Asian A.V. Club newsletter #31
President of Paramount Animation Ramsey Naito talks about growing up in a creative household and how that helped her carve her own path in the world of animation.
Ramsey Naito has spent her whole career working in animation. From her early days as a production assistant and progressing to producing feature films, then holding executive roles at Nickelodeon Movies, Cartoon Network, Blue Sky Studios, before becoming President of Paramount Animation. Her steady respected trajectory has given Naito a unique insider perspective on the evolution of animation over the past few decades, while positioning her as an innovative leader that will shape the next generation of animation to the world.
We recently got the chance to talk to Naito, who let us in about her artistic upbringing, the techniques of being a good producer, and the genuine creative direction she encourages from her filmmakers in all the films under her watch.
Asian A.V. Club: It’s so nice to be able to talk to you! I hope you don’t mind, but I’d love to talk about your creative origins. I read that you grew up without a television and was wondering how that fostered your creativity during your formative years.
Ramsey Naito: Both my parents are artists. My father is a sculptor, my mother is a painter. My fathers from Japan, and my mother is from New Orleans. When I was young, going to the movies and seeing films was very much a part of our itinerary. But TV was not. I think it was because my parents were like, entertain yourself. Draw, fantasize, create.
My parents, probably with not having gone to a Waldorf school [Education program which puts high value in art, imagination, and creativity], they probably were the closest thing to Waldorf parents. So, I grew up literally without a television until I was maybe 14 or 15, and even then, my mother decided to get a little black and white Zenith television from that was small and therefore not entertaining at the time. (laughs)
Asian A.V. Club: When creativity is part of your ‘normal’, what kind of kid were you like growing up?
Ramsey Naito: I think the creative normal in my life allowed me to be innovative when things weren't going to plan. When something broke, you figured out how to fix it. And it maybe wasn't like the way it was before, but it's maybe better or different. I love being creative and it’s my safe place, but in the end, I knew that even though I was seeing the world through this inspired lens, the relationships between people and engaging in everyday life was more important.
Asian A.V. Club: You pursued an academic career in art schools. How did that transition into your early career working in animation?
Ramsey Naito: I went to art school my entire life. I went to Baltimore School for the Arts for high school. I graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art, and I went to Cal Arts for grad school. Throughout those years, I always remembered what my parents said to me. They said, be happy, make aesthetic choices, know what they mean to you, and most importantly, find your people.
I met animators for the first time in grad school. And when we were all graduating, they were all getting jobs. So, they were like, ‘Hey, come get this job, work with us!’ And so, I applied for this job as a PA [production assistant] on Duckman. The interview went like this, “Do you know what a number two pencil is?” And I was like, “Yes.” “Do you know how to make Xerox copies?” “Yes.” And then I got the job. (laughs) It's way more competitive now. And the rest was history.
Asian A.V. Club: That is incredible!
Ramsey Naito: I remember the first week working at KLaSKY CSUPO [animation studio], I fell in love with it. I just fell in love with the community. Who knew there was an office job that employed by so many artists all focused on one commercial idea, but also making their own art, and having their own practice. Animation is a vibrant community. It's a commercial one. But the individuals working in it are fantastic.
Asian A.V. Club: You were hooked! How did you slowly move from animation into producing then?
Ramsey Naito: From that position, I moved up, and I worked through art and production design and story. From Duckman I went into Rugrats, Santo Bugito, The Wild Thornberrys and eventually The Rugrats Movie [supervising coordinator]. I left KLaSKY CSUPO to work on the South Park movie [unit production manager]. And then I went to Nickelodeon and worked on the Paramount lot, where they asked me to oversee animated movie development.
Asian A.V. Club: That’s quite a steady rise. How did you prepare for it?
Ramsey Naito: I learned on the job, and I learned from incredible people like Julia Pistor, who I worked for, Karen Rosenfelt and John Goldwyn, who were the heads of production, and Sherry Lansing, who was running the studio at the time. It really was the heyday of Paramount.
Then I left and went to Cartoon Network where they wanted to build an animation division, but funny enough they pivoted and was like, we want you to focus on live action movies. So, I made live action movies for Cartoon Network. Then Blue Sky Studios offered me a job. Since I'm from New York, and my parents are there, I was like, ‘Okay, great. I'm coming home.’ And was based out of Westchester County for about two and a half years, before I moved back into my old house in LA to produce The Boss Baby for Dreamworks Animation.
Asian A.V. Club: That career trajectory is amazing! I gotta ask, as your role changed over the years, how does your relationship with the people making the animation change?
Ramsey Naito: Well, I think being a producer and being an executive are really different, but the one thing they have in common in terms of managing people in this world of animation is having a relationship with the talent. It’s so important, being true partners, and being friends. You're in it for the long haul. You're making these movies for three to six years and a lot can happen in your personal life, let alone on a movie that you're working on together.
