Observing, photographing and even feeling animals’ bones, muscles and joints helped the artists draw animals to move in a believable way.
Reuters Graphics Presents Walt Disney Studio’s D r a w i n g o n t h e p a s t
By Ally J. Levine, Anurag Rao, Adolfo Arranz and Dea Bankova
Published Oct. 26, 2023 04:30 AM EDT
As Walt Disney Studios turns 100, investors worry it’s beginning to show its age. The share price dropped to its lowest level in nearly nine years as the company stumbles in the age of streaming.
Chart showing Disney’s monthly share price from January 1973 to Sept. 2023. The chart shows sharp growth starting around 2011 and peaks in 2021 before dropping quickly to a current share price around $81.
Monthly data as of Sept. 2023
But adapting to the times is not a new challenge for Disney, rather it’s been a point of survival throughout the company’s history.
A century ago when “Disney” was a single person, not a global company worth over $150 billion, emerging sound and color technologies rattled the silent film industry.
Illustration of Walt Disney standing on a stage with both hands on his hips. “But Walt Disney had a strong motivation for embracing these new tools…”
. to capture the audience.
“He wanted his animation to be believable, he wanted it to transcend what we typically think of as animation,” said Chris Pallant, professor of animation and screen studies at Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom.
Disney Studios opened in Hollywood in 1923 – geographically and conceptually distant from the animation powerhouses in New York. Disney envisioned a future in which animated features would garner the same respect as the live-action films being shot down the street.
He obsessed over quality and poured money into producing cartoons that would resonate with his audience. He wrote that observing the real world was key and animation must have, “a foundation of fact, in order that it may more richly possess sincerity.”
The studio formalized 12 principles of animation which transformed static sketches into lively characters on a screen. Veteran animators taught the principles to each of the new artists who joined the studio to ensure consistency.
Twelve principles of animation
An illustration of Walt Disney jumping, where he slightly compresses when he lands and stretches out when he bounces up.
Squash and stretch
An illustration of Walt Disney throwing a ball which eventually comes back around behind and hits him in the back of the head.
An illustration of Walt Disney standing on top of a mountain, mightily holding a pencil while wearing a flowing cape.
An illustration of Walt Disney dancing through three predetermined poses.
Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose
An illustration of Walt Disney flying a plane that skids and breaks apart.
Follow through and overlapping action
An illustration of Walt Disney slowly pulling a rope back only to fling himself forward into a tree which he slowly slides down.
Slow in and slow out
An illustration of Walt Disney swinging back and forth on a rope.
An illustration of Walt Disney walking with a bird following behind him.
An illustration of Walt Disney driving a tractor that slowly chugs along across the road.
An illustration of Walt Disney eating a comically large hamburger in one giant gulp.
An illustration of Walt Disney painting thoughtfully on an upright canvas.
An illustration of Walt Disney wearing large Mickey Mouse ears and shrugging.
Walt Disney entered the animation scene as a young businessman, well positioned to capitalize on existing techniques and embrace new tools. He and his studio harnessed sound, color and 3D camera technology with an organized and scalable approach, which was not necessarily cost-effective but produced high-quality animations.
Seemingly each time Disney’s projects were financially successful, he would use the money to double his aspirations for the next film. “In a way,” Pallant said, “Disney survives his own ambition.”
The illustration shows an imagined animation studio. A director of animation sits next to a piano where the musical composer sits playing one of the piano keys. Sheets of music and a sketch of an animation scene are leaned up against the piano. The two men have musical notes and tiny cartoon characters floating above their heads as if they’re collaborating on music and animation action.
Sound
Disney was not the first to introduce sound to animation, but his sound debut “Steamboat Willie” was widely considered the first cartoon to blend sound and screen meaningfully. The Studio understood music’s ability to communicate emotion and wove it into the production process.
The musician and animation director fused musical tone with character action before any of the animation began. Bar sheets brought a character’s steps and musical notes onto the same page, allowing animators and musicians to adjust their medium to fit the other.
“Mickeymousing” became a widely used term in animation – the inseparable tie between movement and sound. As Mickey Mouse climbs a staircase, so do the notes on a musical scale. A metronome kept musicians in sync with the exact frame of an animated sequence.
About Walt Disney
David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney “the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo.” A pioneer and innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world, including 48 Academy Awards® and 7 Emmys® in his lifetime.
Walt Disney’s personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France’s Legion of Honor and Officer d’Academie decorations; Thailand’s Order of the Crown; Brazil’s Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.
The creator of Mickey Mouse and founder of Disneyland and Walt Disney World was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. His father, Elias Disney, was an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.
