BGuthrie Photos: CA -- San Francisco -- Presidio -- Walt Disney Family Museum -- Gallery 05: "We Were in a New Business"

CA -- San Francisco -- Presidio -- Walt Disney Family Museum -- Gallery 05: "We Were in a New Business":

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Description of Pictures: 1939–1940
Gallery 5
New Success & Greater Ambitions

The Perfection of Pinocchio:
Walt was always raising the bar. He set up the Character Model Department to help animators bring characters to life by keeping their animation consistent. Along with model sheets, the department produced three-dimensional models that could be viewed from any angle. With these developments, Pinocchio became The Walt Disney Studios’ most meticulously animated feature yet.

Animal Anatomy:
For Bambi, Walt presented a new challenge: “Develop the cartoon’s unnatural but seeming natural anatomy.” With the help of an art instructor and the presence of live animals in the studio, the artists succeeded in capturing the characters’ natural appearances, while still retaining the expressions that give them personality.

“We have worlds to conquer here.”:
Walt pictured Fantasia as an opportunity with unlimited possibilities. In collaboration with conductor Leopold Stokowski, he set eight classical compositions to visually enchanting stories, and recorded the orchestra with an innovative stereophonic process dubbed Fantasound. Fantasia became one of the Studios’ most ambitious cinematic experiences in sight and sound.

A Moment of Revelation:
One day after school, a young Diane Disney came running up to her father and asked, “Are you Walt Disney?” to which he replied, “Yes, Honey.” Connecting the dots, she commanded, “Give me your autograph,” a request on behalf of a schoolmate if he was indeed the famous Walt Disney.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. WDFM05_180714_001.JPG: We Were In A New Business "When Snow White hit, we realized we were in a new business. We knew it within a week after the picture had opened at the Carthay Circle in Los Angeles. We had been heavily in debt, and within six months we had millions in the bank. I also had a big staff that I had to keep busy." -- Walt "We accomplished a great deal with Snow White and we want to go on from here. We have learned that the tempo of a feature differs from that of a short. We learned hundreds of things that cost us a lot of money. . . . We have an organization of young men to whom nothing is impossible." -- Walt, in The New York Times, March 6, 1938 The success of Snow White marked a profound turning point for Walt Disney. No longer bound by the practical and financial restrictions that had held him back, Walt was free to indulge his most far-reaching creative ideas. Now he plunged into production of three new and even more ambitious features:Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi. To facilitate all this new production, he and Roy started construction on a new, state-of-the-art animation studio in Burbank. Here, in a custom-designed environment with the latest and best equipment, Walt and his artists could strive to reach new artistic heights. His struggles were over -- for a time.
2. WDFM05_180714_006.JPG: Bambi
3. WDFM05_180714_010.JPG: Animal Anatomy
4. WDFM05_180714_012.JPG: Left to right: Louie Schmitt, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, and Bill Shull sketch a live deer.
5. WDFM05_180714_044.JPG: Pinocchio
6. WDFM05_180714_046.JPG: Jiminy Cricket
7. WDFM05_180714_050.JPG: The Character Model Department
8. WDFM05_180714_083.JPG: Burbank
9. WDFM05_180714_086.JPG: Family Story
10. WDFM05_180714_092.JPG: Walt reading to Sharon and Diane
11. WDFM05_180714_094.JPG: Modern Design
12. WDFM05_180714_099.JPG: Family Story
13. WDFM05_180714_104.JPG: Artists and Musicians
14. WDFM05_180714_108.JPG: Diego Rivera
15. WDFM05_180714_112.JPG: Diego Rivera "Mickey Mouse and American Art," 1933
16. WDFM05_180714_126.JPG: Fantasia
17. WDFM05_180714_145.JPG: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
18. WDFM05_180714_178.JPG: The Multiplane Camera
19. WDFM05_180714_182.JPG: "The boys went on a binge of gilding the lily. We had developed the multiplane camera and they went wild with it, panning over rooftops and down streets, turning corners." -- Walt
20. WDFM05_180714_190.JPG: Walt, Elias, Roy celebrating Elia's 81st birthday Walt and Roy celebrates their father's 81st birthday in 1940. Pinocchio released in February of that year.
21. WDFM05_180714_193.JPG: Lilly christens a liberty ship, June 16, 1945 "The SS Rice Victory, the 147th vessel built by the California Ship Building Corporation. Louise Tracy was her matron of honor and eight-year-old Sharon her flower girl. Dad stands behind Sharon and I am out of the picture." -- Diane
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Wikipedia Description: The Walt Disney Family Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Walt Disney Family Museum is an American museum that features the life and legacy of Walt Disney. The museum is located in The Presidio of San Francisco, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. The Museum retrofitted and expanded three existing historic buildings on the Presidio’s Main Post. The principal building, at 104 Montgomery Street, faces the Parade Ground, and opened on October 1, 2009.

The Walt Disney Family Museum, LLC is owned, operated and funded by the Walt Disney Family Foundation, a non-profit organization established by Disney's heirs (including Diane Marie Disney, co-founder of the Museum). It is not formally associated with The Walt Disney Company, the media and entertainment enterprise. Museum co-founders are Diane Disney Miller, Walter E.D. Miller, and Joanna Miller Runeare; executive director is Richard Benefield.

Exhibits:

Exhibits in the museum focus on Walt Disney's life and career. The lobby displays 248 awards that Disney won during his career, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and many Academy Awards.

There are ten permanent galleries:
1. Beginnings -- Material on Disney's ancestors, childhood and early adulthood. Included are early cartoon drawings and a replica of the ambulance he drove in France after World War I. The beginnings of his animation career are explained.

2. Hollywood -- Disney's California partnership with his brother Roy led to the success of Mickey Mouse.

3. New Horizons in the 1930s. -- Disney's success led to fame and significant improvement in animation techniques.

4. The move to features -- Original art from the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is on diplay.

5. "We were in a new business" -- Additional animated features follow, including Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi. Disney builds a new studio in Burbank.

6. "The toughest period in my life" -- Labor unrest and Disney's response to World War II.

7. Postwar production -- Disney moves into live action feature films, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

8. Walt + the natural world -- Disney concentrates on nature documentary films.

9. The 1950s + 1960s: The big screen and beyond -- Disney branches out into television and theme parks.

10. December 15, 1966 -- Worldwide response to Disney's death and his legacy.

Artifacts on display include Walt's original 1/8 scale Lilly Belle train (formerly on display at the Disneyland Railroad's Main Street Station), a series of still drawings demonstrating one-minute footage of Steamboat Willie and an underwater camera used for filming 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. An early conceptual scale model of Disneyland is another feature.

Critical reception:

"It's a collection of ideas and documents, a diverse array of archival, filmic, and pop-cultural texts that historicizes Disney's work and compels us to think twice about how we appraise it. The museum energizes the fascinatingly charged scholarly debate that the Disney phenomenon has provoked, shaking the worn, staid, sometimes cynical images we have of Disney and his empire, bringing to them renewed color and motion."

"Given the heritage of the place, you expect to see a ride at the Walt Disney Family Museum . . . And in a way, there is one, since the museum does just what Disney thought a ride should do when he created Disneyland more than half a century ago: it tells a story. And while the museum is almost leisurely in relating its narrative, only here and there veering into uncharted terrain, and while children will quickly pass by many sections that will fascinate their elders, there are more than enough thrills for everyone."
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