This module will take a look at the origins of the Disney Company and what led to its phenomenal success. We will spend some time exploring the motivations behind Walt (as he is often called to distinguish him from the corporation) during the golden days of his company. This started with the creation of Mickey Mouse in 1928 and lasted until the United States entered World War II in 1941.
All animation roads lead to, or have come from, Walter Elias Disney. We will see from the readings and also from viewing his work that he changed the whole course of American animation within a few years. Certainly there are animators who created work without direct correlation to Disney but no one creates quality animation in a vacuum. Therefore it is my belief that most animators after 1935 have some degree of creative debt to Walt Disney.
Walt was born on December 5, 1901, in Chicago. He was not born into poverty but at times his family was below middle class. His father was reportedly somewhat of a rainbow chaser and always trying to squeak out a living (Solomon, 1989, p. 37). Also his father, Elias Disney, was very strict, and at times possibly abusive, which contributed to Walt's two older brothers running away from home at an early age. It was with Roy Disney, the third youngest brother, that Walt would become closest. They would eventually spend the rest of their lives together working as a team.
Disney's boyhood has been sentimentalized, especially the time in which he lived on farm in Missouri between 1905-1910. As Charles Solomon points out in his book The Enchanted Drawing: "No one has bothered to subject Paul Terry's childhood and his farmer Al Falfa films to similar analysis" (Solomon, 1989, p.37) . But of course Paul Terry's impact on animation is much less remembered than walt's legacy.
Disney served as an ambulance driver in France during World War I. After returning in 1919 he again left home, against his father's wishes, to pursue a career as a cartoon artist. His first job was an apprenticeship at the Pesman-Rubin Commercial Art Studio in Kansas City where he assisted with print advertisements. It was there that he met Ub Iwerks.
Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks formed a friendship that would last a lifetime-though not without a good deal of friction between them. Walt Disney was the outgoing, confident, energetic story genius. But his drawing skills couldn't compare to Iwerk's. Ub Iwerk was quiet, soft spoken, not seemingly as confident but was the illustration master mind. The two of them taught themselves animation from reading Carl Lutz's book: Animated Cartoons, Published in 1920. Apparently they also studied the photographs of Edward Muybridge.
He formed the Laugh-O-Gram films company in 1922. The staff included Iwerks, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising (Harman and Ising later went on to work at Warner Bros.).He made at least six cartoons based on fairy tales but apparently was unable to sell much, if any of his work due to the mediocre quality of the animations. Soon the company went bankrupt.
In 1923 he left to Hollywood to work with his brother Roy Disney on new concept - the Alice films. From here on out Disney's brother Roy would serve as his financial assistant. It was Roy who always be watching the books trying to keep costs under control. Disney, it seems, was never hesitant to splurge in order to experiment on a film or to improve its quality(Leonard, 1987, p. 30). Later, after the release of Snow White, this would be almost disastrous for the company.
Resources:
QuickTime movie and book links:
1928-1935
From Oswald to Mickey
Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was designed by both Iwerks and Disney and it replaced the Alice comedies which were growing old after nearly four years. Oswald received good reviews and Disney was hoping to use the character to break the monotonous rut that cartoons seemed to have fallen into by this time. He certainly wasn't satisfied with his own cartoons and he went to New York in February of 1928 to ask his distributor, Charles Mintz, for a raise in order to improve the animation (Leonard, 1987, p.33).
To Disney 's dismay Mintz in fact lowered his pay and had signed away the entire staff of his animators while he was gone. All the main animators signed with Mitz except for Ub Iwerks and Les Clark (who later went on to become one of the nine old men). Not only did Disney lost Oswald but he lost all his key animators as well.
History was forever changed by this event. Disney could hold a grudge. And he held one for the rest of his life against those who were willing to be bought out by Charles Mintz (and later on with those people who strike against him). Also Disney became extremely protective of his own work and never again relinquished ownership of a major character.
Mickey Mouse
The Evolution of Mickey
Ub Iwerks was the chief architect behind the original look and feel of Mickey Mouse (Finch, 1983, pp. 50). Although Mickey resembled Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in many respects (such as with his round face, similar body, and black and white face) there were some critical differences that Iwerks initiated. Unlike Oswald, Mickey's ears were round. This made the character much quicker to draw. Now the artist could have one circle for the trunk, one for the head, two for the ears, and rubber hoses for the legs and arms.
