From PH to the ‘Spider-Verse’: artist Ronald Samson on his ‘date’ with Hollywood

Scene from “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”

If you loved the 2018 Oscar-winning animated film ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ as much as we did, then you’re in for a bigger and bolder treat in the sequel, ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider’. -Verse’. Verse’, will start the theater performance in the Philippines on Wednesday.

Don’t take our word for it. Take it from the film’s lighting and composition artist, Ronald Samson, who presumed in an email interview with Inquirer Entertainment early this week that the highly anticipated second installment in the Spider-Verse trilogy is “crazier.”

He explained, “As fun and entertaining as the first film was, this sequel will feature more visually stunning, action-packed scenes. It is rising exponentially as it pushes the boundaries of creativity in animation and effects.”

Ronald doesn’t just pay lip service to us, he knows what he’s talking about. In fact, his immensely impressive body of work has titles like “Star Wars: Clone Wars,” “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,” “The Avengers,” “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” Matrix Reloaded,” “Maleficent,” “Furious 7,” “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” and “Into the Spider-Verse.” Eat your hearts out, fanboys!

But long before Ronald booked his date with Hollywood, he got his feet wet from his early exposure to art and animation, including Tony Y. Reyes’ “Enteng Kabisote: Okay Ka Fairy Ko” and Erik Matti’s “Gagamboy.”

From left: Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) and his daughter Mayday — PHOTOS COURTESY OF COLUMBIA PHOTOS

Table of Contents

Philippine roots

The fact that the seasoned performer is a homegrown Pinoy who now lives in Canada makes Ronald’s amazing performance all the more sweet and inspiring.

“I was born in Santa Cruz, Manila, but I grew up in Quezon City,” he told us when asked about his Filipino roots. “Both my mother and father were Bicolanos, and I grew up in a family compound with Bicolano relatives, where I picked up a bit of our dialect. My wife and I moved to Singapore in 2006, raised a family there and eventually migrated to Vancouver, Canada in 2012.”

To give the “uninitiated” an idea of how lighting or composition makes a great story come to life, Ronald explained: “The idea behind the process is that it gives the scene the colour, lighting and atmosphere that defines the story and the completing characters.. My job as a lighting and composition artist is the last stop in the animation process.

“So basically I would collect all the different elements from other departments to create images that will hopefully evoke an emotional response from viewers.”

That is of course easier said than done. Working on ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ was a mammoth task that required Ronald’s keen eye and dedication to his craft.

In the animated film, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson and distributed by Columbia Pictures, the story begins a few months after the end of the first film. After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in Brooklyn is suddenly catapulted through the Multiverse.

In this dimension-skipping adventure, Spider-Man, aka Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), crosses paths with the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People tasked with protecting the existence of the Multiverse . But when the heroes disagree on how to deal with a new threat, Miles must face off against the other Spiders and go out alone to save the people he loves most.

Ronald Simpson

Favorite

The Spider-People Miles encounters include Gwen Stacy aka Spider-Woman of Earth-65 (Fil-Am Hailee Steinfeld), Miguel O’Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), new dad Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) , Hobie Brown aka Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), Pavitr Prabhakar aka Spider-Man India (Karan Soni), Ben Reilly aka the multijointed Scarlet Spider and, yes, even Spider-Cat.

Of the many exciting iterations of Spider-Man in ‘Across the Spider-Verse,’ which version is Ronald’s favorite?

“I’d say I’m still a fan of the original Spider-Man, Peter B. Parker,” he shared. “I grew up reading and collecting his comic books when I was a kid. I put all my comic books in a suitcase and walked around with them like a treasure.

“Basically my seventh birthday was a Spider-Man themed party with birthday cakes, balloons and all. He was my favorite because he was an underdog. Plus, he was one of the first young superheroes to be depicted as a student I could identify with at the time.

Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) clashes with Vulture (Jorma Taccone)

Our Q&A with Ronald:

That’s a lot of big titles in your body of work. Which are your favourites?

The “Star Wars: Clone Wars” series is definitely one of my favorites because I’m a huge “Star Wars” fanatic, so to be part of that universe as an artist was an honor. I was also lucky enough to meet and talk to George Lucas and Dave Filoni during the production.

“The Matrix” was also a memorable movie for me as it was the first mainstream Hollywood movie I worked on overseas, not to mention the motion-capture technology the project used was very advanced at the time used to be.

Another personal favorite is the Oscar-winning film “Rango,” which was also considered groundbreaking at the time, as it portrayed both realism and a cartoonish, gritty western feel. It was equally memorable to me because it was my firstborn’s very first movie that he saw on the big screen.

In short, how did you end up with all those smashing Hollywood productions?

It took a lot of learning and perseverance over the years on my part, as well as a lot of creative expression to stand out among a pool of talented artists. Confidence in pursuing my dream job at my dream studio has always pushed me to take on different opportunities.

You grew up loving animation with your brothers. What was it about animation that captured your imagination?

Watching cartoons was our bonding time when we were young. Normally we would dive deep into the storylines and into character that we would reenact some of the cartoon scenes that we saw.

This took us to different worlds as we role-played. We had a brotherly promise to never stop watching cartoons, even when we were adults – and I think we kept that promise.

Ben Reilly aka Scarlet Spider

Who were your favorite superheroes growing up?

Aside from Spider-Man, I’ve always loved Wolverine for his fearless nature, as well as his brave and strong character. As a child, these were the qualities you wanted. Besides, who wouldn’t want to have regenerative powers and cool indestructible claws?

We’d love to see the Metal Men eventually come to life in a movie. What other superheroes would you like to see on the big screen in your case?

I’d love to see some of the traditional cartoon heroes I used to see reimagined in more advanced, high-end, computer-generated versions. It would be great to see Inhumanoids, Visionaries and the more popular Thundercats on the big screen in full animation.

Why is animation better suited to “Into the Spider-Verse” and “Across the Spider-Verse” than live action?

I can only guess, but it’s probably the best medium for such an intensely creative movie.

Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore)

What do you find more challenging and satisfying between live action and animation?

I’ve always been interested in live-action productions, which have their own set of obstacles, especially how computer graphics blend seamlessly into reality. However, I will always prefer animation over live action because you have more creative freedom in animation.

Your body of work also includes ‘Enteng Kabisote: Okay Ka Fairy Ko’ and ‘Gagamboy’. How did you end up doing them?

We were a group of friends from a local animation studio who were invited to work on ‘Enteng Kabisote’ and were looking for more focus on animation work. We did the computer graphics of the movie almost entirely during graveyard hours, but it was fun to attend Tony Reyes’ sets and work on that hilarious movie.

Before ‘Gagamboy’, I was an artist working for Imagineers, along with Miki Ramos, Ciso Santiago and Angel Banayos, who were all pioneers in the Philippine CG industry, who handled some of the post-production for the film.

What do you think sets Filipino artists apart from others?

Filipinos have a very colorful history, which overflows in every form of our creativity, be it dance, song or visual arts. Most important of all, our matiyaganess (continuous hard work), combined with our innate artistic skills, always produces extraordinary creations and performances.

Your subscription cannot be saved. Try again.

Your registration was successful.