31.12.1959–?
Ronnie del Carmen
After school Ronnie del Carmen painted sets on the Philippine shoot of “Apocalypse Now”, and in 1989 he moved to the United States, starting out on storyboards for the Batman animated series. He later worked at DreamWorks and Pixar, where he co-directed “Inside Out” (2015) and received an Oscar nomination for its screenplay. He also drew and wrote comics.
Biography
Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” was filmed in the Philippines, and in 1979, straight out of school, Ronnie del Carmen got a job there as a painter on the set.
He was born on 31 December 1959 in Cavite, on the island of Luzon. He then studied at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila and took a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in advertising. After university he worked as an art director on print and television advertising campaigns. Film was still ahead of him. In 1989 he moved to the United States to work in film. He began at Warner Bros. Animation, drawing storyboards and characters for the series “Batman” (1992), then took part in “Freakazoid!”, directing two episodes. For this work his studio received a Daytime Emmy Award. His name also appears among the makers of the feature film “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” (1993) and among those who worked on “Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker” (2000). At the same time he drew comics: “Batman Adventures: Holiday Special”, made with Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, won the 1995 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue.
In the late 1990s Del Carmen moved to DreamWorks Animation. He was story supervisor on “The Prince of Egypt” (1998), “The Road to El Dorado” (2000), “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” (2002) and “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” (2003). For his storyboarding on “Spirit” he won an Annie Award in 2003. He also worked at Blue Sky Studios on “Robots” (2005) and “Ice Age: The Meltdown” (2006).
In 2000 he joined Pixar Animation Studios. There he was story supervisor on “Finding Nemo” (2003), production designer on the short film “One Man Band” (2005), which was nominated for an Oscar, storyboard artist on “Ratatouille” (2007) and “WALL-E” (2008), and again story supervisor on “Up” (2009). His storyboarding on “WALL-E” and “Up” earned Annie Award nominations, and for “Up” he also received an award from the National Cartoonists Society. In 2009 came his first work as a director, the short film “Dug’s Special Mission”, released with “Up” on DVD and Blu-ray. He also took part in “Brave” (2012) and “Monsters University” (2013).
“Inside Out” came out in 2015 and was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Del Carmen was co-director with Pete Docter and co-writer, with Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley. The Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay made him the first Filipino nominated in that category. Later he worked on “Coco” and “Cars 3” (both 2017) and “Soul” (2020), in which he also voiced a character, and then on “Inside Out 2” (2024).
Alongside film, Del Carmen published his own comics: the series “Paper Biscuit”, about Nina, a girl who wanders through her dreams and is a social outsider, and “And There You Are”. He illustrated Kiki Thorpe’s children’s book “My Name Is Dug” (2009).
In April 2021 it was announced that he had left Pixar to write and direct an animated feature for Netflix based on Philippine folklore.
Profile notes