The rubber hose for the arms and legs is a layover from the Felix the Cat design. The idea is that you create a character who is absolutely pliable and the character's body can be stretched and pulled into unrealistic shapes. For example in the cartoon 'Steamboat Willie' Peg Leg Pete grabs Mickey's body and stretches it out so it actually falls onto the floor. Mickey has to bend himself back into shape and stuff his body back into his clothes. Rubber hose style made it a lot easier to draw animated characters. The time it took to draw realistic poses and actions was minimized; the animator could just draw an arm literally stretching out to perform its action.
Walt served as Mickey's alter ego in the early films by adding his own voice and inserting his own personality into the character. Initially Mickey's personality was that of naughty but heroic mouse. In some of the first films he drinks, smokes, and takes part in barnyard humor (toilet humor) (Maltin, 1987). Something we would never see after 1935.
Iwerks left the Disney studio in 1930 and animator Les Clark took over drawing the character for a short while. As Mickey evolved into the company's masco and logo his personality had to change. It was Fred Moore who changed Mickey into, pretty much, how we see him today.
Fred Moore made Mickey's body into more of a tube shape and added some texture to the face. This included eye brows and, by his appearance as the Scorcerer's Apprentice in Fanatasia (1940) , pupils to his eyes. Also by 1933 the perennial smile began to appear on Mickey's face. Now, unless he was in emanate danger, Mickey constantly has a smile on face.
Silly Symphonies
The Technological Innovations
Ub Iwerks animated the first Silly Symphony, The Skeleton Dance, almost solo. A remarkable feat considering that the animation still holds up to today's standards. Actually (with regards to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim) maybe surpassing 2D animation's quality today.
Disney used the Silly Symphonies to experiment with mood, character creation, and technological innovations.
In 1932 Technicolor had a version of the three-strip color process that could be used for animation. Technicolor approached Disney and he signed with them under the agreement that he would have exclusive use of the technique for two years. Flowers and trees (1932) was the first three color animation to be produced and was also the first Disney color film. This resulted in it receiving the first Academy Award given to an animated film. Disney would go on to win every animation Academy Award for nine of the next eleven years.
The Silly Symphonies produced technological invocations as well as introducing new principles to the believability of animation. These include:
Technology and Snow White
The multiplane camera was a rather large machine that would film multiple planes of drawings rather than just one or two cels at a time. This allowed Disney to deal with complex problems of perspective, proportions, and timing. A traveling shot could be created where the camera would follow an animated character walking through a complex landscape. An illusion of 3D could be imitated by having the character walk behind and in front of various background elements. At the time this was truly novel and only the Fleischer studio, with their turn table camera, was doing anything like it.
"The culmination of all this technical and talent development was the production of Disney's first feature-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (Maltin, 1987, pp. 53)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was Disney's first full length movie and the first animated feature of its type ever produced. This was truly the beginning of Disney's power. But not without difficulties; for example In the process of making Snow White, and trying to make it better and better all the time, Disney ran the company into heavy debts (Maltin, 1987). In these pre-union days he also expected everyone on his staff to work as hard as he did (essentially around the clock). The film was produced over an amazingly quick period of time and was outstanding in many ways. But according to animators who lived through this time at the studio the working environment could be horrendous.
To give an example here are two quotes from the veteran animator Marc Davis:
"The 'in-betweener'-men on the lowest run of the animation industry hierocracy who make the drawings between the animators' main sketches-sat bent over light boards in the basement of the central building; on especially humid days, when the sweating 'tweeners stripped to the waist, it resembled nothing so much as a slave-ship galley"
" During that long hot summer, a good portion of the nearly six hundred employees toiled furiously from early morning till late at night. Twenty four hour alternating shifts were in place for the camera crew and the all-female Ink and Paint Department; and in those pre-union days everyone was expected to put in a half day on the Saturday"
Marc Davis from Walt Disney's Nine Old Men (Canemaker, 2001, pp. 1)
But Snow White was both critically and financially successful. This was the first signal that Disney was not far from expanding wholly into full length features and leaving the world of animation shorts behind. It would also prove to be the beginning of the Disney empire. Although, as we will see from the readings, it really wasn't until the mid 1950's that the company was financially secure.
