Ep196: How to Become Oscar-level Successful (Without Being a Dick) | with Peter Ramsey

Zack Arnold

My guest today is Peter Ramsey, a director, producer and storyboard artist known as the first black director to direct the big budget animated film with Dreamworks' Rise of the Guardians and the first black director to win the Academy Award and animation for Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse. But what's even more inspiring than Peter's career achievements, however, is that he is simultaneously working at the top levels of the industry, while also maintaining the reputation of being a nice guy, proving that you can become successful because you treat people with respect. Not despite doing so. In this conversation, Peter and I discuss his circuitous route from being a storyboard artist to becoming an Oscar winning director. Despite growing up in South Central Los Angeles, Peter felt like he was a million miles away from Hollywood, and he never even considered it a realistic career path. Yet with the proper beginner's mindset, which by the way he maintains to this day, a blue collar work ethic and the uncanny ability to surround himself with mentors, such as, get this, Steven Spielberg, John Singleton, Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis and Francis Ford Coppola, just to name a small few. Peter was able to carve his own unique path while providing value to others along the way, no matter your creative career ambitions and the obstacles that are standing between you and your goals. Peter's inspiring story and infectious optimism will motivate you to push past your own limits and design your dream career. Beyond game changing yet practical advice on how you can get out of your own way on your path towards success. Peter also shares outstanding advice about how all of us can further diversify Hollywood and allow anybody regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, disability or otherwise, to have their voices and their life experiences heard. All right, without further ado, my conversation with Oscar winning director Peter Ramsey. To access the show notes for this episode with all the bonus links and resources discussed today, as well as to subscribe, leave a review and more, simply visit optimizeyourself.me/episode196. I am here today with Peter Ramsey who is a director, a producer and a storyboard artist who is the first black director to direct a big budget animated film with Rise of the Guardians. He is also the first black director to win the Academy Award in animation for Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse. And you can see his most recent work on Netflix as the series director and producer of the show, Lost Ollie, and you have literally been called the Obama of animation, have you not?

Peter Ramsey

I have my eternal confusion. But yes,

Zack Arnold

I'm sure well, what we're gonna talk all about that today. First of all, Peter, given the the pedigree of projects that you work on and the pedigree of people and we're gonna get a lot more into that. The fact that you're willing to spare 90 minutes of your life and your attention for me and my audience. I am eternally grateful for that as I'm sure my audiences as well. So thank you so much for being here.

Peter Ramsey

Pleasure. My pleasure.

Zack Arnold

So for anybody listening to things, the we're gonna dive deep into the craft of animation and spider verse and lost all your anything else? Fair warning, you're listening to the wrong conversation? Because that is not why were you here today, there are plenty of people that have amazing craft conversations of which I know you've been a part of them. What I'm more interested in is origin stories. And I love the origin stories of real people. And you of course, being in the comic book world, the animation world origin stories are really important. But it's your origin story that I'm so fascinated by. Because on paper, you frankly have no business being who you are today. And that fascinates me. Right? There are so many different things that happen, some of which are choices you made, some of which are circumstances, but I love understanding how people become who they become. But more importantly, how they get to the level that you have without having to step on others along the way, and still continue to be nice, and help others to climb that ladder to the top rather than climbing over them to meet your own personal needs. So there's so many things about your story that I want to dive into. But the first one that's the most interesting to me, is the fact that you come from essentially right in Los Angeles and South Central LA were Boys in the Hood is almost a documentary film to you. But you say that Hollywood felt like it was a million miles away. That to me doesn't connect that doesn't even make sense. So explain to me how you can be so close. Yeah, it feels so far away.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah. Well, I mean, you've got I think one thing you've got to do is sort of jump in a time machine and, you know, bring yourself to a time when there was no internet when, you know, movie box office totals and, you know, the machinations of the, of the of the entertainment industry. They weren't on the news. You know, there was it was much more of a separated world there. There wasn't the same sort of awareness of what went on behind the scenes of the internet. and businesses are as now. So it really was, you know, these things popped on TV and you watch them or you, you know, or my family, we'd go to a movie maybe what, twice a year, which was like a big event for us. As you said, I grew up in South Central, my dad was a mailman. Mom was a, an educational aid. And at that time, you could have, you could have a house and raise a family on that money. So things have changed. But it was it was there was a lot more mystery and a lot less a lot less information available about, you know, how do you work in the movie industry or for me, even the idea that real people made movies and TV shows, it was like a, it was a foreign concept. And, you know, the other element, of course, is, you know, I was growing up, I was a young black kid, it's a very, very much either way more so than a white dominated industry, things have changed quite a bit. But back then, you know, I didn't even know, I didn't know what a director was let alone that a black person could be a director, for example, you know, or any other job in the industry, it was, it was literally like, another apparent parallel universe. So just to kind of set the stage of the mindset that, that I kind of grew up in. That's, that's basically what he had to kind of wrap your head around.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and the couple of things that I think are important are the geography, but also the identity or the perception. And what I mean by that, is that for me, I grew up on a dairy farm in the middle of nowhere in northern Wisconsin. So to me, Hollywood was a million miles away, I still make the joke to this day that when I go back home, I need a passport, because it's like going to a foreign country. So different, right? And movies and TV shows and anything that just magically showed up on the screen, it felt it just fell out of the sky. People don't actually make it, it's not a thing. It just exists, right? So anytime that I mentioned that I want to work in Hollywood, people would always question is like, yeah, right. Like, you're, you're just gonna stay here and work road construction, or, you know, work in the woods, like everybody else does. But nobody ever questioned whether or not I could do it, because of the color of my skin or my upbringing. So I would imagine that for you, geography technically wasn't a challenge. But perception would have been like, you know, boys from the South Central, they don't work in Hollywood,

Peter Ramsey

very, very much. So and, and just to, just to piggyback onto that, you know, it never would have entered my mind to think, in fact, it didn't enter my mind to think I could work in the, in the, with anything having to do with movies or TV, until I was pretty much getting into my, my very late teens, almost in my 20s it's just the I know, it sounds bizarre to people now. But back then, pre internet. It was it was not something that I ever even considered. So when our world started opening up, it was a life changing experience.

Zack Arnold

So let's talk about how did that world slowly start to evolve and open up for you?

Peter Ramsey

Yeah, well, I, you know, I had a group of friends and we were all, you know, I'd drawn on my life. And, you know, I got into comics, and I was watching movies, and all along and huge movie fan. And, as I said, you know, we'd go to the movies infrequently, but when we did, it was like a religious experience. It really was like going to a cathedral and the curtain opens and this gigantic wave of emotion and sensation, just kind of bowling over you. Just, you know, it was it was the greatest. And, and it was like, yeah, it was like Christmas coming, like twice a year when we built it. So it was a it was a big deal. So I had a bunch of friends and or group of friends. You know, we were into comics. You know, we have a good friend who was a painter. I mean, we'd like you know, do our own comics, and we live that stuff. And as we got into our teens, a couple of these guys really started getting into, into film into movies. And I had, you know, the first movie that really got me going as a film goer, in my own right, was, surprise, surprise Star Wars. So I saw that I think I was what, 14 When I saw Star Wars just course blew the back of my head off, and I completely completely reset me. And I really started like vacuuming up movies, like going going to see as many as I could. These friends of mine, you know, a couple few years older, they were starting to get into slightly more mature films, like, you know, this was the era when Scorsese and Coppola and all the great 70s filmmakers, you know, were you know, it was coming to the end is right around the end of the 70s. But it was it was just a great time to go out and experience those movies and that really started making me aware that you know, movies they They're an art form, there's something about them, there's this movie is different from that one why, you know, this movie, there are these ideas in this movie, and there's a way that this movie looks, that's, that's really compelling me more than maybe these other ones do. Why is that? You know, and the idea, the idea that people actually made the started becoming something that I was interested in, you know, so it was it was really the beginning of the understanding art period, which I was also beginning to learn about. And other you know, what an artist really does, I think, becoming, you know, now beginning to learn a little bit more about how films are made, how they come together, and how they come together, I started like, wondering, well, you know, how do you become part of that, you know, it's, it still seemed like this mysterious kind of like priesthood or unknowable order. And then I actually started meeting a couple of people who were like dabbling in the fringes of it, you know, somebody who would be like an assistant to a production designer, or even further removed an assistant researcher to a production designer, that would be the person who would go to the bookstore. And, you know, I worked at a bookstore and somebody who else who worked with me was tasked with, like, finding the right photography books, for this art director to use as a reference. Somebody who had worked construction and was doing some, you know, building some sets, things like that, and people nibbling at the edges of the really low budget film world. And it was like, Oh, my God, I know these people, and they're like, boy, you can really do that. And it's one of those weird things. I mean, I know that if I had like, just asked them as the people in my general circle, that other people might have gone. Oh, yeah, I know, a guy who did this. And oh, yeah, I know, a guy who did sound on this or whatever. But it just never entered my mind to even think about it. That was how, you know, separate a thing, it seemed to me. But of course, you know, once the dam kind of started to break, all these things started flooding in and I would end up doing the somebody got me a job sweeping up confetti on the set of Terry coke. And that was like my first time ever on like a real set, which was kind of blue. That kind of blew my mind. I did a painting, I did a mural for an ultra low budget movie that a friend of mine was art directing, painted a mural on the back of a gym. So I got to be around that for a little bit. So bit by bit, it was little things like that. And then I think the thing that really sort of crystallized any kind of ambition for me was went to see ET with my friends. And, you know, I should say, you know, prior to seeing ET, you know, I'd seen all kinds of other films, you name it, you know, Coppola, you know, Terrence Malick, you know, so I was I was a real film buff, and I was learning more and more.

