Teruaki "Jimmy" Murakami (æ'上è¼æ˜Žã€€Murakami Teruaki, June 5, 1933 â€" February 16, 2014), was a Japanese American animator and director with a long career working in numerous countries. Among his best-known works are the animated adaptations of the Raymond Briggs books When the Wind Blows and The Snowman. He formed Murakami-Wolf Films with Fred Wolf.
As a child, Murakami was interned with his family at the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in northern California. Murakami attended Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and worked as an animator at UPA in Burbank.
Following a short stint with Toei Animation in Tokyo, Murakami joined TVC in London in 1960. He returned to Los Angeles in 1965, and established Murakami Wolf Productions. Murakami then moved to Ireland in 1971 and established Quateru Films.
Murakami was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short Film for The Magic Pear Tree (1968). He also directed the music video for "King of the Mountain", the single from Kate Bush's album Aerial. In 1989, with his former partner Fred Wolf, he established Murakami Wolf Dublin to produce the hit animation series “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.â€
Murakami was the subject of a 2010 feature documentary film made by Irish director Sé Merry Doyle and produced by Martina Durac and Vanessa Gildea of Loopline Films. Jimmy Murakami - Non Alien was premiered in Dublin at the 2010 IFI Stranger than Fiction Film Festival.
He died in 2014, aged 80.
Partial filmography
- Von Richthofen and Brown (1971): associate producer
- Humanoids from the Deep (1980): director (uncredited)
- Battle Beyond the Stars (1980): director
- The Snowman (1982): supervising director
- When the Wind Blows (1986): director
- The Chronicles of Narnia (1988â€"1990): animation director
- The Story Keepers (1995â€"1998): supervising director
- Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001): director
References
External links
- Jimmy Murakami at the Internet Movie Database
