MICKEY MOUSE CREATOR

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 October 1939, Page 8

MICKEY MOUSE CREATOR

DISNEY’S RISE TO FAME. . | Walt Disney is hailed as the twentieth century’s master of fantasy, and his pictures as a. now art form. The truth, however, is that the Disney accomplishments so far are nothing’, and our authority for that, is Walt Disney himself (writes Fredric Beck). ' It is not false modesty that prompts Disney to discount his accomplishments so far, because he is equally sincere when he says that right now the Disney decks are being cleared for action which promises to result in animated pictures which really will merit the world’s acclaim. Walt liked to draw pictures from the time he was able to hold a pencil. A favourite aunt provided paints and brushes and paper, and a. retired doctor who lived next door provided another important element, a market for the Disney output. He always intended to become an artist, except during an interlude when, with a boyhood pal named Walt Pfeiffer, he was half of a vaudeville act that got-as far as an amateur night at a Kansas City Theatie. Young Disney went to school and drew pictures and sold newspapers, and in 1917, when lie was 16 years old, ho offered his services to the Army, and then to the Navy. Both spurned him because of his youth. He tried hard to enlist to fight the Germans and finally compromised with a job driving an ambulance. He actually did get overseas. In 1919, in Kansas City, Walt Disney got a job as an artist. He illustrated farm-journal ads, drawing pictures of laying mash and salt blocks. The job lasted two months, and, with that vast commercial experience, he made a typical Disney move. He went into business for himself. As a sort of partner, he teamed up with an implausible young man with the downright impossible name of Übbe Iwerks. Now, once upon a time, the movie theatres would throw upon their screens certain messages. A company that made these advertising slides availed itself of the services of Walt Disney, assisted' by Übbe Iwerks and, come to think of it, movie slides are probably first cousins to animated cartoons. Disney did not invent the animated cartoon. He did, however, do a great deal of experimenting in those early days.

STUDIO TN GARAGE. Disney acquired a camera of his own and set up a studio in a garage. Mr Übbe Iwerks didn’t like the garage, but, notwithstanding, he worked with Walt far into many nights.. A short reel of current Kansas City events was made. Three local theatres bought it and ordered more. It became a weekly feature, created by Walt as a sparetime activity. Walt conceived the idea of animating fairy tales, and he gathered about him a group of young artists who worked with Disney in making a cartoon based on “Little Red Riding Hood.” A New York distributor bought “Red' Riding Hood” and ordered more like it. The world looked bright for several months, and then the distributor went on the financial rocks. The Disney hopes went down with the wreck, and the corporation went into bankruptcy. In 1923 Walt and Roy (his brother) decided to form a partnership, with the intention of making cartoons so •good that distributors would have to buy them. The little firm found quarter in a garage—a commercial garage this time. Übbe Iwerks was sent for. “I might have known it,” he said. “You would pick a garage.” The first epic was called' “Oswald the Rabbit.” It was fairly good, and a distributor decided to take on the distribution of a series of Oswalds. But Disney and his distributor came to a parting of the ways, and on top of that the distributor established a studio in Hollywood, in which the job of producing Oswald was carried' on. And into the new studio went nearly all the Disney artists. Übbe Iwerks, however, remained faithful, though he still objected to the garage. With brother Roy and a few of the faithful, Walt Disney started all over again, and their first picture introduced a valiant little fellow named Mickey Mouse. But Mickey showed up for sale at a time when the movie world had turned 1 upside down and inside out. The Warner Brothers had made “The Jazz Singer,” and in it Al .Tolson actually talked and sang. Walt Disney was one of those who recognised the significance of that first sound picture. The third Mickey film was made for sound. The No. 3 Mickey Mouse picture was the first one to be shown to the public. It was “Steamboat Willie.” The public took a look and said “Yes!”' The business of making Mickey Mouse grew by leaps and bounds. The first of the Silly Symphonies was “The Skeleton Dance,” with music based on “Danse Macabre.” It seemed just too, too gruesome to the exhibitors, but it finally got its chance, and' again the public agreed with Disney. It wasn’t gruesome; it was amusing. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” first full-length feature, was long in the making. As its tremendous costs piled up, it looked for a while as if it might prove the Disney Waterloo. It was 'rumoured that “Snow White” was breaking Disney. TALENT SOUGHT. A Disney picture starts with a story, and most of the story ideas are either the employees’ or are from public domain; that is, from old legends and fairy tales not affected by copyrights. Among the biggest of the Disney problems to-day is the obtaining of talent, and talent is sought in many quarters. It is not always required that a. man or woman be able to draw. Ideas are the things from which the Disney pictures are built, ami the staff of idea men has come from many different fields. Those in the animation department are thoroughly trained before they are assigned to a Disney drawingboard. Even though an animator might have been for years with another studio, he goes through the Disney courses of training before going to work. A Disney picture is developed in this way: The story department will announce that the stock characters arc Io be in the vast wastes of I he Frozen North — prospecting. Several story men will work out treatments, and then the best parts of several versions will be taken as a. basis working story. Then conies a series Gf conferences, usually presided over by Walt. The story and its gags are developed in these conferences, which