But for whatever reason, that particular screening of ET it had just come out. And, you know, the audience was just in the palm of Spielberg's hands, people were being completely blown away by the movie, I was swept up in it coming out of the theater. There was such an excited buzz, and people were so moved. And everybody had the same emotion coming out of there. I was like, God, it's, it's incredible that somebody can make something that does that. And this guy, Spielberg did it. And I had been a fan of Close Encounters of like, you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark, I think it you know, and but for whatever reason, that day, that time, that moment, it finally clicked that people, you can, you can do this, you know, that's something that, of course, that that a human being can do. And it inspired me to go, you know, I think I think I don't know, I know what I want to do. I think I want to be a director, or really think I want to try it. And that kind of set me off on the path.

Zack Arnold

I love that before. Before talking more about the path. The one thing that I find interesting, and I'm sure this has a lot to do with your upbringing, but if you have been brought up differently in the exact same area, you could have gone to si ne t and thought to yourself, this can be done, but not by me. I'm not the kind of person that can do this. So what was it about your upbringing that made you watch et and say, not only this is a thing that can be done, but I can do it?

Peter Ramsey

Well, that's that's what I believe me. I had grown up the whole rest of my life up to that point thinking that and it wasn't until I ran into a few people that actually were making inroads into the industry. And I think a couple of my friends at that time had started taking, they were taking a few film filmmaking class. So that LA City College, which had and I think still has a really good program, and they were really pumped out about about that. And I was like, wow, you mean you're going someplace and you get to make films. And it's it. It just being around a few people that were actually making tiny inroads. I mean, as an aside, I remember I remember meeting a friend of a friend. And this guy said that he was writing a script. And my first impulse was, I just laughed. I was like, what, what are you doing that for? I think it maybe literally, I was, if I didn't say it, I was thinking, why are you wasting your time doing that? It was like me saying, I'm building a rocket ship in my backyard, I'm gonna go to that's how unrealistic I thought it was. And he said, No, you know, where do you think screenplays come from, you know, people, you know, people write them sometimes and get an agent and make a movie. And I was like, what? So it was like, you grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. I mean, I might as well had. It really was like that. So as far as my upbringing, now, you know, I would, I'd say that the other element that that, that worked in my favor, for me growing up, was that my mom always insisted on having a lot of books in the house from when we were really from a really early age. And I remember being, you know, a really young kid, and basically, plowing through the World Book Encyclopedia, we have set of encyclopedias that, you know, I don't know how many years I spent going through those out of date, things, but just like soaking, soaking them up. So I was a big reader, I was a voracious reader, I think my, my view of the world, you know, got shaped by reading early on. So I had a lot of my imagination kind of, really ranged pretty far and wide, even though, you know, we really rarely I could count on my fingers, the times that that we actually went to visited another state or another city or something like that was very, very seldom, it was a real, it was a real, like, kind of very basic blue collar upbringing that I had. But within that, movies and reading, in particular, just really kind of expanded me and my parents, you know, they, they encouraged. They encouraged me doing stuff like drawing or like, you know, all this kind of, you know, I was, I was kind of, you know, art kid without really knowing anything about art, you know, just my own little, they never discouraged me, they, you know, they always like, you know, do what you want to do, you know, just get good grades, go, you know, be yourself. So, I didn't have a lot of built in resistance or prejudice against like, being open to new things, or trying new things. For me, it was just a matter of just a matter of lack of knowledge about the world about you know, and my parents certainly didn't know, because they had grown up during the Depression, they were both depression kids, they both come from really, really poor families. For them, you know, having a house having a steady job, they hit the jackpot. You know, it was just, it's just like, hey, we're getting by, we're doing okay, there's always food on the table. The kids are good, and they're in school, everything's great. And it was, I never felt that I lacked for anything, I certainly never felt like I was poor. And I never felt that. And it was but my world was circumscribed by, by the kind of the limits of what my parents knew. And once I started, of course, you know, growing up and getting a little beyond that is when things really started to click, I guess.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, so the short version is that you were clearly instilled with a really solid foundation of morals and values and, you know, hard work and equal success. And

Peter Ramsey

you could say that at the same time, I mean, yeah, there was, there was definitely like, you know, just work hard, keep your nose to the grindstone, and you know, you'll get by, there was never, I mean, there was like, oh, it'd be great if you could, you know, be well written successful someday, or a doctor or a lawyer or there was no practical road to that, that I had at my disposal, like when the time came to apply for colleges and things like that. My parents had never gone to college, they didn't know the first thing about applying or financial aid or, you know, I've kind of like dented cobbled together on my own, you know how to do that stuff. They just, they weren't, they would have helped that they'd known how they just had no idea. It wasn't their world. You know, so, so even the idea and also, you know, honestly, they grew up. My mom grew up in New Orleans during the time of Jim Crow. You know, my dad, like, grew up in Baltimore. He was like, you know, the kid you'd see in an old 30s movie helping the Junk men find scrap, you know, so for them, there was no the idea that as a black person, you know, you could somehow achieve incredible success without being like, you know, a singer and entertainer or something like that. Or, you know, or star athlete which might, you know, obviously, my dad would love that. But not having any of those things. It was like, well, good luck, do as good as again, have a happy life, you know, but you're not going to be. It's only gonna go so far. That was kind of their attitude, you're probably only going to get so far.

Zack Arnold

So certainly wasn't. We're going to encourage you to pursue a very lucrative career as a Hollywood storyboard artist. Probably not a lot of those conversations.

Peter Ramsey

Not at all that it was, I think, complete bafflement as I was starting to do it. They're like, what do you what did you get paid to do? What? What do you you're drawing it what now did not, would not have computed for them?

Zack Arnold

Yeah, well, one of the reasons that it's so important to me to have as much of a diversified audience and diversified voice on the show, is that I really want people that could potentially be in a similar situation now that you may have been 3040 years ago, they see your face, or your voice and they believe, wait a second, somebody that looks like me and talks like me, and as my background has done it, it's possible, right? That's really, really important to me, but I don't believe for anyone, it's possible to do it by yourself. So I talk over and over about how the quality of your career is dictated by the quality of your network. And frankly, the quality of your life is dictated by the quality of your relationships. Plenty of science backs up that this is true, like literally the the degree to which you are happy or fulfilled is directly correlated to the quality of your relationships. And I believe the level you attain your career is dictated by the quality of your network. So it's one thing to say that you kind of figure your way through college and you had a propensity to to be an artist or a drawer or a painter and you really admired people like Steven Spielberg, but allow me for a short second to just dictate the shortlist of some of your mentors along the way, because when I saw this on the page, I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So let me let me just list this off our listeners and watchers, John Singleton, Francis Ford Coppola, Ava DuVernay, Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Robert Zemeckis, Spike Jones, these are not people that inspired you. These are people that hired you and mentored you to become who you are today. How in the world does that happen?

