Ru Kuwahata: Screenwriter, Net Worth, 'Electric Car' & Facts To Know

Ru Kuwahata is a Japanese animator and filmmaker, best known for her stop-motion film, Negative Space for which she received critical acclaim and was co-nominated for an Academy Award nomination for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with co-director and husband Max Porter. Ru Kuwahata is a director and writer, known for Something Left, Something Taken (2010), Between Times (2014) and Perfect Houseguest (2016). Ru Kuwahata's film, 'Something Left, Something Taken' is a dark comedy about a vacationing couple's encounter with a man they believe to be the Zodiac Killer. Directed by the husband and wife team, Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata, this movie was also produced by the duo. The Perfect Houseguest is an animated short comedy film directed and produced by Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter. The story is about a clean, organized, well-mannered guest who visits a house. The husband wife duo also directed and produced the animated film, 'Between Times'. It is a story about a cuckoo clock that narrates a day that bread was sliced one second thick, lovers fell in sync and time seldom flowed at an even rate. Negative Space is a 2017 French stop motion animated short film by Max Porter and Ru Kuwuhata. It is currently nominated for the Oscar 2018 award for Best Animated Short Film. Oscar 2018 will be held on March 4th this year.

The net worth of the screenwriter is $600,000.

Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter were recently interviewed about their film Negative Space which was nominated for the 90th Academy Awards. The interviewer asked him about how did they both meet and what connected them with each other. Max replied, "I grew up in New York and, early on, a family friend introduced me to photography. My parents let me build a dark room in their basement bathroom and I dumped chemicals down the toilet without knowing that you’re not supposed to do that. In high school, I experimented with super 8 film and that led me to study Film/ Animation/ Video at Rhode Island School of Design. We met at an animation studio in NYC while working on a pilot for a TV series that never got made," and Ru replied, "I grew up in Japan watching a show called Dekirukana (translation: What Can We Make) which was a popular craft show that used recycled materials. Later in my childhood, I obsessively read Manga and I eventually started submitting my originals to publishers at age 12. (Note: They are so embarrassingly bad). Those experiences of using my hands to make art and storytelling led to me studying at Parsons School of Design in NYC." The duo has a unique pattern of incorporating CGI with stop motion and they do so very well. The interviewer asked how do they split work to which Ru replied, "Firstly, we were interested in exploring how combining techniques could create something different than the sum of its parts, sort of like rock-and-roll. We looked at the compositing process as being similar to collage: you’re pulling parts from different sources to create a unified image. Secondly, our mixed-media approach was a practical consideration. Aside from sound, our previous films were made by the two of us over long periods of time, in between other work. Using hybrid techniques was a way to work with limited space and resources." She later added that, "Negative Space was a full stop-motion production, though. We felt strongly that the tone of the original text demanded a more direct, authentic process and we wanted the chatter of cloth to be an important part of the visual language. We have been working together for over a decade and the way we split work naturally fell into place over time. We always work together on the writing, concept art and animatic, and in general, Ru guides the design, set/prop making and character animation. Max takes lead with the cinematography, editorial pacing, post-production and the animation of objects/effects. But our process is very organic and there’s quite a bit of back-and-forth throughout." When asked to describe the hardest part in the film, Ru replied, "For the most part, our previous films were made on our own. Negative Space, however, was produced with a team at IKKI FILMS and Manuel Cam Studio. It was important that the film feel personal and we were nervous that we wouldn’t be able to maintain that intimacy while working with other people. We doubled down on pre-production by preparing visual reference material and creating written explanations for all of our directorial decision, but at some point we realized that letting go a bit and encouraging our team to bring their own ideas and experiences to the film would only make the project better.” “The majority of the production happened at CICLIC Animation (Vendome, France) and IKKI Inc (Orbigny, France) where the team members lived with us during the week. This structure allowed us to become very close with the people we worked with and we ended up spending a lot time discussing our relationships to our families. Physically, the hardest part was that we worked in 5 locations throughout the production. Stop motion film production is demanding enough already and to add all the packing and moving was quite draining. But when we look back, it was such a nice experience to be able to live in many parts of France! It was also fitting that we were making a film about packing and we had become expert packers in the process. "

Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter have excellent animation skills and together the duo works magic onscreen. Negative Space rightly deserves an Oscar nomination. Whether the film will win the Oscar Award is what we are waiting for with fingers crossed!