The Art of Walt Disney_From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms
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the Art of
!
"
from Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms
CHRISTOPHER FINCH
NEW CONCISE EDITION
IT n
Walt Disney's
rise to
can success story. west, he
made
his
A
fame is a classic Ameripoor boy from the Midto the top with a
way
com-
bination of hard work, practical know-how,
and ingenuity. What makes
enterprise,
success story different from fact that his
the rest
this
is
the
unique imagination touched off a
shock of recognition of people
all
all
in
the minds of millions
over the world. The characters
Disney brought to the screen— Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, Goofy, the Seven Dwarfs. Jiminy Cricket, Dumbo, and the others— have a universal appeal. Movies as diverse in idiom as Fantasia and
Mary Poppins
illustrate the
range of his inven-
and he has also left us, beyond his film successes, two extraordinary entertainment complexes— Disneyland and Walt Disney tions,
World. At the beginning of
his career,
Disney took a
humble branch of the motion picture mdustry— the animated cartoon and, within a do/en years, transformed it into a new art form capable of sustaining complex and sub-
—
tle ideas.
The
first
cartoon with synchronized
color, and the first animated feature were all produced by Walt Disney. His genius and sure intuition created a framework that supported the talents of many
sound, the
first in full
gifted
individuals,
cussed
in
many of whom are Above all, however,
these pages.
disthis
one man's imagination. This account of Disney's career benefits from free access to the Walt Disney archives. The author conducted dozens of interviews with past and present Disney employees and selected a great number of previously unpublished drawings, paintings, and photographs is
a record of
for
inclusion
in
this
book. The basic tech-
niques of animation are explained, and vari-
ous examples of story sketches, layouts, anidrawings, and background paintings—all the elements that go into the making
mation
of an animated
film— are
illustrated.
Many
and documentary photographs enrich the story, and we learn how film-making skills were adapted to aid in the design of the parks, bringing to life unexpected combinafilm
stills
and electronics. Christopher Finch, the author, was formerly on the curatorial staff of the Walker Art
tions of nostalgia
Center
in
Minneapolis. His previous books
in-
clude studies of Pop Art and contemporary English painting.
251 illustrations, including
Copyright k> 1988 by Wall Disney
1
Company
70 plates in full color
THE ART OF WALT DISNEY
For Sarah and Justin, for
Nai Y. Chang, Inns
I
Vice-President, Design
Hochmann,
Margaret
L.
Jenny and Emily, and for Felix and Georgia
and Production
Executive Editor
Kaplan. Managing Editor
Barbara Lyons,
Director,
Photo Department Rights and Reproduct
Michael Sonino, Abridgment
Librur\ of Congress Cataloging
in
Publication Data
Finch. Christopher
The
art
of Walt Disnc\
This 1988 edition published by Portland House, a division of dilithium Press, Ltd.,
Bibliography: p I.
distributed by
Disney. Walt. 1901
Productions.
1.
1966.
2.
Disney (Walt)
New
Title.
NC1766.U52D533
1975
Crown
Publisher. Inc.
225 Park Avenue South York.
NY
10003
79l\092'4 74-8435
By arrangement with Harry N. Abrams,
Inc.
Produced by Twin Books 15
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 74-8435
Copyright
©
1988 by Walt Disney
All righls reserved.
No
CT 06830
Printed and
bound
Company
part of the contents of this
book may be reproduced without the written permission of
Sherwood Place
Greenwich.
WALT DISNEY COMPANY
Burbank. California
ISBN
0-517-66474-7
hgfedeba
in the
United States of America
Contents
Introduction
PART
I
A NEW ART FORM Early Enterprises
19
2
Mickey Mouse and
Silly
3
Six Cartoon Classics
4
Hyperion Days
1
PART
II
III
27
54
•
5
Snow White: The
6
Pinocchio
7
Fantasia:
8
Dumbo
9
Interruptions and Innovations
First Feature
69
79
The Great Experiment
and Bambi
Later Animation
•
92
103 109
118
LIVE ACTION FILMS 11
12
PART IV
Symphonies
43
FEATURE ANIMATION
10
PART
11
Actors and Animals
127
Davy Crockett. Other Heroes, and Mary Poppins
135
THE MAGIC KINGDOMS 13
Beyond Film: Disneyland and Walt Disney World
145
Introduction By the time he was thirty years old, Walt Disney had become a As the creator of Mickey Mouse, his remarks— both
public figure.