Peter Ramsey

Honestly, it's a good question. So much of it is just being at the right place at the right time. I guess I don't know, I think I could probably be a little more actually a little more definite, a little more practical about it. This particular skill set that I happen to have, being a storyboard artist, relatively rare. I mean, you gotta when you what storyboarding basically is, is being able to being able to physically draw something that is going to give a visual represent representation of how a director would approach shooting a scene. So which means you've got to know film grammar, you've got to be able to draw well enough to realistically depict something, you know, dimensionally in space, that looks pretty accurate. As far as what you could see through a camera, you've got to have somewhat of a practical knowledge of what it takes to achieve specific shots, you've got to have at least a basic understanding of editing techniques, things like that. And you've also got to be able to assimilate information that's, you know, coming from, you've got to be able to interpret information, whether it's coming from a director or from a script page. So there's a lot of things you have to a lot of skills, you sort of have to synthesize and bring to the table. So working at the at the studio film level, it's a relatively small pool of people who can do that reliably and quickly and regularly and I think more than anything else, it's it's that that kind of dictated the the people that I got to run into, because, you know, when I first got into storyboarding, I had the idea hit me pretty soon after I just after I decided I'm going to be a director, you know, and I was like, Okay, well, I've got no money. I can't really make short films because back in those days, you know, 16 millimeter film that had any sort of anything close to professional quality. Forget it, you know, I'm not 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of dollars that I didn't have. So how can I get in and, you know, I had spent all this time drawing I thought I was going to be a comic book artist for a long time which is also is sequential storytelling. And I flipped through some of my Star Wars books. Wait a minute, you know, maybe I can, now that the light bulb has been turned on, and I know that I can enter this world somehow, I see storyboards all over the place, maybe I can try that I can draw at least that well, that's signed on with an agency that rep storyboard artists for commercials got a grounding in that over a year working with commercial directors getting a real feel for camera and the basics. And at the end of that year, they got me a job on a movie, and it was a non union movie, it actually never got made. But I had a big stack of samples that I could show around. And shortly after that, I got onto another non union movie that went union, and I had the days, so suddenly, I was in the union. I was like, you know, 2425 years old, you know, once you're, if you're in the Union, and you're on the list, you're gonna get, you're gonna get on some big movies. And you do enough of those, you start to get a reputation, people recommend you to other people, you know, if you have a, if you have a, if you have an ability to create a report with a director, and they can rely on you to, you know, kind of interpret what they're thinking or anticipate what they're thinking, you can you know, you you really start building reputation. And that's really what happened, I started getting recommended among other people, or, you know, producers, it's the same thing. They go, Oh, you know, this guy is pretty good. Let's, you know, I did this movie with. So and so now I'm doing this with Coppola, let's say, let's see if you can plug in here. And honestly, that's how that's how it went. It was a fairly small talent pool, that I was lucky enough to enter at the right time.

Zack Arnold

So you brought up a really interesting word that I talk about a lot on the show, which is luck. When you first started the beginning of this conversation, like I was just in the right place at the right time. Actually, let me expand upon that. And I'm glad you did, because I would have called you out on that. A lot of people say Oh, Zack doesn't believe that luck exists. And that's not true. But I believe that so many people ascribe luck to the reason either why they were successful. Or more importantly, a lot of people use luck as an excuse for why they haven't become successful. And I think there's certain parts of your story, where yeah, the fact that we're on a non union project that became union totally out of your control does kind of lucky, it was right, it was good to be in that place. But here's the part that was not lucky. And that was the big word you use repeatedly, which is reputation. If you weren't that good at what you did, or more importantly, you weren't the quality of person that you are and you didn't have the quality of interactions that you did. Do you think you'd have the list of mentors that you do? Or the list of credits, if you were just an okay storyboard artists that people kind of tolerated working with?

Peter Ramsey

No, no, absolutely not. I think. And it's not to say that I'm, you know, I honestly think there's storyboard artists who are quite a bit better than me. I think what I did, what I did have kind of a skill for was the communication aspect of it. I think I was pretty good at that. I think I was, I also think I came to it, you know, I came to it with a real Yes, my goal always was to become a director myself. So for me, it was like being in school. And I was always I was like, I was a sponge. I wanted to learn so badly. And I wanted to understand how what these guys did so much. And that I think people, people can tell the energy you're putting out and they can, they can get a feel for what what's driving you, I think, you know, as you interact with them, and I think they could just tell like, wow, this guy's happy to be here. He's, he's curious. And it was true, I didn't see it as I didn't see this as a destination I had reached I saw it as sort of a part of the path that I was on. So I, the way I came to, it was like, you know, a person who was just hoping to grow and hoping to learn more and get more just get more sophisticated and wiser about the craft of it. And I think that just translated into people feeling like they didn't, there wasn't a sense of competition with my ego. That way. I wanted to know what they knew I didn't necessarily care about showing them what I knew. Because, you know, frankly, I was pretty green, you know, but I think that sort of like beginner attitude actually went a long way and like allowing people to open up to me and to work with me in a way that that's that felt good to them because I was I was eager, I was a sponge and I could I could do the work well enough to give them what they needed. So it kind of It was a mutually beneficial thing I think. And, you know, it's, I was never an ass kisser. You know, I was never, I was I was proud enough that I am oddly not desperate enough that I ever felt like I had to humiliate myself or prostrate myself in front of anyone, you know, so I could, I think that was another part of it, for whatever weird reason. And I think it's always because I was thinking, Well, I'm going to be a director. So I'm not worried about the, you know, the petty day to day, I got my eyes on the prize. It just gave me a kind of like, weird confidence in the moment. I think that puts people at ease. Yeah,

Zack Arnold

I think is what that's one of the things that people don't realize about the power of having clarity of your goals. Yeah, is that you kind of be you start to feel like the I in the center of the hurricane, where everybody else is swept up and all the drama and you're just like, you know, I'll deal with what I need to deal with. But at the end of the day, this is does not need to be a part of my journey. And I'm just going to keep forging ahead, but not at the expense of others. And it sounds like correct, you were very clear on where you wanted to go.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah. And because I was like, that, while I was working, I was I was I was like teaching myself to write, I was still like reading every film book I could get my hands on, I was pretty, like, I was like, This is what I want to do. And it was that feeling not so much that I've arrived. So I have to defend my territory. But I'm been, you know, the real goal is out there. So I've not been over invested on where I was at the time, I think was a huge thing for me, was a really big thing that I never really, I think it's only an only in the past few years that I've kind of understood. That was part of my mindset, and I'm you know, I think I always chalked it up to being kind of scatterbrained or sort of like, you know, kind of kind of dreamy, or like I was I remember, I remember, I was talking to someone, I think it was like a producer or somebody. And we were talking and they were asking me well, what are you doing next? I don't know. I'm kind of a leaf on the wind. I'm like, you know, and they kind of like, Yeah, I kind of see you that way, actually, you know, because I was kind of like this had this Latina. You know, we'll see what happens. I'm, I'm going this direction, but hopefully some surprises will happen. And I'm, you know, I'm working on my own little things. And, you know, hopefully something will happen. But it was that that kind of mindset that I was like, I don't know, it's a it's a really, when I think about it now feels like a really strange thing. But I think enough good things were happening to me that I was like, oh, things will be fine. In the end. I just had this weird dumb optimism.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. And I think that it's great optimism. I don't think there's anything weird or dumb about it. But there's certainly a paradox between I know exactly the direction I'm headed. And I'm also simultaneously a leaf in the wind. Yeah. But that's kind of sort of what it takes. Because if you think that success path is the straight line, and it with any deviation is that you failed or it's not going to happen. It's different versus I know, the destination is here. I'm okay. If the path. Yeah. Kind of, oh, no, here we go. Right. Like, that's kind of how it works. You have to be willing to embrace that.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah. And I think I think I had also, I'd also by that point, I'd had enough setbacks or like, reversals that I knew that Oh, okay. You're not, it's not going to happen overnight, you know, something, something great would happen, like, you know, who knows, whatever, whatever it could be, you know, wow, this is, this is absolutely fantastic. And then you kind of settle down and read the fine print. And it's like, oh, wait a minute. It's actually not as cut and dried as I thought, or, you know, who knows, you know, but there's, there's always setbacks. And once you've encountered a few of those, once you got another job after that, or you realize, oh, it wasn't as bad as I thought, and my life's not over because this thing didn't go right. Or, you know, whatever it was, that I guess I started to develop this instinct for, you know, yeah, you can kind of like screw up or have a setback and still keep going. And that really, I think, became the real lesson was like, you know, if you just hold on, and have you have some, you know, some kind of goal in mind and just keep going, the wheels gonna come back around. The you might feel like you're the unluckiest person in the world. And there are several times in my career that I did, because things happen that were like, You gotta be kidding me. And it felt like wow, how do I come back from this? And I did, you know, so it's perseverance. I always tell people perseverance is 90% of it. If you just hang on and keep going, you know, in good faith, you know, if you're not in a just to be just for ego reasons, or just to be successful, but if you actually have some Don't you love to do and you want to do it? Just hang on and things will turn in your favor?

