Because of the nature of my job, I get the chance to rub elbows with ministers, ambassadors and other high-ranking officials both from the public and private sector. I’ve also had the chance to spend time with artists and scientists and through my conversations with them I realized what beautiful (albeit diverse) minds these people have. One person that stood out from among these people though, is a guy I met just recently. He was a speaker for a Camp I was organizing and he was to handle Digital Animation.
Roy Wilson is not the typical animator you see these days. To start with, I was expecting someone much younger. It surprised me to see a rather “matured” guy appear in the auditorium and introduce himself to me as the guy who would be doing the lecture. He is 70 years old and a retiree. He does not own a handphone, does not carry a laptop (I had to provide for him), and inisists on opening the doors for me. To be honest, I didn’t expect much from him, and it didn’t help that he came with Nickson Fong, who was an essential figure in the technical productions of very famous Hollywood movies – think Shrek, Godzilla, Scorpion King, Matrix (the entire series) to name a few.
Anyhow, the Camp started and I would soon find out that Roy was an animator for Disney, Warner Bros and Marvel. He has more than 50 years of experience in the field. He brought with him some of his sketches and, (like all his participants), these sketches caught my attention. They were sketches he did for Disney, Warner and Marvel. That was probably the closest I could get to those animations in their raw form.
In between the five lectures he did, I got to know the guy better. He was simply overflowing with creativity and he spoke to me with the tone of a mentor talking to a student. Even my boss, who is a difficult man to please, was impressed with this guy who personifies “creative” in the real sense of the word.
I requested him to draw something for Lance and Carl and he did so very willingly and very quickly. Many other talented artists can probably do similar drawings but there is an added value in knowing that these were done by the same hands that once upon a time gave life to Mickey Mouse, Batman and other characters we see on screen.
To Roy, thanks very much!