casual and considered— were translated into dozens of languages
and
could
likeness
his
be
newspapers and magazines.
found on the pages of countless
A
trim mustache and a ready smile
gave him a Clark Gable-ish charm which was shared by
young Americans of
was
the period (as
many other
his taste for sporty jackets
and boldly patterned sweaters). What distinguished him from the rest, and made his face memorable, was a sense of determination and purpose which was apparent even later years
in his
most relaxed poses. In
he entered our living rooms and addressed us from the
television screen. By that time his face and frame had broadened and he had begun to favor conservatively cut suits and sober neckties. The mustache and the smile remained, however, as did
the evident purpose
By
some of Disney's
after talking with sible to
there
and determination.
definition, public figures are
to
everyone;
escape the conclusion that nobody really
was some aspect of
He was
a
abilities,
project
known
closest associates,
his personality that
man who believed absolutely artist who would go to any
knew him. Always
own
had conceived
surrounded himself with talents of every kind, but
was
in
complete control. The master plan was
head and remained unknowable
instincts
and
lengths to ensure that a
he
as
even
impos-
was just out of reach.
in his
an
was carried out exactly
yet, is
it
until, piece
in
at all
it.
He
times he
Walt Disney's
by piece,
it
was given
concrete form and grafted onto the mythology of our century.
At the outset of his career Disney was often underestimated by his rivals.
They were aware of
the caliber of the talents he
surrounded himself with and assumed that lured away, the Disney Studio
apparent that the one
would at
collapse.
any
had
these talents could be It
soon became
man who made Walt Disney
uniquely successful was not available In later years
if
Productions
price.
Disney has been underestimated
in
other ways.
Since the values expressed in his movies are essentially the simple values of the cartoon and the fairy story,
many
people have been
tempted into presenting simplistic pictures of Disney the man, and of what he stood
for.
Some have chosen
to portray
him
as a naive
genius, while others— dazzled by the success of his varied enter-
11
prises— prefer to see him as just another business tycoon. These versions of Disney bear
relationship to any aseertainable
little
Everyone who worked closely with him admits that money
truth.
was important
to
better movies,
improve
the future.
cheap
Disney only insofar as
He was
it
enabled him
to
produce
his parks, or (in later years) plan the city
of
and perfection did not come
a perfectionist
these fields.
in
The notion
that
Disney was a naive genius
movies, right
ing. In his
is
right
and wrong
is
is
equally mislead-
wrong, but— given
background and the audience he knew himself
be
to
his
touch
in
with— this should not surprise anyone and. although he remained faithful to uncomplicated values, he was by no means a simple man. There was much more intuition.
He knew
implemented, and that analysis the
to his success
that for intuition to this
demanded
than a blind faith
mean anything a
with
whom
had
in
be
to
combination of stringent
and sheer hard work, backed up by the
artists
it
practical talents of
he surrounded himself. Improving the
product seems to have occupied his mind night and day. After hours and on weekends he would prowl the studio— familiarizing himself with the development of every project.
source of expertise, and there
sometimes mulled over ideas to
is
He
subjected each
upon every available
decision to intensive discussion, drawing
ample evidence
he
to suggest that
for years before they
were permitted
reach this stage.
Having received to great lengths to
relatively
little
formal schooling. Disney went
educate himself and his
artists (at times, the
old
Avenue must have seemed more like the art department of some progressive university than a productive component of the motion picture industry). Disney started in the studio on Hyperion
field
of animated films determined to be better than anyone
Achieving "plus*"
his
this rather quickly,
else.
he embarked on a lifelong quest to
own accomplishments
("plus." used as a verb,
is
a
word with old hands at the Studio). Throughout the thirties and into the forties, amazing progress was made in the development of the animated film. The Disney Studio gave to the world favorite
painted characters
who
moved but seemed
not only
to think for
themselves. By the time of Pinocchio and Fantasia. Disney had
brought
to a spectacular
maturity an art form that had been
in its
infancy just a dozen years earlier.
Disney himself was not pretended to be one.
He was
a
great draftsman,
always the
about 1926, he did not contribute
first to
a single
and he never
admit
drawing
to
that, after
any of
his
cartoons. His great abilities lay in the area of ideas— conceiving
them, developing them, and seeing them through to a successful conclusion. Ideas were commodities that he was never short of
he ever had a problem with ideas
many
12
to give
them
all
it
was
that he
(if
sometimes had too
the attention that they deserved).
