NC: Did working in commercials help you with the work you are doing now?

AR: I just wrapped up work as the editorial manager on Ratatouille. My commercial experience was valuable in terms of understanding what the creative wanted, and trying to come up with a way to deliver a great end result in a compact time frame. It was pretty applicable to putting up and taking down the reels of the movie. Editorial has a way of setting the pace in production. Production cycles on features are obviously a lot longer, but you still want to achieve the best results and I think Ratatouille managed to do this in a big way.

NC: I notice that you also received your teaching credential and you taught tenth- and eleventh-graders U.S. and world history. Do you miss that challenge, and how has that influenced your life?

AR: I really enjoyed teaching, but it was the other hats that came with teaching that were tough. You had to be a parent, a friend, a nutritionist, a loan shark, a warden and, at times, an inmate. We don't pay educators enough in California. I became apathetic, mostly due to the heavy bureaucracy. The students were great, but you had to be prepared to entertain every day. This was tough. You had to have a good story every day, while trying to impart knowledge. I approached teaching history from a cycles-and-trends perspective, and tried to show students that history happens every day. I love history because it is filled with so many great stories.

AJ started at Pixar as a PA on Toy Story 2. © Disney/Pixar.

NC: You went from working as a bartender to working at Pixar. How does someone go from whiskey and beer to animation (all kidding aside)?

AR: You could say I went from pouring shots to managing shots. I met a friend through my bar days who worked at Pixar. She called me one morning after night shift at the bar and said, "Pixar is looking for a PA for Toy Story 2, get down here." It was laundry day for me and I was about to spend the next four hours at a laundromat. Instead, I pulled some clothes out of the hamper and headed for Point Richmond. I got to Pixar around noon and didn't leave until after 6 p.m. I had a six-hour interview and felt like I met everyone in the studio during that six hours. I met the A Bug's Life production office, Toy Story 2, Office of the President, Shorts and CD-ROM division. It was a big day. I got a call from the production office of Toy Story 2 the very next day and, as they say, the rest was history. (I always wondered who the "they" was.)

NC: When you were hired as a PA for Lucasfilm in the commercial division, what were your duties?

The non-acting fish were under AJ's control in Finding Nemo. © Disney/Pixar.

AR: My work at Lucasfilm was all freelance. I worked about four or five commercial shoots for them. I was never an employee. What I loved about Lucusfilm was that it was local and they were on the cutting edge of technology. Being a Star Wars geek, it was also cool just to tell your friends you had just done a commercial for George Lucas's company. I rarely told them that I spent my day parking cars, making sure the M&M bowl was filled, or showing the hand model the Honey Wagon. I have some great memories from those gigs.

NC: On Finding Nemo, your job was "Crowds Manager." Tell me more about that.

AR: Finding Nemo was my first managerial job at Pixar Animation Studios. As the Crowds Manager, I led the team that was responsible for putting in all the non-acting fish. I worked with a small group of amazing animators and technical directors, and we populated the seas of Finding Nemo. We had this great "schooling" tool that allowed us to pick miscellaneous fish and put them in a schooling pattern and path, and turn them loose. Our team also ended up doing all the sim/cloth work, background boat animation in Sydney Harbor and, in the end, the net simulation for the fishing-net climax. I was basically the coach and cheerleader that scheduled the art and director reviews and made sure we got the shots done and released to lighting. I also organized the team wrap party, which was a great Cajun crab feed paired with Gewurztraminer and Riesling.