Behind the Scenes at Wreck-It Ralph!

Recently, I attended the #DisneyMoviesEvent in LA. I recently shared my experience at the red carpet premiere of Frankenweenie as well as an interview with Robert Capron, Atticus Shaffer & Charlie Tahan from Frankenweenie, and my review of Frankenweenie. All of those fun things took place on Monday, September 24th- and the next day was devoted to the upcoming movie Wreck-It Ralph!

On Tuesday morning, we arrived at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building, home to Walt Disney Animation Studios, and got to watch Wreck-It Ralph! {Check back for my review in a couple of weeks!} The movie wasn’t entirely done- there were some parts where the animation wasn’t done and the soundtrack hadn’t been put in but rather “place holder” music, so it was really cool to see a “rough” edit of it. {The movie was almost fully done, but those moments that weren’t felt like a behind-the-scenes peek!}

After the movie, we split into two groups: my group went to interview Director Rich Moore & Producer Clark Spencer and then we went to see the animated short Paperman, which will be playing before Wreck-It Ralph in theaters. Look for more on both the interview and Paperman coming soon!

After our tour, we enjoyed a delicious lunch, and then we had a GIANT table of dessert waiting for us!

Actually, it wasn’t dessert- the huge display of cookies, candy and frosting were the materials for all of us to have a Sugar Rush Race Car building competition {although I may have snuck a bite of an extra Oreo I didn’t use}! Sugar Rush is one of the games in Wreck-It Ralph and where a large portion of the movie takes place. It’s also my absolute favorite land as it’s very pink & bright & full of candy. We all tried our best to make race cars that were inspired by that land & while I didn’t do such a great job, I had so much fun trying!

After the competition, we got a tour of the Wreck-It Ralph “pod”, or section of the building dedicated to that movie. They had some great concept art and other things related to the movie!

A model of Sugar Rush made from candy & sweets- SO cute!

Me playing a real Fix It Felix Jr. game that they had created!

The game is just like the movie!

These are just a few of the looks Ralph has had!

Sugar Rush concept art!

After the tour, we split into three groups to get demonstrations from some of the amazing talent behind the movie. My group first met with Art Director Mike Gabriel & Visual Development Artist Lorelay Bove  to learn how they found inspiration for creating all of the art in Wreck-It Ralph. They showed us pictures from their trip to Spain, where they went to study the architecture that inspired the homes in Sugar Rush, and photos of them shopping for a large variety of Japanese candy to help them incorporate candy as much as possible in the scenes. Hearing about their job made me wish I was good at art- they seriously have one of the coolest jobs on the planet! I mean, who else do you know who gets flown to Spain to look at a building and gets to buy bags & bags of candy on the company’s dime?

The next demonstration we got was from the Head of Animation, Renato dos Anjos and animator Kira Lehtomaki. Kira showed us how she made one of the scenes for the movie- it takes 20 frames to make 1 second of a movie- and each frame has to be adjusted perfectly. She filmed herself acting out the lines so that she could see the facial expressions that she should be going for, which I thought was brilliant. Then Renato showed us how to draw Ralph’s hands and Venellope which was so fun! I can NOT draw but at least mine looked sort of like they were supposed to.. until a soda opened in my bag later in the day & got all over the drawings. Augh!

Our third demonstration was in the recording booth, where we all got to record a few lines for the movie! I am so excited to share this with you in a couple of weeks- it was such an amazing experience and something I have dreamed about my entire life.

After our demonstrations, we walked over to the old Disney Animation building, where Saving Mr. Banks, starring Tom Hanks & Emma Thompson, will be filming soon! We also walked around Disney Legends Plaza, which was completely magical- look for more photos from that coming very soon!

Make sure to keep checking back for a lot more behind-the-scenes coverage from Wreck-It Ralph, which is out November 2nd! &Be sure to follow Wreck-It Ralph on Facebook & Twitter for even more updates!

Note: Disney provided my travel and accommodations to cover this event. All experiences are authentic & all opinions are my own.