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I think all that's amazing advice. And I could break this down into 17 different parts and for different episodes, and I'm gonna break it down to two things that I think are really vital. One of them is this conversation about mindset, which to me is so vital to success. I love talking about mindset. People want to talk about craftsman skills, and whatever they Okay, that's fine mindset is absolutely key. And there's a mindset that I think that you shared kinda sorta that I want to dig into deeper that I think is the core of so many reasons why you're successful. And you said earlier in your career, I was really approaching a like a beginner. But something tells me that hasn't changed at all. Because right on Twitter, it says, Oscar winner, complete and total beginner, that makes no sense. If there's anybody that feels like they have arrived, and they have the authority to use their ego to get what they want. Shouldn't it be the black Obama of animation? Like? Why can't you just dictate your terms? How could you possibly consider yourself a beginner?

Peter Ramsey

You know, there's, there's really, there's so much I don't know, I mean, plain and simple, there's, like, I know that there's, there is a ton of stuff that I do not know, it's also I think having, having a respect for the for, for the craft that I'm, you know, happened to be a part of, and, you know, this, you know, you work in the work in film, and it's like, it's infinite, you know, nobody could ever know everything about making film or the I mean, there's, it's such a vast art form that to ever think that, you know, that that your expertise can't get any, you know, more developed, or that you know, everything. It's ridiculous, it's totally infinite. I think once you stop, once you give up that idea, that, you know, at some point, you're going to know everything, or at some point, you're going to really, you're going to really feel like an expert, or that you need to be an expert about everything. You know, once he, I'll tell you another, you talked about, you talked about mentors, and I don't know that I'd ever call any of those guys, you know, intentional mentors, but, you know, the effect of what, what our relationship was, was, you know, yeah, I got mentored by them, you know, they, we would have exchanges, or, or I'd benefit from their knowledge, or I, you know, sometimes I'd literally ask them things, and they, but mostly, it was just working with them and benefiting from their knowledge. Couple of people literally took me under their wing in different ways. You know, Francis Coppola, when I worked on Dracula, really saw that, you know, wow, this kid is really into this and, and really wants to be a filmmaker. And he'd actively, like, you know, do things to sort of, like, bring me into the process more, or, you know, we'd had, we had some great talks, he was extremely inspiring. John Singleton gave him downs, actually, a few years younger than me, but he had landed in this like, Plum spot where he was talking about a guy who was at the right place at the right time, he had the right story to tell. He was he had the guts and the passion and the knowledge to be able to use it to like, attack the system. And he was great about bringing other people along on a journey, you know, he did great things for me. And of course of my career that, you know, served as kind of a mentorship. But I think that kind of benefiting from, from what other people had to offer that way. You know, it's, it's invaluable. And it's just, it's the, you know, the point I was really going to make, is, funnily enough, they mentored me in another way, and that I saw that I could see that they were human beings. I got to spend enough time with these guys over the course of making a movie, to see them make mistakes, you know, sometimes big mistakes to see them absolutely. Absolutely lost. You know, with some things I'd see, you know, I'd see them as very human people. I was like, Oh, my God, you know, David Fincher doesn't always have the answer. What? That's incorrect. That's not what his press releases, say, you know, and I, you'd see them like, have to the teeth and make a decision, make a decision. It didn't go, well. It's a disaster. And they'd have to pick themselves up and go, you know, what, new decision we're going 180 degrees in the other direction, let's go, you know, and they just dust themselves off and keep going. So that was that was also a big one for me that like, it's not magic. It's not something that you figure out immediately, because you're a genius and everything turns out, right. It's trial and error even for those guys. And you know, letting go of this idea that everything always had to be perfect. It takes so much like so much of the stress off of you, you know it but it also allows you to rely on the people around you, you know, your team, you know, your editor, your DP, you know, whoever else, you know, your production designer, all these people around you, who are going to have incredible ideas, and are all doing their absolute best, and who are all gifted artists, you know, probably would be great directors in their own rights, you know, but it's like you, you learn to collaborate, is what you learn to do, and to really collaborate with other artists and like, try to subsume your ego to the needs of the story and the project. I know, I'm getting completely long winded, I apologize.

Zack Arnold

Oh, no. Are you kidding?

Peter Ramsey

My stream of consciousness kind of,

Zack Arnold

there's a reason I'm not interrupting you. It's because all of this is incredibly valuable. I think that there's a realization that you came to that I came to very similarly, even though our backgrounds could not be more different. They're very, very similar in relation to this industry. But it was when I realized that those that are at the top of their game are not the Select anointed few that have this God given talent that only they possess. Yeah. And they're in a totally select different categories, like you said, is when I realized, like, oh, you kind of have shitty days, and you kind of don't know everything that you're doing. And you're just approaching this with that other mindset I wanted to talk about, which is perseverance, and the willingness to work through these challenges, and just see them as learning experiences. And that's a well, I failed. So I guess I'm a failure. Versus this was a failed experiment or strategy. Now it's time to find something different. Which brings me to what happened to you with your first feature film? Because I believe that you had all the reason in the world to say, Well, I tried that didn't work out. But I guess this isn't meant for me and it doesn't want you. So let's talk about what would essentially made it maybe not the biggest failure of your career, but at least the biggest failure as far as what we've ever seen publicly. So let's tell the story of your first feature film.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah. Wow. Oh, boy. Rise of the Guardians. That was that DreamWorks Animation. I had been at DreamWorks for I guess, before I got the job like four years maybe. Yeah, but close to five years. And I I came there was a story artist. I had just a preamble of how I got to DreamWorks. I did storyboards and directed a second unit on a movie called Tank Girl. And Tank Girl was produced by a guy named Aaron Warner was the wonderful guy. And you know, we struck up a relationship based on you know, what I was doing on Tank Girl. It was, you know, like a, it was pretty good sized second unit, you know, a lot of explosions and kangaroos and jumping around and all this stuff. So a few years later, I get a call from Aaron, who is DreamWorks Animation, which was done a fledgling operation, and they were just cranking up on the first Shrek movie. And, you know, he asked me if I'd be interested in coming over there and doing some work on it. And at the time, I think of storyboarding, probably fight club or like Being John Malkovich or something like that. I was like, well, animation is cute, but I'm working on, you know, a big a big kids movie. So thanks. But No thanks, I was still firmly you know, live action for me. And, you know, he understood, you know, in the interim, CG animation has exploded and became this whole this really like vital kind of form, and it's in its own right, and like, you know, the movies, Pixar was just starting up and Dreamworks was in its heyday. And a couple years later gave me another call. I think the third Trek movie was starting up. Shrek two had won Oscars, I, you know, I'd seen it and really dug in. And he said, Hey, I want to call and try to entice you over here. Again, I think the orb skill set, you know, you'd be you'd be great here. It's a really, he said something to really like get my mind going such as a really pure form of cinema, which was really interesting to me. And he was also like, you know, I he knew me from directing the second unit on tanker on his I think it would, you'd be a great softer directory as well. So I tried it out. And Dreamworks was, it was just a lovely place to work. The people were great. It really, really respected the art and the artists. And I was like, Yeah, I'll try this for a while. And they started like giving me opportunities there. And that kind of culminated in me being offered after doing a couple of other projects. And me being offered the movie Rise of the Guardians, which was they had been having trouble getting the story together with the first creative team they had and they were chained. They were making a switch. And they asked me to come in come on as director. So it was sort of like wow, put me in the game and the train was already moving because some things about there was some designs that already been done. But the story essentially was being scrapped and we had to start over over from scratch. I kind of got plugged into it with you know, my producer Christina Steinberg had been on the previous version. And but we had the writer David Lindsay, a bear had won like a Pulitzer Prize replay that he wrote. And it was sort of like, I was kind of coming in as the junior partner, you know, but it was, for the most part, it was a fantastic experience, it was a big adjustment. And it was a big, a really big lesson to learn to work at a studio, you know, particularly like DreamWorks was at the time, you know, you're it's this vast machine, that you sort of have to learn how it works. And, you know, you know, I was kind of green. So it was that part of it was a little tough. But, man, that experience of working with the movie and working with the artists and, you know, the, the whole team, directing the actors, you know, we had an incredible cast, Alec Baldwin and Chris Pine and Isla Fisher and Hugh Jackman and Jude Law was our bad guys there. It was, like, you know, and I think, you know, as the movie was getting closer and closer to completion, we were screening it, and it was getting amazing test screenings, you know, we'd screen it and people would be crying, and they'd come up after the screening, and, you know, thank you for giving my childhood back. It's so magical and wonderful. And, and it was, you know, we were, we were people were like, starting to get really excited about it had gone from this problem child to this thing that was testing really great. And the studio was, was really high on it. And, you know, they were talking about awards and all this stuff. And I was like, the can't be that. I mean, yeah, I've been working hard on it, but my God, come on, it can really happen that way, can't it? We're all trying really hard to make it something special.

