The Story Behind the Making of a Disney Classic
There is a newly released film that may serve to reminiscently transport many of us who during childhood years watched in undisrupted fascination the dozens of Disney classics that became instrumental in proliferating mainstream animated cinema. For the last seventy five years, the Walt Disney Company has been a major creative force in assembling the resources needed for animated movie production including illustrators, storytellers, design engineers, visionary project managers and many others. These talented teams have maintained the original vision of the company’s founder for effectively turning sensational ideas into onscreen masterpieces.
Historically speaking, the evolutionary progress of cartoon animation began before the time of the Walt Disney Co’s inception in 1927. But since then, the transcendence of progress from the medium’s black and white infancy to today’s modernized era of multimillion dollar 3D digital cgi is quite amazing. In it’s earliest days, motion picture technology began with the adaptation of still photographs around 1900. People credit the Lumiere brothers for the first projected movie ever played in a cinema with the film aptly titled ‘Arrival of a Train at Laciotat’, depicting people disembarking a locomotive after having pulled into the station. At the time, viewing audiences were small and locations sparse for projecting a movie. That soon progressed to a much larger scale in the roaring twenties when movies began to be enjoyed by millions of people at major metropolitan theaters.
Prior to the nineteenth century, several film pioneers invented distinct processes that would eventually become standardized as the technological method used by film makers and animators alike. Applying the techniques to illustrated drawings didn’t begin until years later largely through the efforts of Walt Disney and others. For one, the tediousness of drawing numerous images with only subtle variations as to provide the allusion of an animated life form certainly was a much more laborious process than using photographs for unanimated motion picture.
The process of hand drawn animation did become easier around 1920 with the use of acetate ’tracing’ in which a background scene could be drawn on a bottom layer of paper and then the numerous motion image drawings were placed on top. This prevented having to recompose the same background over and over for each scene. The use of hand coloring glass was common during the initial years of cartoon animation as well for the same purpose of transparency when placing images on top of one another without needing to redraw an entire pictograph.
Walt Disney was born in 1901 and became a major impact on developing creative story ideas and innovative ways to bring such works to the screen. He utilized several sources of experience to develop his talent including attending art school, self instruction and borrowing influences from many other creative visionaries who would later become immersed in his numerous endeavors. The artistic ability that Walt pursued in animating his own creative concepts should not be overshadowed by the business man who later in life proved to have the entrepreneurial sense that eventually helped grow the company to it‘s grandeur. He along with several others including his brother, Roy, and UB Iwerks were vital to the early efforts of the Disney company initially forming as a partnership that would remain in place for many years. Part of their early successes included creating many of the original iconic characters and some groundbreaking technological methods including the use Technicolor animation.
In 1928, Walt and Iwerks created their first animated motion picture containing sound titled ‘Steamboat Willie’ which debuted Mickie and Minnie Mouse. This was a landmark work that brought an entirely new dimension to popular cinema. At the time, the cost to mass produce the picture was extraordinarily high due in part to the technological process of transposing the original illustrations to film reel before being universally projected in theaters across the country. Also the budgetary concerns were magnified by the great depression that wrought much trepidation for potential financiers who considered bankrolling such a production. The largest of the costs though was the need to equip box offices with the stereo audio capability so that ’Steamboat Willie’ could be enjoyed along with it’s intended musical form. The picture’s soundtrack was called the ‘Silly Symphony’ and would also draw popularity in several of Disney’s other early animated films.
‘Steamboat Willie’ being a big success, largely paved the way for subsequent projects to become animated classics. Four years later the company introduced the first sketch film in color titled ‘Flowers and Trees’, in which a personable landscape comes to life with the characters personifying various interactions all to melodic background music.
The age of full length story animations soon followed with major titles like ‘Snow White and the 7 Dwarves‘(1937), ‘Pinocchio‘(1940), ‘Dumbo‘(1941) and ‘Bambi‘(1942). Due to the astounding early success from these works, the Walt Disney company opened their first major headquarters in Burbank, CA, completed in 1941.
After WWII, the persistence of top rated animated classics continued being produced at the studio including ‘Peter Pan‘, ‘Jungle Book‘, ‘Alice and Wonderland’ and many more. Soon ventures into non-animated movies became a part of the business model while also incorporating components from both the animated and live acting genres into a single movie. Pictures being made with this dual style of onscreen acting coupled with cartoon animation as seen in ’Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, first began with ’Fantasia’ in 1942. The film ’Mary Poppins’ also was made in this format as several scenes combine that of filmed actors alongside cartoons such as the dancing penguins and other imaginary figures.
The plot of Mary Poppins entails that of a British care taker who is hired by the Banks family to intercede in watching over the two young teenage siblings. The strict parental expectations for these children have proven to be rather ineffective as Michael and Jane have continued to defy the rules set by their parents in favor of pursuing a bit of mischief. But as Mary Poppins arrives on the scene, her influence summons the children’s attention to begin altering their behavior into more constructive and imaginative ways. Soon the children begin to impart more endearing behavior while having fun at the same time.
It is the style of guardianship that Mary Poppins whimsically and good heartedly invokes that has a handful of the local London children enthralled in a fascinating realm of excitement. The message is meant to convey the benefit of light hearted enjoyment within one’s daily life. Even the stodgy demeanor of the children’s father, Mr. Banks, finds himself warming to the idea of Ms. Poppins colorful approach. Poppin’s good friend and side kick Bert, originally played by Dick Van Dyke, is the chimney sweeper who adds additional charm throughout the story.
As for the success of the film, it was a major hit during it’s release in 1964. The making of the film though which was based upon the children’s story written by the Australian author P. L Travers involved many number of difficulties. The initial efforts for Disney to produce the movie met contention early on as the company envisioned creating it’s own retelling of the story but soon discovered that Ms. Travers had a litany of preconditions. For example one initial obstacle was Travers’ disapproval of it being made into a musical even though nearly all Disney movies up to that point had been made as such. After Disney convinced the story’s author to allow the production to prevail as intended, Ms. Travers continued to assert her opinions, often acting as an approval person for many of the decisions. The musical score continued to be an aspect that Ms Travers passed judgment upon during production as she regularly consulted with the musical composers to ensure her acceptance. Later it would be that owing to the magnificence of the musical work created by the Sherman brothers, two Emmy awards were awarded for the musical score which included songs such as ‘Supercalifragilistic‘, ‘Chim chim Cher-ee’, and ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’.
Revisiting the story behind the making of Mary Poppins is the plot behind the new Disney release titled ‘Saving Mr. Banks‘. The movie portrays a vivid perspective into making of the original work by detailing the creative process of Disney’s adaptation and bit of the story behind Ms. Traver’s life which entails early childhood scenes. The film stars Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, Emma Thompson as PL Travers, early footage of the author’s parents played by Ruth Wilson and Collin Farrell in addition to BJ Novak as the production’s musical director. Saving Mr. Banks is an interesting glimpse of a much earlier style of creative movie making that recalls an unforgettable classic that is held up to an even higher degree by an exquisite modern day cast of actors.