A
superb
story editor,
Disney worked with
movie
ing the structure of a
phrasing and rephras-
his artists,
every minute action, each
until
nuance of character contributed
last
development of the plot. This was a skill that he acquired while making the short cartoons of the early and middle thirties, cartoons which— since they ran from minutes each— demanded the greatest economy of
just six to eight
When
action.
to the
he
turned
making
to
feature
principles were applied, so that nothing that
of the story ever found
telling
way onto
its
same
the
films,
was not
essential to the
the screen.
It
was
Disney's intense involvement with plot development and character,
along with his uncanny grasp of technical possibilities, that gave his best movies the tightness of structure that has enabled
survive so well in our collective
He was failures
of course,
a few that
were the ones
The point by
not,
and even
films
is
his best
He
infallible.
were outright
any other
work and he was,
and innovative film-makers
Animated movies depend on movement
did produce mediocre
failures (usually the worst
artist,
at his best,
deserves to be judged
one of the most vigorous of the cinema.
in the entire history
are difficult to illustrate adequately.
nately, the final setup that
link in
model
shot by the camera
is
making of an animated
film.
not the only art in fact, the
It is,
an elaborate chain that includes character studies,
sheets, story continuity sketches, layouts,
produced
Fortu-
lifeless.
is
background paint-
animation drawings, color models, and the
ings,
who
in the
They
achieve their effect, and a single image
to
taken from a cartoon will often seem static and
last
to
that did not sustain his personal interest).
that Disney, like
work involved
them
memory.
at various
of these stages
is
The work The artists
like.
often very lively.
are concerned with story
and layout, for example, have to sell and the producer (in most instances they would be dealing with Walt Disney himself) and attempt to get into their ideas to their director
their
drawings the "feel" of what
Mickey should receive chair, the story artist
single
event,
take the
appear on screen. Thus,
him
as a
same
book
illustrator
would
is
do).
if
his
fall in
The
a
layout
map
out the entire action. Either of
more of
a sense of
eventually seen on screen than does a single frame from the
movie. Happily,
we
from
scene, provide a detailed context for the
and diagrammatically
these representations does, in most cases, give
what
to fall
must suggest both the shock and the
drawing (much
artist will
will
a shock that causes
many
are able to use
of these drawings have been preserved and
them
here.
Not only do they
effectively
convey
the "feel" of what eventually appeared on screen; they are often
very beautiful in their
own
right.
Some
appeal because of their
spontaneity, others because of their attention to detail; and, that,
they
tell
us
much about
the
way
in
beyond
which an animated film
is
conceived and executed.
Each of these drawings contains some clues
to the secret
of
13
Disney's success, since every one of them was touched by his influence.
Each drawing
aware that
it
reflects his taste, for the artist
was subject
uncritical). Literally
to his scrutiny
hundreds of
was always
(which was far from
artists figure in this story,
but
all
of them functioned within the governing structure elaborated by Disney's imagination. In later years he less
control
became
his reputation rests,
was complete.
14
was unavoidable.
so diversified that this
on which
may perhaps have
exercised
over some aspects of the operation— his interests In the productions
however, Walt Disney's involvement
i
m fr
_
*
" ^
1.
A new (Wit fawn.
1
Early Enterprises
Walter Elias Disney was born into a modest Chicago household on December 5, 1901. His father, Elias Disney, was Canadian born
and of Anglo-Irish descent. Elias was a building contractor, and we may judge the success of that operation by the fact that Walt later
mother sometimes went out to the building site with the men, sawing and hammering planks. At the time of Walt's birth, there were already three children in the family-Herbert, Raymond, and Roy. Walt was to develop an especially close relationship with Roy, who was nearest to him in age, a relationship
described
was
that
how
his
be of great importance
to
daughter-Ruth-was added
to
"in 1906, Elias Disney decided to pull
and moved
both of them. Later a
to the family.
his family to a forty-eight-acre
up his roots once again farm outside Marceline,
Missouri. Small farms, then as now, did not offer an easy route to prosperity. Herbert and Raymond, both in their teens, had devellife and soon returned to Chicago. Walt and expected to help their parents with the farm course, of Roy were, later chores. It was an extremely hard life, but one which Walt
oped
a taste for city
remembered with considerable affection. We may be sure It was on the farm that he began to draw. make the this was not encouraged by his parents, but he did tentative steps toward
operation was
his eventual career.
first
Meanwhile, the farm
1910, Elias sold the
in trouble. In
that
farm with
all its
livestock and moved the family once again-this time to Kansas newspaper City, ninety-five miles southwest. There Elias bought a
Roy were co-opted into and found themselves getting up at 3:30 Star. Despite in the morning to meet the trucks of the Kansas City as did a this hard work, Walt's interest in drawing persisted,
delivery business. Naturally, Walt and
contributing their services
growing
taste
theatrical
for
expression.
