“Disney100: The Exhibition”, the exhibition that “returns to the origins” of the studios, arrives this weekend in London, where it will remain until July, coinciding with the celebration of Disney’s 100 years, which will take place this Monday the 16th. October. .
This Monday, Disney will also release the short film “Once Upon a Studio,” a representation of everything he did, which mixes animated historical characters in the real setting where it all began, in Burbank, California.
When the exhibition opened in Los Angeles last July, the director of the Walt Disney Archives, Becky Cline, explained to Lusa how it was conceived and how they decided to “go back to its origins.”
“We didn’t want to do a chronological history, we thought it would be a little boring,” said the company’s chief archivist backstage in Burbank. “We wanted to tell the story in a different way and go back to the origins, to Walt Disney himself, and focus on what he did that was special.”
Exactly one hundred years ago, Walter Elias Disney, a young animator from Chicago, aged 22, and his brother Roy, aged 30, created the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Angeles, which would not have its first great success until 1928, with ” Steamboat Willie”, and the debut of its first ‘star’, Mickey Mouse.
Left behind were the first adventures of Alice, inspired by the character created by Lewis Carroll, and Oswald, the lucky rabbit, the first attempt at an animated hero. In 1929, the company would give way to Walt Disney Productions, under the direction of its mentor, and the successes that established it in the 1930s, especially around Mickey and his new friends, and the short films that inaugurated cinema screenings in the hall, until in 1938 the first animated feature film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, took center stage.
In the following decades, “Pinocchio”, “Cinderella”, “Bambi”, “Fantasía”, the Oscar-winning “Dumbo” followed, as well as television and film productions, which gave rise to creations such as “Davy Crockett” and films such as “The Jungle Book”, “Mary Poppins” and “Emilio and the Detectives”, without forgetting the expansion of theme parks, always based on the omnipresence of Mickey, his club and his friends.
The death of Walt Disney in 1966 and the move of animation production to the background led to the company’s least successful period – the so-called “dark years of animation” -, including with “The Aristocats” and the fantasy about the real image of “Herbie”. .
Starting in 1986, however, under the presidency of Michael Eisner, a new stage of expansion began, with the acquisition of production companies such as Pixar, founded by George Lucas’ LucasFilm, and the greater commitment to the ‘house brand’. , with productions such as “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Lion King”, “Aladdin”, “Pocahontas”.
With Pixar, Disney opens the way to the use of new technologies in animation. This is how “Toy Story”, “A Bug’s Life”, “Monsters and Company”, “Cars”, “Ratatouille”, “Up”, “Brave”, “Inside Out”, “Elemental” appear.
Through these and other films, Disney’s journey over the last three decades is also told. And some more of his Oscars, for productions such as “Finding Nemo”, “Wall-E”, “Coco” and “Soul”.
Today, Disney also means Marvel, 21st Century Fox, Jim Henson Company, LucasFilm, bringing together heroes from Luke Skywalker to Indiana Jones, Miss Piggy and Cocas, from Homer and Bart Simpson to Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk.
When the Disney+ platform launched in 2019, it gained more than 10 million subscribers in a single day. One hundred years after its founding, Disney has branches in more than 30 countries and its regular programming reaches more than one hundred.
The nearly 14,000-square-foot, ten-gallery exhibition follows the story, with its origins clearly visible, focusing on what Disney “made special.”
It was designed to pass through several cities: it started in Philadelphia, was in Munich, opened in Los Angeles on July 8, one hundred days before the centenary, and arrived in London on Friday.
“Walt has always said that storytelling is at the center of everything we do. He is one of the greatest storytellers of all time,” Becky Cline told Lusa in July.
These are the stories that are evident in the exhibition and also in the Walt Disney Archives, in Burbank, which Lusa visited in July, and where it is possible to find authentic treasures of the company’s history.
There is, for example, the first ticket for the opening of Disneyland, in July 1955. There is also a copy of the first edition of the Mickey Mouse comic in Portugal a month later, on August 26, 1955.
The magazine had color and black and white parts and cost 2.5 escudos, or 25 pence. Archivist Ed Ovalle explained that color printing costs were high and borne by local distributors, so this may have influenced the decision to print pieces in black and white.
The Archives’ multiple warehouses house all manner of Disney-related documents, merchandise, publications and rarities, many of which are submitted by fans or former employees.
The complex has also restored, according to its original layout, the office where Walt Disney worked from 1940 to 1966, the year of his death.
The Burbank facility has been around since 1939 and, according to travel specialist Julia Dimayuga, was revolutionary for the industry at the time. “Unlike other studios, this one was built to speed up the animation process,” she said. “We had the assembly on one side and the movie theater on the other side of the street.”
This Monday, when Disney celebrates one hundred years, the company marks the date with the premiere of the short film “Once Upon a Studio.”
Directed by Trent Correy and Dan Abraham, “Once Upon a Studio,” a representation of everything Disney has ever done, tells a story of communion and celebration, in about eight and a half minutes, bordering on humor in some parts and poignancy in others. others. with 543 characters from 85 Disney films and shorts, which intersect on the Burbank stage.
“We knew from the beginning that we wanted to depict everything from Snow White to the new Wish, so we had a lot to choose from,” said director Trent Correy, at a preview event at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood.
With 100 years of characters, the cartoons look different from the era in which they were released, but they are not stock animations.
“We do not use any AI technology [Inteligência Artificial] “To make this short,” Correy said. “The animation is 100% new. The Dalmatians sitting in front of the TV were designed to look like that era,” the director continues.
The same goes for the characters in “The Jungle Book,” “Pinocchio” and other classics. The team “went to great lengths” to ensure the designs had the schematic look of the 1950s and 1960s, or the era in which they appeared.
A similar choice was made for the song, created by Dave Metzger. Despite being new, the soundtrack references the original films, such as “The Adventures of Peter Pan”, from 1953.
In Portugal, “Once Upon a Studio” will be available on Disney+, on all Fox channels, on Disney Channel and Disney Júnior and on 24kitchen.
Source: TSF
