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Biography
Peter A. Ramsey (born 1962 or 1963) is an American film director, illustrator, and writer. He is best known for directing DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians (2012) and Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), the latter of which he co-directed alongside Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman. For Spider-Man, he became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Early life
Ramsey grew up in the Crenshaw District of South Los Angeles, and graduated at 17 from Pali High. He studied painting at UCLA for two years before enrolling in film classes at Los Angeles City College.
Career
His first job in Hollywood was painting a mural, but soon he was working as a storyboard artist and production illustrator on 26 films including Predator 2, Backdraft, Independence Day,Fight Club and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. He was a second unit director for Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Tank Girl and Godzilla. Aron Warner, the producer of Tank Girl, suggested he join DreamWorks Animation. After initially being uninterested, Ramsey joined DreamWorks as a story artist for Shrek the Third and Shrek the Halls.
In 2012 he directed Rise of the Guardians, based on William Joyce's The Guardians of Childhood books, making him the first African-American to direct a big budget animated feature.In 2018, he co-directed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Ramsey is a member of AMPAS, the Directors Guild of America and The Animation Guild.