Walt's Story

Waltdisney.org, 2018

Walt Disney was an American cartoonist and entrepreneur. He started work at the Kansas City Film Ad Company where he worked as a comic cartoonist, there his passion for animation begun.

Walt and his brother headed to Hollywood in 1923 to become partners in a film studio. Establishing the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in that same year, they began producing the Alice Comedies. Disney got tired of combining live action and animation so he decided to stop making the shorts and produce something different, with the entirety of it animation (Waltdisney.org, 2018).

Walt’s first musical director Carl Stalling, suggested a series of shorts where music would be the main element. Originally the shorts featured inanimate objects which would come to life by the music, but they soon evolved into something more. These early mini musical shorts, Silly Symphonies were extravaganzas but really took off with the addition of colour. Flowers and Trees, the first Silly Symphonies short to be released in full Technicolour won Walt Disney his first Academy Award in 1933. Disney won the academy award for Best Animated Short Film consecutively until the Silly Symphonies phased out in 1939. Steamboat Willie was the first full synchronised sound film (The Disney Book, 2015).

When Disney felt he needed to move on and expand his company Disney debuted the character Mickey Mouse in a short titled ‘Steamboat Willie’ in 1928. The character became a global sensation with the character still being highly recognised and loved today. The short introduced the world to animation with a synchronised soundtrack with the animation on the screen. The contribution of sound to animation has changed the way animated films and shorts are viewed drastically adding more comedic value and more entertainment (The History of Animation Sound — Boom Box Post, 2015). Disney began ideating a feature length colour animated film inspired by Snow White. When the media got a hold of his idea, they deemed it ‘Disney’s Folly’ with full beliefs the film would flop. They proposed that no one would sit through an hour and a half cartoon.

Before 1937, cartoons were viewed as funny or silly. They were short, slapstick animations for children and adults alike. Snow White was used to blow animation past its technical and narrative limitations proving that feature length films are viable for storytelling and are indeed possible. In early 1940, Walt Disney had yet another courageous and radical idea: an avant-garde animated film that would showcase the medium in the realm of fine art. A highbrow picture that would elevate the status of animation to the upper classes, and which would take the viewer on a journey without uttering a word of dialogue. Unlike traditional cartoons which used music to amplify drawings, this film’s drawings would serve to amplify the music of some of the world’s greatest composers. This film was called Fantasia, an auditory and visual extravaganza. The film is made up of short snippets of animation set to classical music each with their own story and messages. Fantasia was the first commercial film released in stereo (The Take, n.d).

Boom Box Post, n.d

Walt Disney Family Museum, 2018

Throughout Disney's life, he was honored with many special credits and achievements such as being crowned the Head of Pageantry at the 1960 Winter Olympics, being presented the Medal of Freedom by Former President Lyndon Johnson, America's highest honor, as well as working with industry professionals to create the California Institute of the Arts. He also won 26 Academy Awards including 4 honorary awards and holds the record for most nominations with 59 to his name. All these factors contribute to Disney's importance in society (The Disney Book, 2015).

Walt passed away on December 15th 1966 due to lung cancer. He continued working until the day he passed.

Walt Disney did not invent animation as some believe, he perfected it. He took hand drawn animation from a program filler to an artform. Him and his staff developed existing techniques and invented others, such as the storyboard, although Disney credits artist Webb Smith for inventing the concept of drawing scenes on separate pieces of paper and pinning them on a bulletin board to develop a story in sequence (makestoryboard.com, n.d.).