And so, so the thing gets released, and, you know, we've been getting pumped up with all this stuff about how much money it's gonna have. It's gonna make a billion dollars good to do this got to do God. And the movie comes out. And the first week it's out, I think it's like, the weekend before Thanksgiving. 2012. And, you know, Hurricane Sandy hit on the East Coast. Okay, so that was one thing. Oh, well, okay, we're like getting a little more conservative about the numbers because of the you know, the East Coast, yada, yada. Okay. And then it's like, oh, well, you know, it's the second the, you know, the week before this, both Skyfall and the new Twilight sequel opened. And those things were like, exploding like, way beyond anything, anybody thought. We're like, Okay, well, we're still an animated movie. And man, we came out and our first weekend was, so it was really far beyond below. What, what? what the expectations were? And it was, it was partially, I think there were long story short, a lot of things have to go right for movie to become a big success. First of all, the movie has to be a really good. Second of all, you've got to have a great marketing campaign, and apt make people aware that the movies there, we didn't really have that. And third, there's got to be stuff like well, who's your competition, you know, what's the what else is going on? And we, these other movies were so dominated in the marketplace. And the, you know, this was also a period where animated movies, suddenly the competition for them wasn't just other animated movies, it was becoming PG 13 Giant Movies, which, you know, you're a parent, and you're, you've got to make the choice, okay, I'm gonna go to the movies with my, with my kid, it's going to be this much for the movies and sports or the popcorn just wants to park your out 100 bucks. Which 1am I gonna go see the one that I kind of want to see to or want to see, you know, so there are all these elements that just kind of conspired to like, drive our movie, like kind of into the ground a little bit on a theatrical release. And it was a huge thing because DreamWorks Animation also kind of occupied this place where, you know, we weren't Pixar. You know, Jeffrey Katzenberg, God bless him, you know, had this kind of antagonistic relationship with a lot of the animation industry. And a lot of people were really salivating over the prospect of him failing. So when the movie didn't open very well, the press was just like, on it, you know, and the crazy thing was, you know, we were getting reviewed are really well, you know, the movie, you know, if I go back in time and change some things about the movie. Yeah, I would, you know, I'd give it that's like a, you know, to be be you know, but it was reviewed really well. And I think even I think a lot of people or even in the press were like, wow, you know, it's too bad what's happening to this movie? You know, out in the marketplace it doesn't, you know, doesn't really deserve that. So long story short, you know, you wake up the weekend after your movie that you've been working on for three years. Kind of killing yourself. And the headlines you see in the trades are like, epic flopped DreamWorks, DreamWorks, you know, bomb opening, and you know, and we're, you know, we're like, oh, yeah, we're all shattered. We're devastated. You know, there's all the, you know, crazy phone calls and what happened? And what are the what's the promo campaign? And can we switch the ads and, but it was just, we had just run into this, like, weird brick wall of bad luck, you know, and the movie eventually, you know, it eventually cracked, you know, 100 million dollars in the US. And it made like, you know, looking at what movies make now? It's like, oh, well, it actually did pretty damn good. You know, but back then, when you're up against Pixar movies making, you know, you know, a half billion dollars or a billion dollars or, and with what had been projected for this one, it was like a total reversal of fortune. So it was a real shock to the system, you know, and had implications for the company. But more importantly, to me, it was like, Oh, my God, am I ever going to be able to direct another movie again after this? And it was, and this is the crazy thing, where the thing that I said way, the beginning about not over, not over investing and your identity as what you're doing, I think help.

Because, you know, given the result of what happened. I think a lot of people might have like, forget it, I'm never going to work again, I quit. I'm out of this. I can't take the humiliation of seeing my name in the same paragraph as epic flop. There's a lot of paths I could have taken. But, but I'd seen that I'd seen a lot of people that loved the movie, and that had really been moved and touched by it, you know? So it's like, okay, well, I know, it's not all about me being an idiot, or the movie being that terrible.

Zack Arnold

Are you familiar with the idea of the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset? No. Okay. Did you are you embody the idea of a growth mindset? I just don't think you're aware of it. And I think it's something I'd be fascinated by. It's comes more from the education world than it does from the entertainment world. But yeah, if you if you're looking for, you know, entertainment with all the free time I'm assuming that you have in your life, you're looking for a book to sit down that you might find fascinating. It's called mindset. by Carol Dweck, she literally created an entire field of psychology and science behind mindset. But it's so funny, you and I are on the same wavelength. Because I was just going to interject with my question saying, you know, it's funny, because I want to go back to what you said in the very beginning of identity, right? Yeah. And look, there, you had to you have two choices. If the day after the epic failure. Choice. One is, I am a failure. That is my identity. I am a failed director. Not only that, but I proven everybody that black people can't direct animated films, because I was the first and I failed. So there's a whole lot of weight there versus Yeah, this was a failure. And I can focus on the choices that I made. And I'm proud of many of them. And looking back, you know, you didn't make it plus choices. But you made good enough choices. And you realized there are a lot of aspects outside of my control. Yes, I don't need to dictate the identity that I assume as a failure versus I failed. And my guess is if we could choose one pivotal I call them sliding doors moments from like the Gwyneth Paltrow, 90s movie sliding doors, where you have these two diverging universes. And I think that to me, without knowing all of the moments in between, but if we look at Rise of the Guardians to suddenly becoming an overnight success with the spider verse, my guess is one of the pivotal sliding doors moments was the difference between I'm a failure versus I failed.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's not to say that I you know, I didn't have you know, a few moments were like, wow, I, you know, that I, for a moment would flirt with the idea of wow, I think it was more of a question of, Am I a failure is this that I just hit the, but I never really believed it. You know, I never really believed that because, because, because it because of the people I work with, you know, I know what we put into that movie and I know, you know, I knew the I was gonna say good faith, not just good faith, but like, you know, good, good, strong ideas. I, you know, beyond that, I knew like, Well, my family, you know, my family loves me. Oh, my friends like suddenly I've got I've got this whole other life I'm not Yeah, it's you know, it's it's there were there were too many too many other things about you know, my real ality that, that didn't lend themselves to the idea that, you know, you are a failure in this, you know, that I just had to sort of go, you know, it's like, just like the luck that got me into the job in the first place. It's like, well, you know, it cuts both ways. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, you know, you have to be able to swallow, swallow that to, to, to a degree and also accepting that well, is there going to be fallout? Sure, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to have the sort of like, the, a lot of the doors that you thought were going to be wide open the day before the thing opened. And that was literally the case, a lot of those doors aren't, are suddenly going to be, you know, gotta close now, you know, and it's, it's like you have to deal with actual repercussions. But, you know, the idea that it's, it's, it's really some judgment on your value, as you know, a person or a creator or an artist or whatever, and that that's irrevocable, or irrevocable, that that's something that I never internalized or never felt so strongly that I wanted to withdraw from everything.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. So one of the things that I want to dig into even deeper now is, we've talked a lot about this moment, kind of a pivotal moment in your career, where you had a pretty epic public failure, right? And at the end of the day, I actually it sounds like very little, if none of it had to do with you. It's just a lot of outside forces. And there's so many things to consider. And yes, you're a part of it. But it's not like all of the forces aligned, you made a really crappy movie, right? The movies got a pretty big cult following. And yeah, you know, so