The Gags
What's In a Gag?
The word gag means a joke, a quip, or a bit of comic byplay in a theatrical act. The word dates back to the nineteenth century (Thomas & Johnston, 1987)
Until Disney's cartoons in the early 1930's the basis of all cartoon shorts was pretty much the site gag, or spot gag. For many companies that continued to be the main drive of cartoon shorts even through the 1950's. The cartoon shorts typically were filled with the endless gags. They had little plot and there were lots and lots of mice and cats running around. One of the important contributions Walt made to the cartoon short is that he wanted to make a more complex gag structure. He wanted the gags to enhance the believability of the characters.
In 1933 Disney’s staff numbered close to 300 people. Walt took the important steps of starting classes that would train his artists in the Disney way of doing animation. These classes included screening Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd live action shorts.
Walt Disney’s gags during the mid 1920’s were the same as everyone else ’s. But by 1927 he started to put more careful planning into them He wanted his characters to be more appealing, and have more expressive animation.
Another technical step he made was to start using pencil tests and using a "sweatbox". The sweatbox was a small room where animators would go to view a pencil test of their day's work. The New York animators were doing nothing like this! That is why when you view a Paul Terry cartoon there is not much comparison with a Disney cartoon from the same era. There just was not the same level of preparation for each cartoon.
Disney’s sight gag categories (as adapted from Too Funny for Words by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston):
A Donald Duck storyboard for a United Sates pro-income tax animation:
The Nine Old Men
The People Who Built Disney
The Information for this module is extracted from John Canemaker's The Nine Old Men (2001). His book is an excellent look at the early years at the Disney studio and it is a great biography of these nine men who helped to shape Walt Disney Studios. At the bottom of this page are links to other Web site with more information about other animators at Walt Disney studios.
The Nine Old Men (in the order in which they were hired):
Les Clark
Clark was the 'longest continuously employed animator at Disney Studios'. As far as I know he was the only other 'main' employer besides Iwerks to remain with Disney after the Charles Mintz 'buy out' in 1928. Les Clark stayed with Iwerks and assisted him with the early Mickey Mouse shorts including the first to be released, Steamboat Willie.
Les Clark started working for Disney in 1927. Though it was originally just a temporary job he lasted there for almost fifty years (Canemaker, 2001,p. 10). According to CaneMaker, Clark was one of the most dedicated members of the Disney staff. He worked his way up the food chain (from cel painter, inbetweener, to eventually a lead animator). His first film in which he worked as an animator was The Skeleton Dance (1929) where he collaborated with Ub Iwerks. Clark started off as a good illustrator but he learned most of his skills on the job. "Over the years, the pupil surpassed his teacher. Clark's draftsmanship skills and versatile as a personality animator developed way beyond what Ub Iwerks was capable of. " (Canemaker, p.15).
Wolfgang Reitherman
Wolfgang was born June 26, 1909 in Germany and moved to America by 1911. Initially he got his start as an airplane pilot but around 1933 decided to enter art school to study water color. Reitherman was hired at Disney in 1933. According to Canemaker "There was something the movie star about Reitherman-think John Wayne or Robert Taylor ...Physically, he was impressive: six foot two, wide-shouldered, bowlegged :'he was a man's man, as well as a lady's man,'says his wife Jane" . And he goes on to say that he "was fond of wearing loud Hawaiian shirts and smoking cigars". (Canemaker, p. 31). He became one of the most well known of Disney's directors.Some of the films which he directed include The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocrats(1970), The Rescuers(1977), and he also Directed the Winnie Pooh films. Reitherman was a Director at Disney Studios until 1985.
Eric Larson
Eric Larson was born in 1905. Larson spent the early part of his life in Utah and attended high school in Salt Lake City where he studied illustration. Eric Larson was hired on at Disney in 1933. Within five weeks after working as an in-betweener he was promoted to an assistant animator. What Eric Larson may be best remembered for is that during the 1970's he we was put in charge of finding and training new animation talent and apparently formed a strong relationship with the young animators as their mentor.
