Meet Roger Lee, a Singaporean who worked on Disney’s Moana

Do you know that a fellow Singaporean was involved in the production of several animated films from Disney?

Meet Roger Lee, a lighting artist at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Some of his past works in Disney include the Academy winning Frozen (2013), Big Hero 6 (2014) and Zootopia (2016).

His most recent work was for Moana (2016),the latest animated film in the Disney princess franchise.

Born and raised in Singapore, Lee moved to America four years ago to pursue his animation career in Walt Disney Animation Studios. His role as a lighting artist involves lighting and compositing shots.

We did an interview with him to find out what inspires him and also sneaked in a question on which Singapore story he would like to tell if he gets to make a Disney animated film about Singapore. Watch till the end to find out his answer:

Other than Roger Lee, we also did interviews with Auli’i Cravelho, the real-life Disney princess who played the role of Moana; Osnat Shurer, the producer; and Griselda Sastrawinata, a visual development artist from Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Shurer previously served as the executive producer of the shorts group at Pixar Animation Studios, responsible for Pixar’s short films, as well as DVD bonus materials. While at Pixar, Shurer produced or execuitve produced a host of hit shorts including the Oscar-nominated Lifted (2006), One Man Band (2005) and Boundin (2003). Her credits at Pixar also include video shorts like Jack-Jack Attack and Mr. Incredible and Pals.

Additionally, Shurer produced the 2005 animation short, Artscape, a wide-screen digital art installation for New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and was consulting producer on the 2011 Golden Globe-nominated feature, Arthur Christmas.

Sastrawinata lived in Jakarta for 15 years before moving to America to pursue her dreams of becoming an animator. She joined Walt Disney Animation Studios a year ago and Disney’s Moana is her first film for the studio. In her role as a visual development artist, she worked on tapa illustrations and background, as well as helped out with the character design for Tamatoa, a 50-foot crab from the Realm of Monsters in Moana.

Featuring the voices of Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, and Alan Tudyk, the film tells the story of Moana (Cravalho), the strong-willed daughter of the chief of a Polynesian tribe, who is chosen by the ocean itself to reunite a mystical relic to a goddess. She sets sail in search of Maui (Johnson), a legendary demigod and hopes to save her people.

Moana is now showing in Singapore cinemas. Read our review here.