Its like someone had made a film especially for us.
And heres how it went…
I want to start with Steven Soderbergh.
Can you relate to that?
It feels like weve been working on this for almost four years.
And you move through different stages of production.
An eternal who watches their friends kind of die!
Theres two things isnt there.
Number two, its one person directing.
And you are that one constant.
To me, its not pressure.
To me, I like the feeling of the creative process here, and always have done.
Here, as opposed to television, thats a very different world.
If its not, the second one better be it.
With this, I have time.
Its a slower process.
Its designed to verify that what were creating is it.
Its a process that encourages the product to be profound.
Its not surface, that it has depth to it.
My question, though, is how do you find the middle of a film like this?
And the resolution presumably ties up.
But what about the second act?
This one, we always knew where we wanted it to land at the end.
We knew the beginning.
Him being this big brother to her.
It was always the kind of machinery around it.
The machinations of how it would line up.
We were lucky that we landed what the emotional story was very quickly.
Finding the middle of it?
the middle changed a lot.
It was finding what is this world about?
What do Ralph and Penelope do, how do they occupy their time to create a bond together?
That was a challenge.
But then be in a place where we can put that relationship back together.
It was always tricky.
It was trying lots of different things.
The way we make the movie is that we remake it over and over again.
We get it up on reels and watch it, and its dissected and critiqued by our fellows.
Its all for the purpose of making something that resonates deeply with the audience.
Its trial and error, I think.
Standing in front of your audience naked, and asking what they think.
And knowing that it comes from a place of support, and then you have another go.
By the end, knock on wood, it hopefully means something.
Yeah, it has a different energy.
And John C Reilly and Sarah Silverman seem pivotal to that.
That was something that I insisted on.
Because Johns an actors actor.
Chris Rock had said that its easy, you just go on… John had heard that.
He heard it from Jack Black, too.
Youll love it just go in, and talk, and theyll record you, and thats it.
And to John thats not acting.
Early on he said, I dont think I can do that.
I wish I could, I just dont think youd get my best.
And I want that.
I want it to feel like one of your characters, to have depth and volume.
Thats fine, and I like that.
It makes it interesting.
And I like working with actors.
Part of the fun is working out how to get their best.
To me its not about ego, that youre going to do it my way.
Im not a dictator.
Im not going to tell everyone how to do things.
So we figured out how we could make that work, and Im glad we did.
The stuff that John and Sarah did together is beautiful work.
It was impressive to watch as a director.
It felt like we were creating our own method, to get the best of everyone.
It was a very democratic room of people.
We would record what was on the page, and then say whats missing here?
What can we do?
And really great stuff came from those sessions.
Those days were magic.
There was a point where we though maybe the arcade world should be live action.
We thought that for about a week, and then we talked with John Lasseter.
And he said no, its an animated film.
This is not a live action film, this is animation.
Lets just do great humans for the arcade scenes.
And you know what?
I went to school for animation, I didnt go to school for live action.
I love this medium.
So Im glad we went this way.
Ha, thats really good.
Wreck-It Ralph 2, then?
It would be a lot of fun…!
Rich Moore, thank you very much!
Wreck-It Ralpharrives in theUSthis weekend, and is set for release in theUKon February 15th 2013.
