Walt Disney and His Impact on the Animation Industry

Between the theme parks, iconic characters, classic feature films, and many more things, Walt Disney’s impact on society is very well known today. He didn’t begin with being involved with this much, however, he got his start in the animation industry.

Walt Disney was never afraid to take risks and push the boundaries when it came to his animation, even when others advised him against it. These risks paid off, as it led to many firsts that eventually became standard in animation. When Disney first started in animation, he realized that the animation industry was going nowhere and starting to fizzle out, as the short films that were produced in the day were just a supplement to feature films and not big hits themselves. He set out to change that. While he did not invent the industry, his innovations and contributions to the field brought back to life and made it into what it is today.

Walt Disney: Life and Career

Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois. He developed a passion for drawing at a young age, and pursued that passion when his family moved back to Chicago and he entered high school. He made drawings for the school newspaper and studied cartoons, as his dream job at the time was to make cartoons for newspapers.

In 1919 he moved to Kansas City and he started officially getting into the industry, working as a commercial artist and made animated commercials before starting his own company that made cartoons, called Laugh-O-Grams. When the company he sold the cartoons to went out of business, he went to Hollywood where him and his brother Roy started Disney Bro’s Studio and sold Laugh-O-Grams to a New York cartoon distributor. This later became Walt Disney Studio. The company made some cartoons in its earlier stages, but none of them stood out from its competitors. Steamboat Willie is the film that started Disney’s legacy and made his name an important one in the animation industry. Steamboat Willie was historic in many ways. The first is it was the first distributed film that featured Mickey Mouse. It is said that Mickey was inspired by a mouse that lived in Disney’s animation studio in Kansas City. He mentioned in the essay What Mickey Means to Me, “He popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when the business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb, and disaster seemed right around the corner”. There had been two Mickey films created prior to Steamboat Willie, called Plane Crazy and Gallopin’ Gaucho, but they not well received by distributors. When The Jazz Singer, the first film with synchronized sound, was released and Disney saw the positive reaction it received, Disney thought he could do the same and add sound to his Mickey shorts to garner a similar reaction. It took some trial and error to get the sound to line up with the animations. They first tried using metronomes and a chart that showed how the music should relate to the animation to keep the music in sync, but it did not turn out well at the first recording. For the second recording, a bouncing ball was added to the film making it easier for the orchestra director to adjust the tempo as need be, which produced much better results. It was first played at the Colony Theater in New York in 1928. It was very well received by the audience, and it even became more popular and discussed more than the full length film that it preceded. This film, as well as the the others that followed, led to Mickey’s immense popularity. He made it into the hearts of a wide range of people, and no other cartoon figure had as much as an impact at the time, and arguably since then as well. According to the book Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, columnist Louella Parsons mentioned that Mickey had a “...bigger screen following than nine tenths of the stars in Hollywood”.

Mickey Mouse Clubs were formed with membership being at about one million. Disney even won an honorary Academy Award for the creation of Mickey in 1932. In addition to creating the first animated film that incorporated sound, Disney was also the first that incorporated every color of the rainbow. Companies had incorporated color into cartoons in the past, but they only had two colors so they didn’t look as realistic and nice. In 1932, Technicolor asked Disney if he wanted to used their new three color technique to make cartoons using every color.

Walt Disney’s brother Roy and everyone else at Disney advised him against it saying that it wasn’t worth it and it was too expensive, but Disney saw the potential and signed a deal, using the new technology for the short Flowers and Trees. He even started over on this film to redo it to include color, as it was already in production in black and white. The risk ultimately paid off, as Flowers and Trees had high popularity and was awarded the Academy Award for the best animated short subject of the year.

Another short film that marked a milestone was The Three Little Pigs. This film was unique at the time because it is the first that differentiated the characters by personality. Prior to this, films had differentiated characters by the way they looked, but the way they moved were similar. Since three of the main characters were pigs, they were seperated by the way they acted and the mannerisms they had. The idea of differing personalities was important to Disney thought the idea of differing personalities was extremely important in keeping audiences engaged, and pointed out that “you can’t expect charm from animated sticks”. The Three Little Pigs wasn’t as well received by audiences as other films, but it is nonetheless still important as it introduced the idea of personality differentiation that was utilized more in future films, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Another first that Disney can take credit for is creating the first full length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Like when he proposed using color, most people, including his brother and wife, were not on board. It was a completely new concept, and they thought that it would be very difficult to entertain audiences for over seventy minutes, and that no one would want to sit and watch an animated film for that long. Disney went for it anyways, and worked hard to balance being entertaining enough to engage the audience while still making the film simplistic so it didn’t become too much. Disney also cut out some major parts to save time and make the film flow better. Despite people’s skepticism, he once again proved them wrong and proved that people will watch a full length animated film if it is done right. The film was very successful at the box office despite it being released in 1937, during the Great Depression.

The success of Snow White is a good example that shows what people value about most Disney films. One Variety reviewer said the following of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: So perfect is the illusion, so tender the romance and fantasy, so emotional are certain portions when the acting of the characters strike a depth comparable to the sincerity of human platers, that the film approaches real greatness. Although groundbreaking technological innovations are parts of his claim to fame, Disney’s creative ability and attention to detail made the films stand out just as much. He combined his ability to give the characters personality, like he did in the three little pigs, storylines that could elicit a wide range of emotions, and technological advances to make the film so unique. Another thing that made Walt Disney special and successful was that he recognized he couldn’t do it on his own. Disney eventually started acting mostly as the coordinator and decision maker for the company, while still being heavily involved in all aspects of film production. He left things like drawing and animating to other members of the team. But in order to have a successful team that would carry out his vision, everyone has to be on the same track and be passionate about what they are doing.

One of Walt Disney’s biggest strengths was his storytelling, which inspired his employees to be as excited about new projects as he was. One example of this is when he first introduced the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to his team. He acted out the story for them, using each characters’ unique voice and mannerisms. He did it in such a way that engrossed all who listened, as the Art Director of the Film Ken Anderson recalled, “We were spellbound. He was all by himself and he acted out this fantastic story”. His passion and ability to portray it to those around him inspired them to have the same passion, and encouraged them to do their best work and live up to their potential, so they could carry out his visions.

Conclusion

Walt Disney accomplished so much in his lifetime, it is almost impossible to go in detail about it all. He had his start in the animation industry, but eventually expanded to merchandising, live action movies, television shows, and theme parks. His legacy lives on in many different ways. For example, Disney paid for the school that trained the likes of Tim Burton and John Lasseter, Cal Arts. The Walt Disney Company also still bears his name and is still pushing the envelope and creating new movies and theme parks. In fact, as of 2013, The Walt Disney Company earned $22.45 billion, making it the second largest media company in the world. Even more than just the new movies released since his death, some of his own movies he was behind, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, became classics and are still watched and loved by audiences today. Beyond his own company, he raised the bar for the animation industry and some of his techniques and ideas are still used today.

Walt Disney also continues to inspire happiness, imagination, hard work, and determination. He stuck to his dream and even that as it grew bigger, he remembered his humble beginnings. Like his famous quote said, “...it was all started by a mouse”.

References

1. Gabler, N. (2006). Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Vintage.
2. Maltin, L. (1995). The Disney Films. Disney Editions.
3. Eliot, M. (1995). Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince. Carol Publishing Group.
4. Barrier, M. (2007). The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. University of California Press.
5. Hollis, T. (2018). How to Be like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life. Mango.