Filipino lives Disney dream

Bobby Pontillas

MANILA, Philippines – Another Filipino animator is living the Disney dream in Hollywood.

It might have taken Bobby Pontillas persistence and dozens of rejections but the roads still led to his dream job.

“As I mentioned before, I’ve always wanted to work at Disney, so I kept applying and applying through the years, but my work was never good enough,” he said in a recent e-mailed interview with INQUIRER.net.

In the past, Filipino animators have been recognized in the United States not only in Disney but including its rivals such as Pixar.

The 33-year-old US-based full-blooded Filipino is one of the animators for Walt Disney Pictures’ upcoming film, “Frozen.”

The adventure-comedy movie is about a fearless yet optimistic princess who goes on a journey with a mountain man, a reindeer and a snowman to find her sister, the Snow Queen, whose powers have trapped the kingdom in eternal winter. It features the voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad.

Pontillas previously worked for “Wreck it Ralph” with Disney and “Rio” and “Ice Age 4” with Blue Sky Studios.

The Disney animator was born and raised in the United States. His mother, a native of Nabua in Camarines Sur, moved to the US when she was 21 years old. Although his father is also Filipino, he did not grow up with him.

As a young boy, he had always been into drawing.

“Drawing has always been a part of my life.  The subject matter changed as I grew older but drawing has always been with me.  My mother supported that and encouraged me to go to art school.  So when I found animation, an art form where artists brought those drawings to life through 2D animation, I knew that I had found my life’s passion,” Pontillas said.

He finished Art & Design at the Art Institute of Seattle. He also attended an online animation school called Animation Mentor.

Pontillas found the inspiration to pursue animation when he saw Disney’s Tarzan and the works of Glen Keane, one of Disney’s lead animators who worked in films such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan and Tangled. But as destiny would have it, he also joined Disney 10 years later.

“Everything just seemed to be pointing in that direction and my dream was to someday become a Disney animator, just like my heroes,” he added.

Before he worked with Disney as a movie animator, he was in the video-gaming industry in Seattle. He worked at ArenaNet (creators of Guild Wars), Gas Powered Games, and Hulabee Entertainment.

Living a fairy tale

“In 2009, I sent my work to almost every studio in the country, and got rejection letters from all of them,” Pontillas said.

“After I graduated ‘Animation Mentor’ that summer, Blue Sky took a chance on me when no one else would, which I’ll be forever grateful for.  I spent [two] fantastic years with the team there before deciding to give Disney another try, they were looking to hire animators for ‘Wreck It Ralph,” he said.

And so in 2011, he sent a demo reel of his career’s work and the rest was history.

“I sent them a demo reel of animation that had my career’s work up to that point, and they hired me for that film.  I carried around that Disney dream for a long time, and finally, 10 years after I saw Tarzan, I finally became a Disney animator,” Pontillas said.

He also has begun working with Disney’s 2016 release, “Zootopia.”

“Working at Disney has honestly been everything I have dreamed of.  I’ve come in at a good time, the company was growing and high off of the success of ‘Tangled.’ Everywhere I went, there were heroes of mine.”

“I still feel incredibly blessed walking in to work every day, and knowing that I’m part of the long history of Disney’s legacy, and helping to bring Disney into the future, that’s an amazing and humbling feeling.  I’m very blessed,” Pontillas said of his job.

At Disney, Pontillas said he is “constantly inspired but also humbled and driven to do your best work” being surrounded by talented people in the studio.

“I thought nothing would be able to top working on ‘Wreck it Ralph,’ but ‘Frozen’ is also just such a special movie to me, and is so reminiscent of the Disney films that inspired me to get into animation in the first place,” he said.

‘Frozen’

In the movie “Frozen,” Pontillas joined a pool of “amazing crew” of animators, tasked to bring characters to life through acting, motion and emotion.

His favorite part was animating Anna and Elsa as little girls.

“I guess I just loved the relationship between the two sisters, these two mean the world to each other, and when you’re a little kid, nothing else matters beyond that.  That relationship is so pure, so childlike and innocent.  I really loved those moments,” he said.

Although there are a number of challenges in animation, Pontillas noted that the biggest of them all “is always getting a character to feel real, to feel sincere.”

“The only way to do that is to really pour your heart and soul into the work, and feel what the character is feeling, as Glen would say ‘Really live in the skin of that character,’ he said.

Part of their task in “Frozen” was to shoot lots of video reference of themselves acting out a scene in order to observe “all of the big or little movements our bodies do when delivering a real performance.”

“So in that sense, just think, some of these performances you’ll see on screen were from a Pinoy,” Pontillas said.

In his spare time, he works on his personal art, spend quality time with his friends or just spend time with his two dogs.

A tribute to ‘Yolanda’ victims

He recently released the book “Double Takes,” a collection of drawings he made during his travels and sketches of the people that inspired him as a tribute to them.

A hundred percent of the proceeds of the book will go directly to the Mercy Corps’ Typhoon Haiyan Survivors Fund.

“Friend , co-workers, my mother. They’re all in there, and I think of it as sort of a tribute to them. I have a deep love for these people, and I have a deep love for my own people,” Pontillas said.

“I wanted the victims of Haiyan to benefit from the proceeds of this book because they needed it and I didn’t. I never made this book to make money.  I don’t care about money, I care about people. I’m doing this because I love my people,” he added.

The Supertyphoon, locally known as Yolanda, struck Central Philippines in early November and left thousands dead and millions affected.

Pontillas also revealed plans to visit the Philippines soon with his mother and girlfriend.

For aspiring animators, he advised them to make passion their fuel “to work harder than you ever have before.”

“I would say to start developing a thick skin, and be ready to take rejection.  I would tell people to dream as big as you can, and believe that you can get there,” he said.

But he also emphasized that one should learn to work well with others because animation is a team sport.

“Get past yourself and really value others’ opinions.  I would remind people to stay humble, because there’s always something more to learn,” he also said.

Check out the works of Bobby Pontillas here: https://bobbypontillas.blogspot.com/