Larson animated many of the scene of the forest animals in Snow White (which he later criticized as "looking like sacks of wheat"). By the end of Snow White he was a full animator and he continued to draw animals for the short animations including Farmyard Symphony(1938) and The Ugly Duckling(1939), and the owl in Bambi.
Ward Kimball
Ward Kimball was probably the the closest of any of the nine old men to being Walt Disney's friend. He is described as being the the zaniest one of the group: "Exuberant humor, zany as well as sardonic pervades all of kimball's work and reflect his personality"(Canemaker, 2001, p. 83). He embraced the limited, or stylized, form of animation that grew out of the 1940's and its influence can be seen in his work produced after 1950-specifically Disney's educational shorts such as Mars and Beyond(1957). The most famous character that he developed and animated was Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio.
Milt Kahl
Milt Kahl has a reputation for being the most conceited member of the group. He also has a reputation for being such an excellent animator that his ego may have been well deserved. 'I didn't have limitations,' he once told a television interview. 'I could do anything.'" (Canemaker, 2001. p. 125). He was often disappointed that he would not be the one to animate a whole character throughout the movie because "'Somebody else takes over the rest of it and I'm embarrassed by the result!'" (Canemaker, 2001, p.126).
He had a short temper and was often impatient with other animators who were not as good as him-which was very few in his mind. But his work was truly outstanding. He was born in 1909 and hired on with the Disney studio in 1934. He was one of the few Disney employees who could show his anger towards Disney and get away with it most of the time. Apparently Disney was willing to cut him slack because of his excellent animation skills.
Frank Thomas
The name Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston has become almost inseparable in the field of animation. They have authored several books together including, what has now become an animator's bible, the Illusion of Life. They also were featured in the 1995 film Frank and Ollie which was a documentary about their lives at Disney.
Frank Thomas attended Stanford University where he met Ollie Johnson and they would become life long friends. After graduating in art he was hired on at Disney in 1934. In the early years of Disney Thomas may be best remembered for his work of the dwarfs grieving over Snow Whites body towards the end of the movie. The slow movement of the bodies was difficult to animate with "no distracting wiggle or flicker in the movement".(Canemaker, 2001, p. 179).He also did some very complex animation of Pinocchio (the performance where he is dancing on the Stromboli theatre).
Ollie Johnston
Ollie Johnston was hired at Disney January 21, 1935. He started off as an in-betweener on Mickey's Garden(1935) and then became Fred Moore's assistant."Assisting Fred Moore, Johnston always remembered, was 'the greatest learning experiment I ever had'" (Canemaker, 2001, p. 231).
He worked with Moore cleaning up his drawings for the Dwarfs in Snow White. After Snow White Johnston moved on to become a main animator. He supervised the cupids and centaurettes in a section of the Beethoven pastoral sequence. he was one of four people to supervise the animation on Bambi. His later work included the Baloo from The JUngle Book(1967), Prince John from Robin Hood (1973), the cat Rufus from The Rescuers. He retired with Frank Thomas in 1978. They both still author books and also have their own Web site at http://www.frankandollie.com
John Lounsbery
According to John Canemaker The Disney colleagues and friends of John Lounsbery spoke very kindly of him: "Self Effacing. Self-sacrifing. The soul of kindliness.." (Canemaker, 2001, p. 241).
Lounsbery was hired on at Disney July 1935. His sequences of animation usually involved lots of action and comedy. A specific roll that made his career what Ben Ail Gator-the alligator from Fantasia's Dance of the Hours. He also was responsible for the elephant mach and military inspection in the Jungle Book. Lounsbery trained under Disney animator Norman Ferguson. Ferguson was responsible for developing some of the early 'follow through' actions (one of the 12 principles of animation). Ferguson was responsible for the development of Pluto and for much of the gags surrounding that character. Lounsbery assisted him with much of the animation at that time.