arc like a. parlour game with anyone present privileged, to contribute his suggestions. When it was decided to build the big new studio in Burbank, California, every employee was invited to submit, his ideas as to what, an animation .studio should be. Every idea was considered, and many of them are being used. Polarised cold light will bo under the glass pane on every drawing-board, and one of the suggestions offered called for a sound stage that could be converted into badminton courts.

There will be a stream, with fish that call be studied by artists whose boss requires that a cartooned fish behave more like a fish than a fish does. And there will be a miniature zoo included for much the same reasons as the brook. Another feature will be a free motion-picture theatre where employees and their families may gather of an evening. Their screen fare will be the Disney output, the cartons of rival studios, and a feature picture. It will be in this new studio that, the three full-length Disney features now under way will be completed. The first “Pinocchio” keeps close to the line of Collodi’s familiar masterpiece, an ancient children’s tale that tells of the woodcarver, Gepetto, who whittled out a puppet-like creature with a long nose. This was Pinocchio, who wanted to be a real little boy—and the moral of the story is probably to make real little boys realise how lucky they are to be real little boys. “Bambi” will follow “Pinnocchio,” probably by about six months. Bambi is a deer, and, like Ferdinand the Bull, we see him at various stages of development—trace his poetic career from fawn to a dignified and noble prince of his realm, the forest. The characters in “Bambi” will not be humans, but the rabbits and the jays and a tough little skunk will all talk in the picture. The third and biggest of the Disney pivtures to come is the musical being made under the working title, “Fantasia.” Nothing is being spared to make this the greatest animated cartoon to date.

The basic story is the one told by the music of Dukas’ “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” It started as a Mickey Mouse short, with Mickey cast as the apprentice. The story has to do with a magician’s assistant who tries one of his master’s tricks. He changes a broomstick into a genie whom he bids bring water. The genie obeys, but the assistant cannot recall the magic words which put an end to this service, and the genie brings water until the Apprentice nearly drowns. He is saved just in time by the return of the sorcerer, who admonishes and forgives him. The Disney version is an enlargement of the same theme, and Mickey, the apprentice, falls asleep during the scene where the water begins to pile up. He dreams he is an orchestra conductor, and he takes the baton to exciting musical sequences. The music’s crescendo sends comets streaking across the sky, and with the end of the storm comes the “Rites of Spring” sequence, animated with a visual presentation of creation itself, I with flowers taking shape and animals coming into being. There’s a dance of the dinosaurs—there are centaurs and unicorns—violin-playing crickets and caterpillar harps, and flowers that sing. In the meantime, Disney continues to function as the voice of Mickey Mouse. Yes, that’s Disney himself you’ve been hearing all these years. He’s a sentimental chap, and he won’t let anyone else speak for the Mickey who brought fame to the Disney name.