VISIT TO WALT DISNEY’S STUDIO

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 68, 22 March 1939, Page 3

VISIT TO WALT DISNEY’S STUDIO

‘Tricks of the Trade” Revealed

TT has been said that a visit to Walter Disney's studio is as depressing as a visit to a factory run under the Bedaux system. This is not quite tri"' Tne Disney studio is more depressing, writes Maurice Bessy in Cinemonde (Paris) and condensed by Magazine Digest Just picture a watch factory where each worker is condemned to produce the same little cog all his life without knowing its function in the watch as a whole. Without doubt the little cog that he produces is to be found somewhere in the watch that ticks ceaselessly in his own pocket. But where is it located? How does it participate in the wonderfully regulated movement of the timepiece? At the Disney studio there are 735 people who pass their days producing masterpieces without knowing it, involuntarily and unconsciously, in fact despite themselves. Just as in the other studios the departments work seperately. As soon as a scenario has been accepted, the thousands of sketches necessary for the picture are distributed to teams of artists. The drawings made by them are pasted on to a celluloid sheet and are photographed one by one. There are certain “tricks of the trade.” some of which have been kept secret up to now. that I am going to reveal. It is interesting for example to know that as soon as a scenario has been finished, the first thing that is done is the writing and recording of the musical background. The musical score will determine the length of the scenes and consequently the rhythm of the action. A tedious method of trial and error is used to co-ordinate action with the I music and every scene required weeks } of effort to complete. The voices are | also recorded beforehand. Let us take as an example “The ! Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” the production ! of which I witnessed. The subject • and music are taken from Paul Dukas, i

The music will be directed for the occasion by the celebrated Stokowski. The scenario once decided on, a certain number of drawings in coloured crayon are done —164 to be exact. These are they key cartoons to all the orincipal scenes. The result looks very much like a children's illustrated story , book. These 164 drawings are pasted on the wall in their right order and it is thus possible to follow the main action and gage with ease. You see at a glance that the first part of the film will be done in sombre colours. When the sorcerer appears he creates some fantastically coloured effects. After the music and dialogue have been recorded each of the 164 diagrams are photographed for a length of time equal to the scene to which it is the key. In this way a stationary sketch of the film is obtained. In order to prepare the animate version, the artist makes a series of sketches in black pencil and thus a rough draft of the scene is obtained. Then the details of the action are filled in according to the rhythm of the music and the words. In addition to animals that can be given almost any arbitrary motions, the Disney films have human characters. These must be rendered as naturally as possible. Disney has a method of doing this. Every time a human character appears in a Disney film, an actor is hired to interpret the scene in a minature studio. These actors act in an exaggerated, overdone way much like the old-fashioned movies. A film is shot and is then projected on a frosted glass screen that is placed on the desk of the artist. He thus has the gestures ; and movements of the living model bel fore him and is able to base his car- | toon on them. ! It is possible to recognise the living • originals after which the characters in i the Disney films have been modelled. I In Hollywood you can find the smiling, i living incarnation of little Snow White! (

The 200 artists employed to make the drawings for Disney films usually come from various art schools throughout the country. It is a frightful sight to see hundreds of these girls, some of them as beautiful as goddesses, working in squads in enormous halls. They earn from £6 to £8 a week. In addition to the short films that he is producing, Disney has been encouraged by the financial success of Snow White to work on other longer films. At the studio they are at present busy on two of these longer productions. One is based on an Italian legend called Pinocchio, and the other is an animal story. Disney is a great man of a very striking sort. He created the Disney concern out of nothing, with the help of a few collaborators who remain his best assistants, and' I believe, to an extent, his partners. His characters are loved throughout the world. But each time Mickey Mouse's face or Donald’s beak appear on a cake of soap or a pocket handkerchief Walt Disney receives a royalty. These royalties add up to a most impressive figure. The organisation that Disney has established throughout the world i” order to look after these rights is kept tremendously busy. On top of all this comic strips of Mickey Mouse are published in American dailies and the weekly editions of papers throughout the world. When Walt Disney, poet, genius, financier, dies, we will all weep for him. But we will continue enjoying Disney films. And these will be as good as their predecessors and perhaps better. In his organisation Disney has annihilated the personalities of all his collaborators and incorporated them into that of Disney. None of them alone could produce a Disney creation, perhaps not even Disney himself. Disney himself does nothing or almost nothing. He occupies himself primarily with the financial end of things —the sale of rights in particular. Many films are begun without Disney’s knowledge of the details relating to them. Sometimes it happens that he stops a production because the way that his collaborators have begun it does not please him. This smiling Fuhrer has invented an arithmetic all of his own, with its own symbols and operations. Perhaps someone will come along and deduce an algebra from it.