Peter Ramsey

I will say if it if maybe if the movie had, who knows if the movie had been 10%? You know, 20% better? And I think it definitely could have, it might have mitigated all those other factors, you know, and I'd be, you'd be interviewing me in a room made out of solid gold, you know,

Zack Arnold

well, and what we might still be, we might still be doing that, given the trajectory that you have been. But having said that, I think it's going back to this idea of a fixed versus a growth mindset, another way for somebody with a fixed mindset to look at it as well. None of this was my fault. I don't change anything. Right, right. So none of this had to do with me, but you're finding that nice balance of I failed, but I'm not a failure. But that also means there are areas where I can learn and grow better and persevere, right. Yeah, what we've talked so talked about so far with this instance, are all of the outside voices in the world, the studios, the network's the press their voices, saying this was a failure or a flop whatever it is that they might have said, but I really want to talk about the inner voices in the sense of imposter syndrome. Because I would imagine that either up until this point, or before given your list of mentors, how do you not just walk into a room and say, I don't deserve to be here.

Peter Ramsey

But I do it all the time. I have terrible impostor syndrome. I always feel that you know what? I one day, we're going on Dracula, back to mentorship back to Francis Coppola. That was one of the questions. I asked him, Francis. Yeah, because I see him like working another constant with all these guys. They work really, really hard. And Francis was absolutely no exception. And when to ask and practice, how do you deal with? How do you deal with doubt? You know, I really battled, I really struggle it. And do you ever feel that and he goes every day, every single day, and he's just like, you just have to, you know, except that it's there and try not to listen to that voice to the exclusion of the other things that are, you know, that you know, you're good at and that are pushing you forward. And like, you know, but it was like, just him telling me that he felt that himself was huge, obviously, then it's like, okay, I'm not alone in that, you know, and I've talked to so many people who are like, oh, yeah, I got a really bad you just have to have to find a way to push on through somehow. But yeah, I struggle with it constantly. It's terrible.

Zack Arnold

Which, which brings us back to this idea that you start to meet your heroes and get to know them and realize he's got all the same problems, that they're not some selective genius that has no issues and they're the special anointed person, which is again, why I think such a key mindset and a core part of your identity in a good way is that you see yourself as an eternal beginner.

Peter Ramsey

We're reading minds again, because I was just gonna say, that's the whole beginner thing to me because it's like, you know, you think of people you run into that thing that actually do think they do have it all figured out. You know, and those are the biggest blockheads, you know, those are the people not to listen to that's like, that's almost like To me that's like, you know, human being one on one that like the guy who thinks he knows everything is the guy who absolutely does not know everything, or the woman or whatever, you know, so that always was But that I'm always looking askance at people who are, you know, claimed to be really certain about things and like, okay, yeah, well, let's talk in six months.

Zack Arnold

Are you familiar with something called the Dunning Kruger effect? Oh, yes. So what we're talking about is the Dunning Kruger effect. And I made, I might butcher it a little bit. But just for anybody not familiar, essentially, it's this idea that there's an inverse correlation between how much you get to know something versus your perception of how much you know it. So when you know nothing about something, you know that you know nothing about something, as you start to learn a little bit about it, you have an inflated perception of what you really know. But then the more you really get good at something, the more you realize, I know absolutely nothing about this subject. And I never will, which is why the people at the top of their game, like yourself, say, I have so much to learn. The problem is the people that get stuck in the middle of that, where they actually don't know that much. They think they know everything. And my philosophy is that the biggest impediment to great stories and success in Hollywood is not budgets, or even schedules. These are things impediments, in my mind to work life balance and having a more fulfilling sustainable path. But I think ego and the fact that I know it all, and I'm right, that's what gets in the way of great storytelling more than anything else.

Peter Ramsey

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think that or what I've, you know, what I've come to so far, and you know, my learning about it, you know, again, you never know everything. But you do really do get to the point that you and you start to understand well, it's the story that that is the real king, you know, that's you have to subsume a lot of times you have to subsume your own personal taste to what's going to work best for the story. You know, and when you're collaborating with other people, sometimes, many times, some of them will have a solution to something that's, you know, I never in 1000 years would have come up with, but it's actually perfect for the story. And that, you know, not only does it work for the story, it also helps me to sort of like, add another like, you know, a little brain convolution, to my to my own way of thinking about things. It's like God would never have, but the reason that works is X, Y, and Z. And if I know that, that just improves me as a storyteller. So yeah, that was one of the open,

Zack Arnold

one of my foundational and now it's an absolutely required rule. And when you're younger in your career, harder to just have hard and fast rules. But now given where I am, in my career, I have a hard and fast rule that if you're in my edit suite, the best idea wins. You know, I do not care who it comes from, I always tell my students, if a janitor is walking by at 9pm, and they poke their head, and they're like, I think the closest would be better. And they're right, I'm going to do it. But I worked with, I've worked with so many people in the past, where either I or somebody else in the room had an idea that everybody thought was better, because this person was in charge. And it wasn't their idea, and they couldn't take credit for it, it couldn't be implemented. And I have no patience for that.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah, that's, that's the death of the death of real creativity is being stuck in your own ego. You can't be just that, that closes everything off, because that's about fear. And if you're afraid you can't really be fully as fully creative as, as you might.

Zack Arnold

And it's not just about fear. I think the the even deeper thing that a lot of people don't realize, especially when they're working with people at a higher level, is that it comes from a place of intense insecurity. Yeah. And once you realize that, it's easier to understand that it's not about you, and it's about them, and it doesn't make an environment any less toxic, or whatever the problems might be. But you realize, oh, they're not attacking me. They're just so incredibly insecure.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah, they're literally afraid of that their own expertise isn't going to be recognized as, as what they think it's gonna be recognized, as you know, right. But then you work. You know, when you work with real like, you know, actual, like, people, you could say, Wow, I think that guy's a genius. You know, you're working with David Fincher or Coppola, or, or, you know, Spike Jones, or, you know, guys up in that stratosphere, you see how they can assimilate and kind of like, synthesize other people's ideas and like, how open they are to other people's contributions, you know, and it's like, well, yeah, I see the quality of their work because of the way these guys work.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and this kind of just brings me full circle to this much grander hypothesis that I have. And there are other people in under other industries, behavioral psychologists that are trying to prove this more on a scientific level. And I'm just trying to prove it a little bit more on an anecdotal level. But I think the common thinking would be and we kind of started with this is thinking oh, well, will Peter got to where he is, despite the fact that he's so nice and pleasant. And my hypothesis is the you got to where you are because you are nice, and you are pleasant and you respect people because as you are nice and pleasant and you realize that the best idea wins and I want to collaborate Right and surround myself with people that know more than I do. Because I don't know anything. And I want to surround myself with the people that fill those knowledge gaps that tells the best story, which then earns the best money or box office or viewers or anything else. And I just I'm so tired of this idea that in order to be successful at the highest levels in this industry, you have to stay on people along the way.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think that just gets born out of people who are, you know, again, insecurity, you people have to know the ideas, you're so you have to elbow your way to the front of the pack somehow, or you're, you know, you're so you're so desperate to get to the top that you're not going to credit someone else? Or you're going to, you know, whatever that is, I Yeah, it's I think it's a, I think it's a lot of it's temperament it a lot, a lot of it does come down to the kind of person you are, you know, I've never been one to like, I'm a living let live kind of a person, you know, so I, I really don't like the idea of mistreating other people or, or kind of stealing credit from other people, things like that. It never entered my mind that I could do it on my own completely, you know, once I once you, once you get a feel for the enormity of the job and for the complexity of what it is? Well, it's like, well, yeah, no wonder you need a whole crew of people, you know, you absolutely, it's an absolute necessity. And the diversity of thought and approaches just is just going to make something better. But it's like, you know, I don't want to be cooped up with people who have resentment or bad feelings toward each other, why would I want that, you know, we're so lucky to be able to do what we do, why not enjoy it, and have a, you know, a good time and make it as like, pleasant and pleasant and collaborative as possible. So, so that, so that everybody brings their best game, that's the that's the other thing about it, you know, the more open I am, the more willing other people are to, like, be open and to, you know, to really invest themselves in the project in a way that is going to give you the best results, because people are putting their hearts and souls into it. You know, I've worked and I've worked on enough things where I've just done it for the paycheck, and where my you know, where I was only, you know, a wrist and, or I've had enough jobs, which is the other thing, I've had enough jobs outside the industry, where I was just, you know, where it was just drudgery. You know, where it was just day in day out? With no, no real feeling of achievement, or like, you know, I mean, you know, work in retail man, that's like, talking about soul sucking, you know, and the thought that I thought that I could work in something that was creative, and wouldn't have anything like that feeling to it. To me, it's like, well, yeah, that's what I want to be, I want to be on the fun train. I don't want to be on the miserable train. And why would we ever infect what we do with with this kind of horrible mindset where not everyone is welcome to the party. So for me, it's it's you just need to get a better result. everybody's happier. It's there. Why wouldn't they do it this way?

