronnie del Carmen attended the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising. He went on to work as an art director for print and television campaigns in the advertising industry.

"I did not plan to be in animation. I did not plan to be in the movie industry. I just fell into it. I majored in advertising, Fine Arts major in Advertising. Everything was a long shot. I did not dream of these things," he said during a press conference at Makati City on Friday.



Del Carmen moved to the United States in 1989 and worked as a storyboard artist for "Batman: The Animated Series" and for DreamWorks as a story supervisor.

He joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2000. Since then, he has been a member of the story team on a number of the studio's feature films, including the Academy Award-winning features "Finding Nemo," "Ratatouille," and "Up," where he served as story supervisor. In fact, he boarded the heartbreaking start of the movie.

"You know that beginning part of the movie when you see Carl and Elie fall in love and live together, all of that, four and a half minutes that Ronnie boarded," "Inside Out" director Pete Docter told the press.

Del Carmen made his directorial debut with the short film "Dug’s Special Mission," which was released on the "Up" DVD and Blu-Ray.

"I was lucky enough that people believed in me enough. Pete invited me to do the story. Then,Pete invited me to be his co-director. I feel like I won the lottery. This is great. I didn't know how to do this job," he said.

Making it

GMA News Online asked Del Carmen a few words of wisdom for aspiring filmmakers and animators who want to break into the industry. Dreamers, read: Just keep going.

"It helps that you're actually doing the thing that you love. One thing that I do know is that if you are a creative person or whatever that is that you do, you wanna keep doing that thing... You have to do it, [whether] somebody paid you or not," he said.

But doing what you love to do is not enough. You have to share your work and get feedback.

"If you have these dreams of making it, but you feel like, 'I don't know if you have the right skills,' the only advice I have because this is how I  grew as an individual-creative-professional person is that you make something. If no one hires you to do it, make something [anyway]. Finish it. Complete the task. And then show it to people. No matter how kind of like uninformed or you're kinda fumbling away in the dark, you will get feedback. Because if you don't get feedback, you don't know what to fix. You don't know how to improve," the animator said.

Del Carmen added that no one can be the best and not make mistakes. Dreamers should not be afraid to commit mistakes.  

"Do something. Finish it. Show it to people. Get feedback. You will get to all of your dreams eventually," he said.

The crowd applauded. — BM, GMA News

"Inside Out" will open in the Philippines on August 19.