As a producer, I think it's very important to always talk about the milestones on a film. We're going to be here in three months. We're going to be doing this in six months. Just putting things in context now, so that we can get to these moments in the future. On these films, you have a director and a very small team of key leadership comprised usually of production designer, art director, head of Story Editor, VFX producer, and they are all managing teams of people that can be anywhere from 200 to 400 people, which makes it a really collaborative process. It's so important to communicate and streamline and make sure top down, everyone knows what they're doing. And so, communication is key. Especially from a director who is poised to hear all the great ideas over the course of making a film, and their responsibility is to make the right ones.
Asian A.V. Club: You are now back at Paramount as the president of Paramount Animation. It’s been fascinating to see the recent releases, because there’s been a very positive approach to relaunching beloved IPs like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers, while focusing on original storytelling and animation. Can you talk about the mandate you’re giving your creatives on your releases?
Ramsey Naito: I love our culture at Paramount. Of course, there’s pros and cons to everything, but we embrace a no style on all our movies, so they can be wildly different and driven by the vision of one person and maybe their team. On each picture, they have the ability to create a look that is specific and original, dare I say. And the way that we're approaching these franchise films is as if they are originals, but they're not.
But the secret weapon in making movies like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Transformers One is that we’re finding talent that had a deep connection from their childhood, where they were able to identify intuitively what mattered for the fans, and identify the areas that they'd never seen before, and take liberties to create something new and inspired.
Asian A.V. Club: How so?
Ramsey Naito: So, like on Turtles, Jeff [Rowe – director] loved Turtles. I remember when Brian Robbins [Paramount Pictures President and CEO] and I called him, he was thrilled that we were talking to him about the possibility of turtles, and just spoke endlessly about the franchise in ways that only someone who loved it could. So, love is a secret ingredient.
And then the visual inspiration is pretty cool. With Turtles, Jeff put his finger on being 15, and you’re scribbling and sketching all these things in the margins of your lined paper. Not really knowing how to draw anything yet but being fearless because no one’s told you that you can’t draw. Those drawings really represent the teenage years. And that was the inspiration and energy that made it through on screen that not only kept it fresh but celebrated the franchise.
As for Transformers, it was being able to visualize a planet we'd never seen before. Seeing the planet Cybertron in its heyday, down to the last detail. That came from Josh [Cooley – director] and Jason Scheier [Production Design] really going for it. Transformers One is also a character story between Optimus Prime and Megatron. It’s their origins story where we see them as best friends who have a dream and begin to understand how their ideologies were born, what broke them up and made them become the revered iconic characters we know today.
Josh added color in something we'd never seen before, taking characters, and then walking them backwards to being minors, to being empowered with the ability to transform, and not knowing what it meant, to becoming their glorious self. Every aspect of that film comes from a great reverence and understanding what the fans want.
That originality ethos extends to upcoming films like the Smurfs and SpongeBob and more importantly, our originals that are coming. We have an incredible slate.
Asian A.V. Club: I’m psyched about your upcoming Swan Lake based on the graphic novel Swan Lake: Quest for the Kingdoms!
Ramsey Naito: Swan Lake is so good! It's a modern retelling of Swan Lake. There's a lot to reinvent there, because people know the play, the ballet, but they don't know the story. But it's a story about friendship, and it's a real empowerment piece for girls.
Asian A.V. Club: I get the impression that working in animation, it might be one of the few places in Hollywood where there’s diversity among the creatives working behind the scenes. Was that the case for you?
Ramsey Naito: Actually, I was often the only Asian American in the room. But I think that with race and representation through art, often that became a real power in terms of representing Asians in animation.
Asian A.V. Club: How do you make sure representation exists with the productions you’re developing at Paramount Animation?
Ramsey Naito: Diversity and inclusion is for everybody. The teams behind the camera must be diverse when creating characters of color in order to support and promote dialog towards authenticity and breaking the stereotype. It's critical. And I think one of the things I've tried very hard to do is build teams that are diverse as possible, so that the dialog can continue, because it must.
I think a fascinating thing about animation is that 70% of animation students are women. Women are coming into our industry in a forceful way. They're all coming out of school, and they're all wanting jobs, and it's going to move the needle in a way that we haven't seen before. I think cultures are changing in order to embrace that.
You know, 55% of kids under the age of 12 are blended. Are non-white. They want to see themselves on camera, and when they do, they want the characters to feel real, versus a stereotype or something unreal. Which means it's a necessity that diversity and inclusion is behind the screens in order to promote authenticity. So, representation is very important.
Asian A.V. Club: We really appreciate the work that you’re doing, and I can’t wait to see all the cool stuff you guys are working on.
Ramsey Naito: Thank you!