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I couldn't agree with all of that more. And one of the areas that you brought up, that was important, just kind of in passing that I think now we just want to hit head on before we run out of time is this idea of diversified voices. And I know that you're somebody that is very much a champion for bringing more diversity to this industry. And clearly, this conversation has changed a lot in the last three to five years. We, you know, we're working on solutions to the problem. I don't think we have solutions to all those problems. But I think one of the challenges, that's just an ongoing one that I'm sure you can speak to a lot more than I can because I'm the last person that should have a voice in diversity right now. But I want to champion it. So I think that one of the stumbling blocks that so many people have is of course we want to to champion diversity and new voices. But we also want to work with people that have all the experience that have worked together before that all collectively know each other, and we don't, we don't want to ruin that. So like how do we just bring people up that don't have the experience? I just want to hire the most skilled worker. Yeah, right. And that that's, that's a real stumbling block, because the people that could bring the most diversified voices don't necessarily have the experience because they never were given the opportunities very early in their career, to climb the ladder where they can work with you. So I know you're really embroiled in this conversation. So help us better understand how do we bring more diversified and skilled voices into the industry without having to lean on? Well, I've worked with them before I know them.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough one. And I understand that very well. I mean, the industry is is very social, you know, and, and when you're working on a when you're working that intensely on a project with people, you know, having a short having an already established shorthand is so valuable that you know Yeah, it's, it's it's a it's a tough problem, but I think it It's got a, it's got to start with, with people actively trying to do something about it. And that's, to my mind, that's, you know, the number one step is getting past the idea that, that you're pandering to people or that you're, that you're virtue signaling, or that you're, you know, any of these things that make it feel like, well, you don't really mean what you're doing, you know, you just kind of, you know, you're you just want to look good yourself from you know, you know, yeah, obviously, we don't want that. But a lot of times fear of that fear of being accused of that keeps people from even stepping foot into the, into the effort. And so for me, it's like, the first thing is, you know, recognize there actually is, you know, there actually isn't a real imbalance, you know, there actually is a situation where you've got, you know, you've got a lot of people who are who have been shut out of the Creative Conversation for a long time. And that, that has, you know, it's actively warped the fabric of society, by making a lot of people, you know, not only feel that their, that their voice doesn't count, but also by robbing, you know, you know, the majority culture of the idea that there's actually, that the world is actually more complex than they've been taught, you know, that there's so much that, that our popular culture has, you know, in a lot of ways kept, you know, it's obvious, obviously, it's really changing reasonably, which is, which is a good thing. It's not always an easy thing, but it's a good thing. But there's, there's so much of, you know, what happens in politics, what happens in, you know, culture, you name it, you know, is inflicted by the fact that popular culture presents an image of what we think society is, and for a long time, that image has just been really, really, really limited. So, I think step one is just saying, yeah, that, you know, you got me, it's true, it's a problem that needs to be fixed. And then it's not looking at the solutions as punitive. Or, or unfair and themselves, you know, because a lot will, you know, just, you know, well, something, I mean, basically, you know, is something gonna get taken from me if these other people get something. And it's like, well, no, that's definitely not the intention, number one, it shouldn't be punitive. Number two, it's like, a little patience, please, while this gets figured out, you know, it may feel like that for a little bit, you may look in variety and see, like, Jesus, there's five black dudes and three, you know, Asian women who are getting directed deals, what about mine? You know, I want to direct the movie too. And it's like, yeah, I feel you do, I'd like, you know, but I just have to say, Can we look, turn the lens back on the last 80 years, and look at the reverse perspective, I offer my own story, you know, I mean, I didn't get, I really didn't get to direct, you know, a big movie till I was almost 50. If I had been, you know,

You know, a white kid growing up in that Redwood, would it have taken me that long, for any number of reasons. So, it's, it's, it's tough, because, you know, people find themselves where they are in life in the present moment, and they don't, they don't have the benefit. And, you know, it's, it's kind of too bad, but you have to have the responsibility of looking back on history or, or having to contend with, you know, all this other stuff, all these other contexts that's gone before that you really didn't have a hand in shaping, but that's where everybody is, you know, everybody's got to bear some kind of, part of the burden of, of history, you know, and for a long time, it's been pretty much exclusively on the backs of people of color of women, you know, disabled people, you name it, you know, and now, you know, that we we now that that imbalance has been recognized and the first steps and shifting it are being taken. Yeah, there's gonna be some discomfort. But it's, it's that is that is just where the burden is falling right now. And, hopefully, you know, the idea is that nobody has to get into a place where nobody has to bear that because there is actually actual equity and an actual, hopefully, a situation where, where we really truly do recognize that all voices are recognized. So it's practically it's really hard to say it's like yeah, hire more, hire more people. I'm a big believer in intern internships, mentoring. You know, I think all professionals whenever possible that they can reach out to someone who really needs it, you know, a lot of and a lot of times, yeah, it's going to be a person of color. It's going to be a woman. It's going to be You know, a disabled person, wherever that's possible to do, you know, do it good faith efforts, you know, are like, you know, they're just that they're efforts in good faith to do the right thing. I know, there's a lot of like, lots of different programs that people have access to now that didn't exist before. Those are all great. But I honestly think it's like, it really is an individual thing of like, what's, what's the good faith thing I can do? If I actually do realize and accept that? Yeah, there's an imbalance, what can I do to help? Can I cannot hire somebody, maybe they don't have the greatest resume. But you know, what I talked to them, I entered, I went through the trouble of interviewing six, several candidates, I have a good feeling about this person, I'm willing to do a little hand holding, if it takes that. And you know what, a lot of times you take a chance on somebody and you don't need to handhold them, you know, or they're a much quicker, much hungrier study than then you might have gotten otherwise. So it's, it's sort of, you know, a lot of it is like, not letting your hesitation or uncertainty about even making an effort get the better of you before you even try.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I think all that's wonderful advice for anybody, whether you're the one that's trying to break in not being recognized, or you're on my end, which is that I've been on the receiving end of a lot of things being very beneficial for people that look much like me and have my agenda. And now all of a sudden, that shifted, and I have a multitude of people that have come to me, that have said, Listen, I've been really successful as an editor or a composer, Director, whatever, 1520 years, and all of a sudden, in the last two years, it's all disappeared. And I basically know, it's because I'm a white male. And they're like, I kind of get it, it sucks. But I'm starting to see rather than being how dare they a lot of them are like, it's kind of my time to deal with the struggle, because I'm feeling the imbalance. And that's the burden I think a lot of us take, because like when you had said that now you're seeing people that are like, hey, what about me, you're hiring all the blacks and females and Asians and whatnot? What about me? It's like, yeah, yeah, well, how's that feel? Right? Like that? That's the imbalance.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah, and it's, and it's not even, I mean, I hate that anybody ever feels like that? You know, and, but if you took a snapshot of the industry, even now, it's gonna be like, 95%. I mean, there's just, there's just no, you know, as much as it seems to be in flux, as much as it seems to be changing now, it's still the, you know, it's still like a vast imbalance. So it's, I don't know, it's also think the industry in general is just changing, you know, the economics of it, the, you know, streamers versus, you know, it's just the whole thing is, is changing. So, I don't think that it's like, minority people, more minority people coming to enter the workforce is actually driving anybody out? I highly doubt it. I think it's, it's a lot of, it's an, as usual, in politics and society, it's an easy target.