Raised on a farm near Marceline, Missouri, Walt early became interested in drawing, selling his first sketches to neighbors when he was only seven years old. At McKinley High School in Chicago, Disney divided his attention between drawing and photography, contributing both to the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.
During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military service. Rejected because he was only 16 years of age, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. His ambulance was covered from stem to stern, not with stock camouflage, but with drawings and cartoons.
After the war, Walt returned to Kansas City, where he began his career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920, he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new method for combining live-action and animation.
In August of 1923, Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with nothing but a few drawing materials, $40 in his pocket and a completed animated and live-action film. Walt’s brother Roy O. Disney was already in California, with an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement, and $250. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500 and constructed a camera stand in their uncle’s garage. Soon, they received an order from New York for the first “Alice Comedy” short, and the brothers began their production operation in the rear of a Hollywood real estate office two blocks away.
On July 13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. They were blessed with two daughters — Diane, married to Ron Miller, former president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions; and Sharon Disney Lund, formerly a member of Disney’s Board of Directors. The Millers have seven children and Mrs. Lund had three. Mrs. Lund passed away in 1993.
Mickey Mouse was created in 1928, and his talents were first used in a silent cartoon entitled Plane Crazy. However, before the cartoon could be released, sound burst upon the motion picture screen. Thus Mickey made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie, the world’s first fully synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928.
Walt’s drive to perfect the art of animation was endless. Technicolor® was introduced to animation during the production of his “Silly Symphonies.” In 1932, the film entitled Flowers and Trees won Walt the first of his 32 personal Academy Awards®. In 1937, he released The Old Mill, the first short subject to utilize the multiplane camera technique.
On December 21 of that same year, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Produced at the unheard of cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Great Depression, the film is still accounted as one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt completed such other full-length animated classics as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi.
In 1940, construction was completed on Disney’s Burbank studio, and the staff swelled to more than 1,000 artists, animators, story men and technicians. During World War II, 94 percent of the Disney facilities were engaged in special government work including the production of training and propaganda films for the armed services, as well as health films which are still shown throughout the world by the U.S. State Department. The remainder of his efforts were devoted to the production of comedy short subjects, deemed highly essential to civilian and military morale.
Disney’s 1945 feature, the musical The Three Caballeros, combined live action with the cartoon medium, a process he used successfully in such other features as Song of the South and the highly acclaimed Mary Poppins. In all, 81 features were released by the studio during his lifetime.
Walt’s inquisitive mind and keen sense for education through entertainment resulted in the award-winning “True-Life Adventure” series. Through such films as The Living Desert, The Vanishing Prairie, The African Lion and White Wilderness, Disney brought fascinating insights into the world of wild animals and taught the importance of conserving our nation’s outdoor heritage.
Disneyland, launched in 1955 as a fabulous $17 million Magic Kingdom, soon increased its investment tenfold and entertained, by its fourth decade, more than 400 million people, including presidents, kings and queens and royalty from all over the globe.
A pioneer in the field of television programming, Disney began production in 1954, and was among the first to present full-color programming with his Wonderful World of Color in 1961. The Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro were popular favorites in the 1950s.
But that was only the beginning. In 1965, Walt Disney turned his attention toward the problem of improving the quality of urban life in America. He personally directed the design on an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, planned as a living showcase for the creativity of American industry.
Said Disney, “I don’t believe there is a challenge anywhere in the world that is more important to people everywhere than finding the solution to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin? Well, we’re convinced we must start with the public need. And the need is not just for curing the old ills of old cities. We think the need is for starting from scratch on virgin land and building a community that will become a prototype for the future.”
Thus, Disney directed the purchase of 43 square miles of virgin land — twice the size of Manhattan Island — in the center of the state of Florida. Here, he master planned a whole new Disney world of entertainment to include a new amusement theme park, motel-hotel resort vacation center and his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. After more than seven years of master planning and preparation, including 52 months of actual construction, Walt Disney World opened to the public as scheduled on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center opened on October 1, 1982.
Prior to his death on December 15, 1966, Walt Disney took a deep interest in the establishment of California Institute of the Arts, a college level, professional school of all the creative and performing arts. Of Cal Arts, Walt once said, “It’s the principal thing I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something.”
California Institute of the Arts was founded in 1961 with the amalgamation of two schools, the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Chouinard Art Institute. The campus is located in the city of Valencia, 32 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Walt Disney conceived the new school as a place where all the performing and creative arts would be taught under one roof in a “community of the arts” as a completely new approach to professional arts training.
Walt Disney is a legend, a folk hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based upon the ideas which his name represents: imagination, optimism and self-made success in the American tradition. Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man in the past century. Through his work, he brought joy, happiness and a universal means of communication to the people of every nation. Certainly, our world shall know but one Walt Disney.
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