Ladyspeak: Catherine Peza is the Studio Manager for Toonz Animation India, Trivandrum, Kerala

HAVING completed my Fine Arts course, majoring in Advertising, at the University of St. Thomas in Manila, I went on to study Commerce, majoring in Business Administration at the Central College of the Philippines. After my graduation, a three-year stint, at one of the biggest advertising studios in Manila was another highlight. Later my fascination for animation beckoned me to join Optifex International, a new Philipino-owned animation studio, whose biggest client then, was one of the giants in the field of animation, the Hanna Barbera studios of L.A. At Optifex, I worked my way up by starting at the very bottom, as a painter (at that time, Hannah Barbera was still into hand painting of drawings), a tracer, and finally as a paint checker before trying my hand at drawing. I took a drawing test and was selected to be a part of a group to be trained in Clean up and Inbetween.

After honing my skills in drawing, Optifex management decided to move me up from Assistant Animator to Deputy Head of the Clean Up and IB departments, where I worked on shows like "The Sharks", "Yogi Bear", and "The Flinstones" among many others. When in 1988, Hannah Barbera studios decided to start its own facility in Manila, I was one of the handful selected out of Optifex to help set it up. For the first three years Fil- Cartoons, the new facility-with the aim of becoming the biggest animation studio in the Philipines, trained hundreds of Clean up artists and Inbetweeners, of whom most, eventually moved up the ladder to become animators, directors and layout artists.

In 1991, as Production Manager, I was assigned to supervise the overall production at Fil-Cartoons where I managed to produce and deliver up to 75 shows a year, with about thousand staff under my wing. We delivered shows like "Johnny Quest", "Captain Planet", "Droopy", "Tom and Jerry", series for Hannah Barbera, "Toonsylvania" series for Dreamworks, "The Mask" series for Film Roma, "Mad Jack the Pirate" series for Saban, "Sissy Duckling", "The Golden Goose", "King Midas" specials for Hyperion Studio. In 1999, Bill Dennis, our present President and CEO with whom I had worked with at Fil-Cartoons for three years, asked me to join Toonz Animation India as Studio Manager to oversee the day-to-day operations.

I never felt any kind of gender discrimination from any of my employers. In fact, when they decided to appoint an over all production head of a thousand staff, they had a choice between me and three other male candidates, and they chose me over them. There was never a shred of doubt that the choice they made was based on performance, skills, attitude and reliability. Even in the early years of my career as a supervisor, I felt I was being supported and respected for the decisions I made and definitely was trusted on how to run and manage the day-to-day operations of production.

Both men and women can make a life career in animation if they have the right talent and attitude. Although there are certain cultural and social restrictions for women in India, I still think that they are as talented as the male artists. Talent is the life in animation so if you have talent, you definitely have a career in animation, an option open for both men and women professionals.

It was a great learning experience for me to work on classic shows like "Flinstones", "Scooby Doo", "Adams Family", among others for Hannah Barbera studios. I had the opportunity to work with people who have been in the industry for a long time. They were very talented, very professional and most of all were committed to just one purpose, to create wholesome, educational, morally entertaining shows for children around the world.

To work in the medium of animation in Cinema, with bigger budget is the big difference. Creating animation for Cinema requires years of production time, the best in quality and the best in production staff and all of the above requires money.

There is one incident that I will never forget and would like to share with you. In 1992, we were working on a 40-minute direct to video special when a fire ravaged our studio's building in Manila and burnt down most of the ground floor where the ink, paint and camera departments were located. One third of the whole show was totally destroyed by the fire (not counting all the facilities that we had lost)...all the time, effort and hard work of a thousand people had gone waste. Most of all, the client could not give us extra time to recuperate from the incident due to the prior commitments they had with the distributors. Left without a choice, everybody had to work harder than ever, 18-20hrs a day, 7 days a week. Nobody had time to be with their family for weeks. It was all work with a little bit of time in between to catch some sleep. Finally, we made it and were able to ship the show to the client on time. We made a good show despite everything; in fact it was so good that it was nominated for an award in America.

The field of animation is a very demanding job. Everything about the animation production revolves around a timetable. The pressure of creating something that requires the highest quality at a limited time period with a thousand people under your wing surely demands a lot of time. It did affect my family and social life at first but later on I decided to discipline myself by creating a daily schedule. Before I go to work I write down all the things that should be accomplished for the day. I give myself a time period for each of the things that has to be done. I realised later that planning your time and delegating jobs were the only way I could adjust to the demands of this profession.

MALINI SURYANARAYANAN