Zack Arnold

It's all perception.

Peter Ramsey

Yeah, it's an easy thing that, you know, you can look at these market forces that are keeping you from getting the jobs maybe as easily as you used to get, as opposed to, you know, you know, oh, my God, these new people are coming in pushing me out. And it's like, well, is that true? Or, you know, Hollywood's never that kinda, you know, people as they start to get older, you know, new crops that people come in, they want their young, fresh faces and all this stuff, you know, there, that's just as much of a thing as anything else. So it's, but, you know, like, you were saying, perception, you know, and it's, it's, you just hope that that you just hope that enough people can step back and go, Well, you know, I think there, there, there's more going on than than what there might seem to be, you can't pin everything on on one problem or one solution. But as long as people understand, yeah, there has historically been a thing that goes into into the pot with all these other complex things that influence the way the industry is going.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and the way that I kind of want to bring this all together, because I do want to be very, very respectful of your time of what you've been very generous with. But I think that the from me, of course, yes. For me, the most important argument to bring more diversity and culture into this industry or frankly, any industry. It's a hard sell, to say, because it's the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do, but that's a hard sell. Right? It's another thing to say that it literally equals money at the box office. And in my mind, spider verse is hard proof diversity of voices equals money and success because I would have imagined it was not easy as a quote unquote, failed director in animation to shop around an idea that's animated about Spider Man In a black character universe,

Peter Ramsey

Well, luckily, I didn't have to. I mean, Spider Verse is not as much as I'd love to take credit for 100% of that movie. It was not generated by me, I kind of lucked into being a part of it, the luck. Once again, you know, luck. Spider verse came about when Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who, you know, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Lego Movie, guys who have kind of revolutionized feature American feature animation in a couple of ways. They were approached by Sony to do an animated Spider Man movie. And at first they turned it down because they're a bit kind of a glut of SpiderMan stuff. And then they turn back around and said, Wait a minute, there's this character, Miles Morales, who's never been done, you know, in movie form, and I said, if we can make the movie by miles, we'll do it. So that was that's still and Chris had like the incredible like, brainstorm to like, bring this character to life. And it like what it did was it took something that you were familiar with, which was the idea of spider man and it put a whole new spin on it. But it was also extremely respectful to the the character and the the ethos of spider man. And that's what that's what made that movie such a, you know, groundbreaking thing was that it was, it was one of the most Spider Man movies ever. But it was also a completely new take on who and what Spider Man was. And yeah, I lucked into being a part of it, there was a whole convoluted story to that too. But suffice it to say, I ended up I actually ended up as the second director on the team after my good friend, Bob Persichetti, who I had known from Dreamworks genius. And then Rodney Rothman came after me and with Phil and Chris producing and kind of like having the initial creative guidance. Yeah, we all worked like dogs to make that movie happen. But it, what's the importance, I think of spider verse was showing that if you took the idea of an established legacy character and sort of put a new spin on it, by by bringing in the idea of a diverse interpretation of that character, what's the material lent itself to, it's all about like other universes where other things can happen. So you can have other versions of these characters. And they, you know, in spider verse, Myles was able to able to interact with Peter Parker, who was the original Spider Man. So there's a dialogue between this new diverse interpretation, and then the end, kind of the legacy interpretation that everyone knows and loves. And I think that made it a little easier for people to like, buy into this idea of diversity as an additive thing, not as a punitive or replacement thing, you know, what I mean, because both ideas coexist simultaneously. And both Spider Man were as much Spider Man, like 100%, as the original ever was. So it's kind of a nice metaphor, I think for you know, what that idea of, of diversity being, being given more space in the culture really can do it can it can add more, it can deepen the understanding of what what the legacy always has been, you know, because it's, it's a fresh, it's an opportunity to look at something fresh from a whole new perspective. You know, it's like, looking at, you know, the another example, I can give the example of Hamilton, you know, which is like, a similar sort of, like, you know, it sounds like, you know, thinking, you know, it sounds like a completely ridiculous idea, when you think of it on its face, a hip hop version of American history, with an old, you know, a cast of like black and Latino, Asian people what, you know, it sounds, it sounds kind of silly, but then when you look and see what it what reflecting things through that kind of mirror does, and making the core ideas, feel fresh and relevant again, and relevant for everyone. You know, no matter what background you come from, that you, to me, that's what you can get from diversity and this idea that will everybody's reality is important. You know, you can, you know, a white person can learn as much from my background in my life as I as I can from there. And we can learn as much about our own lives by looking at the other person's life and background.

I mean, in a way that we never would have dreamed possible. There are so many stories that are possible, because of more diversity opening up that does that don't just benefit, you know, the member of this specific minority minority group or sex or whatever. It's also you know, I think there's so much for white people to learn about, you know, the reality They exist in that's effectively been kept from them. You know, there's a whole, there's a whole view of the world that is as real and as potent for people living in white society that, you know, the rest of us have lived, that they just haven't been allowed entry to, because that's the way society has been stratified. So I think that conflict, it's, it's not just diversity of race or sexual orientation or whatever. It's literally diversity of interpretation of the world and the reality that we live in. And I think that's beneficial for everybody.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. And I have one very quick final question. And if you gotta leave, I totally understand. But get given the value of your diversified voice and perspective and experience, I want you to take all of this hindsight and knowledge or lack thereof, because you still don't know anything yet. But all of that, and I want you to time travel back. And I want you to have a conversation with yourself when you're in high school, thinking that movies fall out of the sky. At that period of time, what advice would you give yourself?

Peter Ramsey

It's a probably say, Okay, you're gonna go to college and a couple of years, you're gonna drop out after to just just get the degree? Learn a little more. I think I would, I would have told myself, what would I get? People have asked me this question before. And I'm, I'm trying to think of that, I think I would have told myself, I have a little more faith in yourself, you know, don't don't let your doubts sort of steer your decision making or, or keep you from making a decision. That's probably, that's probably the number one thing I would have said, because I think some things could have happened faster for me, or in slightly different ways. Had I understood that, you know, you can you can do some of this stuff, just have a little more faith, have a little more, have a little more courage, you know, you can do it. That is probably the number one thing I would have told myself, I have a little more faith, it's, you know, you can take the leap a little earlier than you think you can, or you can, you know, you can because once I did start taking those leaps later, I found that, oh, yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. And I think that's probably what I would have said, and just saved myself a little agony and heartache and beating my head against the wall later on.

Zack Arnold

I love it. I think that that is absolutely wonderful advice. And for anybody that has the internet or IMDb or any website, they know where to find your work, but somebody wanted to find you personally, you strike me as the type that's willing to to help others and answer a question or two and shepherd them along the way. How do people find you personally,

Peter Ramsey

the easiest way probably is to reach out on Twitter. And honestly, you know, with people tweet me and and, you know, I'm happy to, you know, generally happy to answer questions or whatever. And that's a pretty free flowing, you know, forum, as everybody knows, for for good and for ill. But probably the way pramsey342 on Twitter. And yeah, I try to, I try to do I try to do things like this, you know, podcasts, or interviews or educational keynotes, nos, I'm really big on educational forums or whatever, I always love to contribute to stuff like that. So I'm always down for those discussions or, or, or talks. But yeah, if anybody you know, was watching, and they were like, wow, I really would like to ask him about this. Tried Twitter, and, you know, nine times out of 10 You know, I'll go like, Oh, this is what I think blabbity blabbity blah.

Zack Arnold

I love it. I really appreciate people that are open and willing to communicate with others and help them along their journeys. We'll make sure to put a link to your Twitter page in the shownotes but otherwise, Peter, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here I've learned a lot I'm inspired as hell right now to do some good in the world. So can't thank you enough for your time and your expertise.

Peter Ramsey

Oh, the pleasure is all mine and shout out to Debby Germino for recommending me for the conversation. It was really fun. So thanks. It's been a pleasure.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai