A proud couple from Ripon had something extra to smile about on Sunday when watching the 76th Golden Globe Awards. 

Gary and Margaret Sivley, who live in Ripon, got to watch live as the work of their son Ryan – a graduate of Ripon High School – was honored with the Golden Globe for Best Animated Picture. 

A graduate of the Art Institute of San Francisco, Sivley served as an animator for Sony Picture Imageworks on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse – beating out Japanese animated film Mirai, Ralph Breaks The Internet, Incredibles 2, and the Wes Anderson animated feature Isle of Dogs. While not a complete underdog, many experts expected Brad Bird’s Incredibles 2 to take home the trophy. Completely animated, Into the Spider-verse included voice work by Shamiek Moore, Jake Johnson, and Hailee Steinfeld, as well as Mahershala Ali – who won a Golden Globe on the same night for Best Supporter Actor for his work in Green Book just two years after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in Moonlight. 

Sivley’s credits, according to the Internet Movie Database, include Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Nutcracker in 3D, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and Thor – all as an animator for Luma Pictures, a firm with recent credits that include Black Panther, Mary Poppins Returns, and A Wrinkle in Time. 

An all-league soccer player at Ripon High School during his time there – he graduated in 1999 – Sivley is also an Eagle Scout that earned the highest rank as a Boy Scout by painting a 25-foot wide map of the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, on the playground at Weston Elementary School, which he attended as a youth. 

Sivley attended Chico State University after high school before moving on to the Art Institute of San Francisco to obtain a graduate-level degree in Animation. In order to pay for his education, Sivley would showcase some of his artwork at local coffee shops and used the proceeds to cover his tuition and living expenses. 

Sony Picture Imageworks, a division of Sony Picture Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group, is listed as a Canadian visual effects and computer animation company with offices in Vancouver and Culver City. Since the formation of Sony Pictures Animation in 2002, SPI has served as the in-house animation studio for nearly all of SPA’s films as well as doing work for other companies such as Marvel Studios, who worked on the Into the Spider-verse project. 

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.