The South End :: "Wreck-It Ralph" director, Rich Moore, talks animation

Filmmaking and animation can be a tough line of work to get into, but it can also be a very rewarding line of work because of what it has to offer, according to Rich Moore, the director of the upcoming movie ?Wreck-It Ralph?. He has worked in animation for over ten years and has worked as a director of episodes for the television shows such as the Simpsons and Futurama.

The movie ?Wreck-It Ralph? tells the story of a video game bad guy, named Wreck-It Ralph who, after 30 years of doing his job of smashing a building, is tired of being the bad guy, so he sets off to prove that he can be a good guy. This is the directorial film debut of Moore and he talked about his life and animation during a conference call.

The first movie that inspired Moore with animation was the Disney adaptation of the ?Jungle Book? by Rudyard Kipling. He said after having that experience he knew that he would want to work in animation, although at the time he did not know what it was.

?As a little kid I didn?t know what it meant, but I wanted to do whatever it was that made that stuff, so I always pursed that all my life,? Moore said.

For college, Moore went to the California Institute of the Arts in the 1980s to study Animation. During that time though, the field of animation was not as popular as it once was.

?I went to school in the late ?80s at Cal Arts, and animation was at a very, very low point at that time. So those of us at school at that time no one was in it, you know, to kind of make money, or to have some level of fame, or even to have a job?there was no Simpsons[at that time]?,? Moore said.

Although after college he was able to get a storyboard position for the Simpsons, and in that first year on the show he was also promoted to Director because Moore said the people on the show where having a hard time finding people who understood the humor of the show, but they found out that Moore understood how the humor of the show was supposed to be like, as well as he had the right skill set to work with the animated series.

Moore has also won Emmy awards for his work on the television shows. He said that he loves doing what he does because according to him, his favorite part is working with the people in animation and that he loves the personality of the people who he works with in this medium.

?They?re so collaborative, and so creative, and have such great ideas, and working side by side, you know, with these people, is such a pleasure,? Moore said.

Also he got his first job working for a guy named Ralph Balshi, who has worked in animation for a long time, and who actually directed the animated Lord of the Rings movie from 1978. Moore stated that Balshi was a bigger-than-life kind of guy who was passionate and a great artist.

According to Moore, ??if Ralph could do this, I could do this, too, you know. We just keep at it; we had faith that something was gonna happen, because people like John Lasseter and Tim Burton were kinda tilling the soil before we got out there.?

In addition, Moore had some advice to aspiring animation students who are interested in the field of work that he does. He said that to really to just have the passion to work with it, because he went into animation at a time where it was not at its best, and he pulled through.

?Wreck-it Ralph? opens in theatres on Nov. 2.

Source: http://thesouthend.wayne.edu/article/2012/11/509bd8b4b7852

troy miracle andy whitfield kennedy demi moore roy oswalt kevin martin