ArtNews

Baltazar Wants to Show That Animation is Not Just for Kids
Storyboard revisionist values reflecting his culture in his work

Orange County Register
By JILL HAMILTON  | Contributing writer

Miguel Baltazar graduated in 2018, but he’s already a successful storyboard revisionist, working on shows like “Boss Baby: Back in Business” for DreamWorks Animation and currently on the forthcoming “Inside Job” for Netflix’s new created animation department.

His love of animation started when he was 4 years old, growing up in Anaheim, and his parents, who had immigrated from Mexico, showed him the movie “Toy Story.”

“My parents didn’t really speak much English at the time, and they had to entertain me, so they showed me whatever VHS tapes they got from friends,” says Baltazar. “I got lucky because they picked some of the best movies out there. Watching those animated films really inspired me to to go that route— my parents kind of unintentionally inspired me with the really high quality contact.”

Art can be a tenuous career path, but Baltazar was not deterred.

“I have this insatiable love for for film and movies and and entertainment, and I felt like I needed to be a part of that,” he said.

“That created this stubbornness in me. People were suggesting, ‘Miguel,your grades are really good — you can do other stuff.’ But I don’t like doing other stuff. That’s why I was super motivated to take that risk. I’m a hard worker. My parents work hard. That was something I knew was going to help me, putting in that work to get what I wanted.”

His hard work paid off. In his last year at Cal State Fullerton, Baltazar worked an internship at DreamWorks and got a job there right out of college.

Storyboard revisionists like Baltazar are somewhat analogous to print editors. Once the storyboard artist create the storyboards for the script, the revisionists work with the director to enhance and fix the drawings.

“Especially in TV animation they have to draw very quickly so the drawings might be a little messy and rushed. So it’s my job to go in with the director about ways we can clean up the episode and make it better,” he says.

The work may involve setting up new compositions or creating new sequences or just tweaking and polishing. Right now he’s doing all his work remotely because of the novel coronavirus.

In Baltazar’s Instagram bio, he describes himself as a Chicano, comic, artist and storyteller. Listing Chicano first was deliberate.

“Being the child of two Mexican parents, I felt like it was an obligation for me not only to promote myself as an artist but my culture as well, so that people know where I stand and that I take my culture seriously,” says Baltazar.

“It’s something I did recently. Before I was neutral when it came to how I represented myself culturally and artistically, and I felt like it was time for me to blend those together.”

He made the decision to speak out more about his culture while working as a tutor at the Gear Up program in his fourth year of college.

“I don’t consider myself an activist, but a lot of my co-workers were really proud and vocal about their culture and heritage. I felt kind of ashamed that I wasn’t doing that much sooner. I felt like I had an obligation to do that because in animation and art in general our culture isn’t really represented as much, so I had a really neat position to to be able to open that up and have that conversation with other artists.”

To that end, Baltazar was recently a panelist at the 4th Annual CSUF’s Male Youth Empowerment Conference. Baltazar spoke of fighting imposter syndrome in college, the feeling that he didn’t belong.

“I want to tell stories that relate to Mexican Americans and other minorities through animation,” he told the assembled crowd of over 400 students from eight high schools in Compton, Santa Ana and Garden Grove. “There aren’t that many people of color working there that speak to the community.”

“It felt good helping,” he says. “I wanted to give them a glimpse into a world they had never seen. I wanted to be honest about like what I do and debunk the myths of animation. It’s world that’s kind of trivialized as being just for kids or that not a lot of people can into.

“People assume that it’s actors and movie stars that are the ones helming the industry, but really it’s the hard working people that are behind the scenes who are making that stuff happen. I was in a good position to bring that into the light for them — it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

He’s also supporting Black Lives Matter through his art and offered to create personalized drawings for the first 15 people who donated to one of the organizations listed on his Instagram (miguelbaltazar_art).

“People are protesting, but I want to take care of myself because of the coronavirus so I decided ‘Why not utilize my platform on Instagram and help out with that movement through my art?’ ” People took him up on it, and he is now dutifully working on these commissioned sketches. (Most wanted themselves with a family member.)

Baltazar is still young and it’s early in his career, but eventually he hopes to become a show runner and creator. What would he like people to get out his work?

“I’m not going to shy away from stuff that can be emotional or heartfelt. I want to tell stories that are thoughtful, meaningful and profound,” he says. “I’m someone who is very grateful for the opportunities that I’ve gotten in life, and I want my art to reflect that and hopefully give someone else the motivation and inspiration to work hard as well.”

“We don’t make just cartoons; we make stories that can bridge gaps and really explore and tell different stories. Especially as a Mexican American working in animation, I want to be able to make sure the cartoons that express more of our stories and inspire more people of color to enter animation.”

You might also be interested in Baltazar's interview with Voyage L.A. magazine .