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Fil-Canadian Pixar animator Trevor Jimenez gets his first Oscar nomination with short 'Weekends'
Los Angeles — When actor-comedian Kumail Nanjiani and actress-producer-director Tracee Ellis Ross announced the 91st Oscar nominations last January 22 at 5:20am (LA Time), Trevor Jimenez and his wife got up at 4:30 am so as not to miss the announcement.
“It was also our eighth anniversary and we had breakfast early that day,” he revealed to us in an exclusive interview over the phone.
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Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the deep-voiced Filipino-Canadian woke up to good news when he heard that his 15-minute, 2D short animated film, “Weekends,” got an Oscar nomination. What a special anniversary treat indeed!
The hand-animated film set in the 1980's in Toronto garnered an Oscar nod and is competing against “Animal Behaviour,” “Bao,” “Late Afternoon,” and “One Small Step.”
The film initially started as a drawing from 10 years ago and evolved as a passion project that took Trevor five years to complete. He joined the Pixar short co-op program to develop the animated short where a number of his colleagues donated time to his project, helping with animation and background painting.
Among other Pixar animators, Trevor collaborated with artist and Pixar colleague Chris Sasaki of “Monsters University”, “Inside Out”, and the other nominated short “Bao” fame.
"Weekends" is the story of a young boy who shuffles between the homes of his recently divorced parents.
It is based on his personal experience as a boy who grew up shuffling from his mother’s house to his father’s house during weekends. As such, it is very emotional, displaying the traumatic and confusing emotions a young boy goes through upon his parents divorce, with each parent trying to find their respective happiness.
“It was very therapeutic for me,” Trevor said. “I also noticed that a lot of my friends could relate to it and so it has a universal treatment.” He captured memorable moments of his mother playing the piano, his father picking him up during weekends while a familiar song blasts inside the car during the drive to his place, an antique red horse that he loves to ride and get lost in his surreal dreams that dramatize his struggle to understand everything and make sense of things.
“Weekends,” is not a newcomer to awards. It has already won top prizes at the Warsaw Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, and the Edmonton International Film Festival. It also won the Audience Award and Special Jury Price at the Annecy Film Festival 2018.
Based in Berkeley, California, Trevor, a story artist at Pixar for the past six years, has also worked in such films as “Finding Dory,” “Rio,” “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax,” and “Coco.”
Coincidentally, he is also the nephew of veteran entertainment writer, Baby K. Jimenez.
Asked about her reaction when she heard Trevor got an Oscar nom, Baby said, “Of course I was screaming when I found out about his nomination. All of us here are deliriously happy. What is fun about Trevor is that when I see him, we do not discuss lengthily about his animation. You know what we talk about? Our love for basketball ties us together. We are both Raptors diehards! Trevor calls himself a disciple of the Raptors!”
Baby added, “Trevor is the only child of my first cousin Lourdes Jimenez (she and hubby separated). The father of Lourdes is the late Ambassador Privado Jimenez, the first ambassador of the Philippines to Canada, the younger brother of my Dad.
"Tio Iving (his pet name) and family moved to Canada after his post at United Nations in New York as the Philippines’ permanent representative to the United Nations [ended]. Their official residence was in Ottawa, Canada, the seat of all consulates. Lourdes moved to Hamilton later where Trevor was born.”
According to Baby Trevor studied Bachelor of Arts in Animation at the Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, the top animation school in Canada. "At a very young age, he was already very good in sketching," she shared.
“It was only when Trevor reached his teens when he seriously realized that he really wanted to be an animator (although in his younger years he said he wanted to be an animator and also an astronaut).”
So how Filipino is Trevor?
“Trevor loves Pinoy food and loves to visit,” Baby said.
Trevor admitted he does not speak Tagalog but he loves eating Filipino food. “My mom brought me to the Philippines as early as when I was one year old and then again when I was three,” he said. “I love visiting the Philippines because I have a lot of cousins there. I just love seeing my family over there and being with the people I love.”
With Pixar teeming with a bunch of “Pix-noys” — Filipino animators who work at Pixar — Trevor says he hangs out a lot with his kababayans “like Ronnie del Carmen, Nelson Bohol and Ricky Nierva. I admire Ronnie especially since he is an amazing director. I already knew who he was when I joined Pixar. It is hard to do what Ronnie does but I aspire to be like him.”
Winning awards and getting nominated for an Oscar is a dream come true for Trevor. “I feel really elated,” he admitted. “Any award or recognition is always exciting to get. It is a joy to get this far. It really is incredible.”
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According to Trevor his dad "really got me into the movies at an early age. My mom loves movies too but my dad really exposed me to the cinematic influences of Akira Kurosawa among others. I watched these great filmmakers while I was young and that started my own curiosity watching movies in Hamilton.”
Trevor, who started drawing when he was three, always wanted to be an animator all his life.
He is grateful for being given the opportunity to avail of Pixar’s co-op program, be on leave for a year and still come back and keep his job. “They allow you to do an independent film and support you. Unlike other studios, they do that to help aspiring filmmakers,” he said.
Asked what advice he would give to young Filipino animators and filmmakers, Trevor said, “Make sure you do what you love to do and use that unique perspective and capture that on the work that you do.”
On Oscar night, he plans to bring his wife to the awards show. “And probably get extra tickets for my crew, producer and partners,” he added.
As for his future projects, he answered, “None at the moment.”
Right now, Trevor is simply enjoying the spotlight of his little film that could. — LA, GMA News
