Josie Trinidad is an American storyboard artist, voice actress, screenwriter and director best known for her work at Walt Disney Animation Studios. She joined Disney in 2004, and worked on The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), and Wreck-It Ralph (2012). She served as the co-head of story on Zootopia (2016) and was the head of story on Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). She made her directorial debut with the television series Zootopia+.
Contents
Early life
Josie Trinidad was born to Filipino immigrant parents in Los Angeles, California. Her father, a doctor, was born in Laguna, while her mother hailed from Ilocos Norte and worked as a nurse. During her early years, she frequently stayed in contact with her Filipino relatives. She explained, "I come home a lot. I still have couple of aunts in Mandaluyong, in San Juan and in Las Piñas. We are a very close family and we see each other often."
At eleven years old, Trinidad watched Robin Hood (1973) on videocassette and repeatedly paused the film so she could examine it frame by frame. "I realized, 'Oh my, those are drawings,'" she recalled. "'They're beautiful, hand-drawn images, and someone is behind that!' I was 11 years old and knew at that moment I wanted to be an animator." However, she admitted she grew up in a family that perceived art as more of a hobby than a viable career. Trinidad nevertheless stated: "What I did was I worked really hard and I made sure that I tried. At least I could say I tried to make it into animation. If it worked, great. If it didn't work, then maybe I was meant to do something else. But I never gave up."
A graduate of Adolfo Camarillo High School, Trinidad attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), majoring in English literature and fine arts, and studied character animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). After her graduation, she worked as an illustrator for the toy company MGA Entertainment and Klasky Csupo on animated commercials.
Career
In 2004, Trinidad was hired by Walt Disney Animation Studios (then known as Walt Disney Feature Animation) as a story apprentice. She was enrolled in a six-month training program, where she was given storyboard tests assigned by mentors. There, she was the only person of Asian descent in the apprentice program. After six months had passed, she stated, "They decided where you were going to go, if they were going to keep you or not. And they decided to put me on a film." Her first film project was the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog. During production, Trinidad remembered: "I was the only female story artist with the 12 men in that room." However, her experience with the film's directors Ron Clements and John Musker was pleasant, stating: "They threw me in the deep end ... They were really great." She next worked on Tangled (2010) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
In Zootopia, Trinidad was appointed as the film's co-head of story. In that position, she held pitch meetings with a team of 12 to 15 story artists and hosted a smaller group during editorial meetings. After she read an early draft of the script, Trinidad connected with the main character Judy Hopps and found a kinship with the character's urban relocation when she was a college student. For visual research, the filmmakers sent Trinidad to the Philippines to gather inspiration for the film. There, she visited the De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde and the animation studio Toon City in Manila. By this point, Trinidad had stated the story team had become more racially diverse, with nearly half of the team being female. Zootopia was awarded the 2017 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Trinidad was tapped as the film's head of story for the 2018 sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet. In an interview, she stated, "We wanted the world of the Internet to feel authentic, like how we all use it today, but to mix it up with our own kind of fun, which were websites [...] The trick is getting something familiar then turning it in something never seen before. The biggest challenge though, was trying to hone that big idea down." Despite this, she has reflected that the overall story process for an animated film is "not very glamorous," but nevertheless is very collaborative.
In December 2020, it was announced that a spin-off series titled Zootopia+ was in development for streaming on Disney+. Trent Correy had pitched the series as one of three pitches for potential Disney+ series. Trinidad, who had served as a story artist on the 2016 film, was originally set to direct only two episodes for the series. However, her excitement led to her co-directing the entire series alongside Correy. The series began streaming on November 9, 2022.
Personal life
Trinidad lives in Los Angeles with her son.