In
a
rare
gesture
of
indulgence, Elias Disney allowed Walt to enroll for Saturday morning classes at the Kansas City Art Institute (the elder Disney justified this al").
Thus,
formal
on the grounds
at the
that the classes
would be "education-
age of fourteen, Walt acquired a smattering of
art training.
In
1917, Elias decided
returned to factory.
upon another move. This time he
Chicago, where he purchased a part share
Walt remained
in
Kansas City
in a small
to finish out his school year
19
(Roy was
there,
still
summer as
working
bank
as a
teller):
then he spent the
news butcher on the Santa Fe Railroad (news butchers
a
hawked newspapers, enabled him
candy, and soft drinks), a job which more of the country while feeding his trains— an enthusiasm which would provide him fruit,
to see a little
enthusiasm for
with an important outlet later in
life.
In the
fall,
he joined the
McKinley High School. Here he school paper and managed to get some
family in Chicago and enrolled at
contributed drawings to the
newspaper cartoonist named Leroy and on June 22, 1917. Roy the Navy. Walt had dreams of enlisting too, but
further art instruction from a
Gossett.
World War
Disney enlisted
in
He
he was under age.
I
was
in progress
discovered that one had to be only seventeen
become a Red Cross ambulance driver and, though still sixteen, managed to join up (his mother, probably relieved that he would be driving an ambulance rather than handling a rifle, allowed him to to
date on the application). He was sent to a staging Sound Beach, Connecticut, but the Armistice was signed before he got any further. There was still, however, a need for drivers in Europe and he eventually found himself in France, assigned to a military canteen in Neufchateau, where he soon falsify his birth
post at
Walt Disney's birthplace at 1249 Tripp Avenue. Chicago, built by his father. Elias Disney
established himself as the unit's unofficial
artist,
earning a few
medals onto
extra francs with such enterprises as painting fake
leather jackets
and camouflaging captured German helmets so
that
they could be passed off as snipers' helmets.
Disney returned
United States
to the
in 1919.
job waiting for him. but Walt was determined
He headed local studio where he made "Ub" Iwerks, a young man
commercial
the
art.
for
and
it
His father had a
make
a career in
Kansas City and found work
friends with another employee.
of Dutch descent
most important associate of
talented draftsman,
to
who was
his early career.
soon occurred
to
to
at a
Ubbe
become
Iwerks was a
them
to
get
into
They acquired desk space at the offices of Restaurant News and immediately achieved
business for themselves. a publication called
some modest success. But then Disney saw a newspaper advertisement for a job with an organization called Kansas City Slide Company (soon changed to Kansas City Film Ad). This company made what we would now call commercials for display in local movie theaters. They were, in fact, producing crude animated films. This new medium and the salary offered— forty dollars a
week— appealed
to
Disney.
He
applied for the job and got
it.
Iwerks
took over the business they had started, but within a few months he, too,
joined Kansas City Film Ad.
The animation produced at Kansas City Film Ad consisted mainly of stop-action photography of jointed cardboard figures-a technique that precluded any serious effort toward naturalism. Nonetheless,
it
provided Disney,
still
just eighteen years old,
and
Iwerks with the basic training they needed. Before long. Disney
20
borrowed result
a
was a
camera and little
reel
tried
some animation on
of topical gags— reminiscent
newspaper cartoons— which he managed Theater, a local movie house.
and
illustrated
shorter skirts
for the theater.
character of
to sell to the
A number
Newman
of short "commercials"
jokes— known collectively as the
o-Grams— were made
own. The
his in
They
Newman
Laugh-
dealt with such topics as
and police corruption. Technically they were very
competent by the standards of the day, and, encouraged by Disney managed
this
enough capital to leave Kansas City Film Ad and set up on his own, retaining Laugho-Grams as the company's name. It might be assumed that a young man just emerging from his teens would have been content to stick initial success,
with
familiar material,
to raise
least
at
a
for
while,
but Disney was
ambitious and immediately started work on a series of updated fairy tales. Six Elias
and Flora Disnev
in
1913
of Bremen,
of these were made: Cinderella, The Four Musicians
Goldie Locks and the
Beanstalk, Little
Three Bears, Jack and the
Red Riding Hood, and Puss
The Disney
in Boots.
