Tuesday, September 11, 2007

How Walt Disney Cartoons are made

This is really entertaining, and even a bit educational, for those of you who haven't yet seen this video on YouTube. Here we see Walt Disney looking young and dashing in this documentary which doubled as a great press opportunity to advertise Walt's first full length feature film. What's really amusing is just how dated the film proves to be. The monotonic voice of the spokesman is made even funnier thanks to the repeated allusion to the ink & paint department's "pretty girls." (and they were even lucky enough to have an air-conditioned and well-lit room to perform their work in too!) The film also has some rare glimpses of the animation process back in the 1930's in action and a view of Snow White's test run in the movieola projector. Enjoy!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was publicly released on the Behind the Scenes at the Walt Disney Studios dvd, from the first Disney Treasures tin box set. It was put together by Walt and RKO to try to get more support for Snow White from bankers and theater owners who weren't really sure what they were getting into with such a large, untried product as a feature-length animated film.

I recognized the voice from elsewhere so I'm guessing he did a lot of newsreels at the time and likely covered the subsequent war extensively.

There were two versions of the film, both available on the DVD set. One was intended to be a private business release only, the other given a wider theater release with a little polish to it. I *think* this is the latter one but I'd have to review them at home to be sure.

m.a.m said...

I finally found your blog! It's so Disney...haha I love it.

- Ashley (from Anthropologie...in the summer..)

loosetoon said...

I love that video. The Narrator describing Walt's team of Directors as "hard-boiled" is priceless!