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Walt Disney: Walt Disney Studio
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On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. He got his idea for a children's theme park after visiting Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California. This plan was originally meant for a plot located south of the Studio, across the street. The original ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that was to become Disneyland. Disney spent five years of his life developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary of his company, called WED Enterprises, to carry out the planning and production of the park. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.
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On December 8, 1941, the Disney Studio was taken over by the military as part of the war effort. Making the most of the talent that hadn't shipped out yet, Walt Disney spent the next four years creating and producing training, propaganda, and educational films for the Armed Forces. In addition to these films, this extraordinary volume ... includes the full-length feature "Victory Through Air Power." Released theatrically in 1943, this powerful propaganda film has never been reissued until now. You'll also see recently discovered on-the-set footage, and get rare firsthand accounts about the work and culture at the Disney Studio in interviews with Disney Legends Joe Grant, John Hench, and Roy Disney. Featuring exclusive introductions by film historian Leonard Maltin.
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Walt returned to the USA, moved to Kansas City and started looking for a job. Disney had always wanted to be a film maker. He even once applied for a job working for Charlie Chaplin and was turned down. He was ... interested in becoming a political cartoonist but after some time of being unemployed he had to settle for a job in "Posman-Rubin Commercial Art Studio" for 50 dollars a month. In his new job Walt met and befriended Ubbe Ert Iwerks, later known as Ub Iwerks. The two friends were interested in creating their own company and in January, 1920 they formed "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". The company soon closed and the duo was hired by the "Kansas City Film Ad Company".
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After the creation of two cartoon series, Disney soon began plans for a full-length feature in 1934. In 1935, opinion polls showed that another cartoon series, Popeye the Sailor, produced by Max Fleischer, was more popular than Mickey Mouse,[22]. When the film industry came to know about Disney's plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White, they dubbed the project as "Disney's Folly" and were certain that the project would destroy the Disney studio. Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk Disney out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature. He employed Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff, and used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera; Disney would first use this new technique in the 1937 Silly Symphonies short The Old Mill.[23]
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The growth of Mickey Mouse as an enterprise started in 1930, when Disney was offered $300 to put Mickey's image on a school notebook. From that point on, Disney character merchandise became a major source of income for the Disney studio. The same year, Mickey started to appear in a daily newspaper comic strip, which kept the cartoon mouse in the eyes and minds of the buying public. At the same time, the Disney studio was turning out a new cartoon shorts every three to four weeks. Mickey's universal popularity might be traced to the fact that, among cartoon characters, he was a true Renaissance mouse. He went everywhere, and did everything.
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In 1923 an aspiring cartoonist named Walter Elias Disney left for Hollywood. Twenty-one years old, Walt's only possessions were a suitcase, a sketchbook, and the $40 in his pocket. A legend was about to be born. In Hollywood, Walt peddled his first cartoon series, the "Alice Comedies," and landed a distribution deal. He soon partnered with older brother Roy O. Disney, and the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio was officially born.
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