archives have prints of The Four Musicians of Bremen and Puss in
and they provide clear evidence
Boots,
overestimating his ability tender age. Puss
in Boots, for
example,
the story displays a nice sense of is
updated so
that,
for
that
Disney was not
when he entered production is
humor
instance,
the
at
rather well animated,
atmosphere
(the fairy-tale
King
around
rides
this
and in
a
chauffeur-driven convertible). In the course of to build
up an able
producing these short cartoons, Disney began staff
which soon included, besides Iwerks,
Hugh and Walker Harman. Carmen "Max" Maxwell, and Red Lyon. Unfortunately, the Laugh-o-Grams were not selling (one sale was made but the purchaser went bankrupt after making a Rudolf
Ising,
$100 deposit), and the Disney production team was always looking income. They worked on a live-action short Martha and, sponsored by a local dentist, even made a film on dental hygiene which combined live action and animation to get its didactic message across. Max Fleischer had been using this same combination in his Out of the Inkwell series, and it had the advantage that the live-action sections of the movies were relatively inexpensive to produce. At some time in 1923, Disney decided to try to save his Laugh-o-Grams venture by making just such a movie, in which a human heroine could cavort with cartoon for alternate sources of
called Walt Disney
at
nine months
characters. Rather than simply imitating Fleischer's technique,
Disney
hit
live action
The
on the idea of reversing the basic principle would be introduced into the cartoon.
effect
of blending the
real
Alice
characters was achieved by photographing a
with little
so that the
the girl
cartoon
named
Virginia Davis against a white background and then combining this film,
in
the printing process, with another strip
on which the
animation was shot. The technique worked well, but Alice's
Walt Disney
at the
age of twelve
21
Poster for an Alice
Comedy
with
the original Alice. Virginia Davis
Wonderland exhausted Disney's remaining credit and he was forced to close the studio.
He was
not,
however, the type
to
be put off by a setback of this
and immediately planned to restart his career. In the summer of 1923 Walt Disney, aged twenty-one, took a train to California, carrying Alice 's Wonderland with him as a sample. His brother Roy was already in the West, recuperating in a Veteran's hospital from a kind,
bout with tuberculosis.
On
moved
in
with his uncle
4406 Kingswell Avenue. Walt began
look for a
at
job and,
spare time, used his uncle's garage to build a stand
for the
22
arriving in Los Angeles, Disney
Robert Disney in his
animation camera that he had purchased
(this
to
would have
A
later Alice,
Margie Gay, seen
here with animated friends and with director
Walt Disney
been a conventional movie camera converted
to
shoot stop-ac-
tion).
to be made to accommodate the success made in Hollywood, and one new employee was an Idaho girl named Lillian Bounds. She often worked nights, and Walt would sometimes drive her home in his car. A romance blossomed and, in July, 1925, the pair were married. Roy Disney had meanwhile married Edna Francis, his Kansas City sweet-
Additions
to the staff
new
Alice films
of six
had
heart.
became evident that they had to find a replacement Comedies if the Studio was to remain in a healthy economic state. They were by then approaching their sixtieth episode in the series, and evidently could not keep it going much By
1927,
it
for the Alice
longer.
Apart from anything
else, the
use of live action placed
them and Walt was anxious to get back to full animation. They began work on a new series which was to be based on the adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
severe restrictions on
Most business
crises are
brought on by incompetence. The near
catastrophe that the Disneys faced in 1927 resulted from the very
The new cartoon series turned out to be very successful, making Oswald the Lucky Rabbit a desirable property. There was just one snag. Disney had signed a one-year contract with Charles Mintz, who had married the distributor of
opposite.
Disney Films, Margaret Winkler,
now
in
1924 (their distribution outlet
tied in with Universal Pictures).
The
advertising
announced
"Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, created by Walt Disney," but-and proved
to
belonged the
first
to
be the
fatal
the
in
contract— Oswald's
Mintz (who had, apparently, picked
year of the series
Disney and
flaw
his wife
moved
embarked
for
it
this
name
out of a hat).
to a successful conclusion,
New York, where
As
Walt
he expected to
23
of cartoons Disney built around Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was successful enough to attract merchandising tie-ins. The model sheet below shows that Oswald anticipated some of the physical characteristics of Mickey Mouse. The page of story continuity sketches, on the right, illustrates how cartoon stories were worked out in this period
The
series
€* &TJ®
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