Peter Ramsey

Peter Ramsey (born 1962) is an American director, producer, and storyboard artist who in 2019 became the first Black filmmaker nominated for — and to win — the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, as a co-director of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Before directing, he spent years as a storyboard and story artist on films including “Fight Club,” “Minority Report,” and “Tangled,” an entry-level craft role that he credits as his own way into the industry.

Defending the ladder he climbed

When studios and startups began pitching generative AI as a way to replace storyboard artists — the same wave that saw Martin Scorsese draw fire for endorsing an AI image company — Ramsey pushed back publicly in 2026. He argued that boarding is not where the real money in a film lives, so cutting it saves little, while destroying one of the last affordable entry points into filmmaking. His objection is as much about craft literacy as jobs: executives reaching for AI, he said, simply do not understand how films at any scale are actually made.

Ramsey’s critique carries weight precisely because he is not a hobbyist defending a niche — he is an Oscar winner describing the exact rung of the ladder that AI boosters propose to remove. He frames the storyboard artist as the director’s first creative collaborator, the person who helps a film find its shape before a frame is shot, and warns that automating that role away hollows out the pipeline that produces future directors.