Marc Davis
Marc Davis was born in 1913. His father, in Marc's own words, was " a bit of a rainbow chaser". He spent much of his youth on the move with his family. When he was young he lived in Arkansas and eventually moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon where he graduated from high school in 1931. He started to improve his drawing skills was in the Fleishahcer Zoo after he moved with his family to San Francisco. He would get into the zoo prior to it opening and then zoo employees bring him creatures to draw. After the death of his father, and because of the depression, Davis applied to Disney to support his family. He was immediately hired. Davis excelled at creating "appealing story sketches (that) showed animals expressing human thoughts yet retaining their animal qualities."(Canemaker, 2001, p.274).
Davis became one of Disney's Imagineers working on attractions for the theme parks. He worked on concepts for he Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and was instrumental in creating the Abe Lincoln exhibit. For his animation work he may be best remembered for the animation of the skunk in bambi, Tinker Bell in Peter Pan, Alice in Alice in Wonderland, and Maleficent the villain in Sleeping Beauty.
Other Notable Disney animators (read the content page that each link goes to. Read more as you like).
Assignment:
Composition on an early animator (details in assignment section of Web Site)
Required Viewing:
• Steamboat Willie (and any three other Mickey shorts prior to 1939).
Mickey Mouse in Black and White is available at BCC Media Services. You may be able to find a copy of that DVD, or other video tapes featuring early Mickey Mouse, at your Library or video store. It is important for this module that you watch the ones prior to 1939.
• Snow White
Available every where. The DVD special edition is by far and away the best version to watch.
• Fank and Ollie
This is a wonderful documentary about the two former Disney animators. They worked with Disney for nearly forty years and as of January 2004 are still alive. A must see video!
• Bambi
The video is available at BCC, video stores, and probably at your library.
• Disney Animations Online
A page of Disney video clips. You won't see the entire animations but it is a good place to get a feel for the style of the early Disney cartoons. Disney Short Animations Online.
Required Reading:
• pp. 52-82, 189-198 Maltin
• pp. 53-58, 91-150, Klein
• Disney-Saint or Devil Incarnate? by Karl F. Cohen
Cohen takes a look at the most famous of the Disney rumors.
Recommended Viewing:
• Silly Symphonies
• Fantasia
• Pinocchio
• Dumbo
• All of them prior to 1970!
Remember to check with your local library and also the BCC library before choosing to rent a movie.
Resources:
Disney related Web links that make for good optional readings:
1) Disney Animated Shorts A complete list of Disney's short animations. Excellent site!!
2) Mickey Mouse
A history of Mickey Mouse
3) Mickey Mouse
More history of the mouse.
4) Early Disney
A brief over view of early Disney.
5) Information About Disney
Disney's information about Disney.
6) Frank and Ollie Online.
Reflective Questions
The questions and comments on this page are intended to help you reflect about module 3. These are not graded and your answers should not be submitted. However they will be raised in class (on the bulletin board for on line students) in a conversational style. Questions similar to these may also appear in assignments and quizes.
1. How much of an impact did sound have in the success of Mickey Mouse? Do you think that eventually Disney would have been able to sell the character without sound sync?
2. What are some themes that Disney returns to in his work from 1922-1939?
3. In later years, after 1937, Disney's films involve more realism and further exploit the techniques of the multiplane camera. How important is the imitation of reality in animation?
4. In your opinion is there a point when the imitation of reality deters from animation (for example in today's animation)?
5. What modifications did Disney make to Mickey Mouse after 1935 in order to keep the audience interested?
6. What were some influences in Disney's style of art and in his story telling? What types of sources did he use for many of his early stories?
7. In your opinion which one of the nine old men had the strongest impact on Walt Disney's animations created from 1928-1939?
8. How has Disney's work ,from the 1930's, stood up to the test of time?
9. Who was responsible for composing the first Disney soundtracks during 1928-1930?
10. Why did Ub Iwerks leave Disney? When?
11. Why did Ub Iwerks return to Disney and what roll did he play with the company after he returned?
Module 3 Bibliography
Bendazzi, G. (1994). Cartoons: one hundred years of cinema animation. John Libbey&Company Ltd.
Finch, Christopher(1983). The art of walt disney. Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,New York.
Thomas F. & Johnston O. (1987). Too funny for words.Abbeville Press Publishers, New York.
Maltin, L. (1987). Of mice and magic. Penguin Books, New York.
Solomon, C. (1991). Enchanted drawings. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.