Walt Disney Family Museum Animate Your Night

Last month I had the opportunity to attend the Walt Disney Family Museum's Animate Your Night event.  The theme of this evening event was Snow White's Hollywood Premiere   The event featured a playing of Snow White in the theater, music and dance entertainment  several cocktail bars, a photo opportunity, art activities  and a scavenger hunt.  The entrance to the museum was quite packed with the band playing and dancing in full swing.  Cocktail bars were around the lobby and downstairs with signature cocktails to purchase.  There was also appetizers, but I never saw a full tray, they were cleaned off before they even made it up the stairs.  The art activities included drawing lessons and making a holiday ornament   For five dollars, you could have your picture taken with props in a classic black and white Hollywood feel.
The event was fairly busy, with lots of locals.  I enjoyed it, but was a little disappointed that there wasn't more to actually do with Snow White.  If you completed the scavenger hunt you got a bag of buttons, but that was the only exclusive thing available that day.  There was a wide variety of guests there, some in full themed period outfits, and others in jeans and tee-shirts.  The museum was available to explore, but the exhibit was not part of the event.  Overall, the event was fun, and if you're visiting the museum when they offer another Animate Your Night event, go!  Just make sure you have dinner first.

Walt Disney Family Museum Mercandise

There really is not much special merchandised offered at the museum to go along with the Snow White exhibit, that are specifically for the exhibit.  The museum does have some collectibles that are only available at the museum that are Snow White related.

There are 3 posters that are specific for the exhibit.  There is also a red one featuring a close up of Snow White and a purple one featuring the Hag.  These three posters are the only things to actually feature the exhibit.

Front Side

Back Side

Closed

Open

Member's monthly button program featured Snow White art in December.  Postcard was free to anyone at museum with a trivia section to fill in for members.

This is displayed in the exhibit.

While not special for the exhibit, this is one of the few merchandise pieces with Snow White and the Walt Disney Family  Museum Logo.  They also had a small trinket box that features Snow White and the logo.

Golden Horseshoe Review

Howdy Strangers!  I'm taking a tangent from our usual topic to take a look at a special event:

This year as part of Disney's Limited Time Magic celebration, the Gold Horseshoe Review was brought back to Disneyland.  Kind-of.  The park is running a tribute show for a few weeks that include an evening dinner showing for annual passholders.

Cake given to all guests featuring the Disney Family at Walt and Lilly's anniversary party.

I attended the first evening event and had a fun time.  The show itself was very short - about 20 minuets and featured 4 songs.  The performers did a wonderful job, but many of us wished it would have been longer.  The dinner was a prepacked meal and included a souvenir plastic GH boot mug. (I could not find a copyright anywhere one it) and as a surprise, a Disneyland CD of  Slue-Foot Sue's Golden Horseshoe Review.  The annual passholder event was a little pricey for what you got, but it was a fun evening.  For more information check out the Disneyland website.

Walt Disney Family Museum Snow White Exhibit Part Two

This December I had the opportunity to once again visit the Walt Disney Family Museum and the Snow White Exhibit.  On this visit I went right for the special exhibition location in the adjacent building next to the museum.

These banners hang all around the Presidio

The exhibit begins upstairs with Walt Disney's Oscars for the film Snow White.  On the day of my visit, the museum was hosting a closer look program featuring the Oscars where a docent shared information all about the process and Walt's Oscar history.  The docent related that before the museum was built the Oscar was in a family warehouse where one of the grandchildren found it wrapped in a box.

Once entering the exhibit there are 14 different areas to see.  The first are includes lobby cards and movie posters from the early years including a French and Italian poster.  One of the lobby cards includes a Christmas image even though no such image exists in the film, publicity used the films holiday release.
The next room features elements of animation.  In this display you see art from beginning to end showing the development of the Whistle While You Work Sequence.  There is a film that discusses the process and on display are the concept art, story sketch, model sheet, layout, background, animation drawing, cel, and cel setup.
Next comes "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall."  (Yes, the museum actually calls it that, even though the Queen never speaks these works - she says Magic Mirror).  There you can see some of the Art-Deco influenced concept art and pages from the queens spell book.  My favorite there is the "Queen in Her Throne Room."  It's a wonderful graphite drawing where you see the astrological signs that did make it into the final film.
As you continue on in the exhibit "Snow White meets her Prince."  In this part of the exhibit you can see story sketches of the well scene and an amazing background piece "Castle Tower and Balcony."  This piece is a diagonal pan, so it appears sideways, but allowed the camera to move as if it followed action.
Continuing upstairs there is the "Fight Through the Forest" section.  This part of the exhibit houses some of my favorite works: "Seated Queen", "Snow White Surrounded by Alligators," Snow White Flees From Scary Trees", Snow white Picks Flowers at Stream" (Where Snow White is a blonde), "Huntsman in Forest Watching Snow White", "Scary Trees", "Frighted Snow White", "Spectral Wolf Chasing Snow White in Forest."  Most of these pieces are only concept art pieces and are actually quite small, but what strikes me is the power and emotion behind them.  These images are strong and tell a truly frightening story.  The detail of these works, though just sketches, show the true talent of the Disney artists  and the emotion and power they could create with a few pencil strokes.
Moving downstairs is the "Snow White Animal Friends" room.  Here three is an interactive that features many more drawings and images that just could not fit in the space or were to fragile to display.  My favorite pieces in this room were "Deer and Birds", "Snow White in the Forest", and "Animals in the Tree" (showing a vertical pan of the animals homes that just won't do for Snow White).
Finally we come to the room featuring the "Seven Little Men."  Here the art of the dwarfs' home take center stage.  The image of the "Cottage Exterior"  and "Snow White's Forest Friends Watch Through Window" show the detail put into the dwarfs home, and the lovely "Dwarfs March Home" show the beginning of the iconic image of the dwarfs marching across a log.
Dopey has a special place where you can see the maquettes.  Charlie Chaplin declared Dopey one of the greatest comedians of all time.  High praise.
Three is another room is for the dwarfs themselves.  here there is another interactive full of additional art to see.  i especially like "Dopey Searches Bedroom for Monsters", and "Snow White explores the Cottage Accompanied by the Animals."  This room also features a video on the deleted scenes and art from them such as: "Animals Helping Build the Bed", "Sneezy in the Mattress", and "Snow White Swan Boat with Prince."
"The Queen's Transformation" includes some powerful art including "Gnarled Hands" a very detailed drawing of the change her hands undergo.  You can also see "Queen Walk with Panther" but the panther was considered to strong of a sidekick and was cut.  There is also "The Disguised Queen consults Her Spell Book."
There is also a Music and Story Telling section where you can watch a video explaining how the two go hand in hand and you can see the detail that went into "Dopey's Drums and Musical Instruments."
"The Queen's Sinister Plan" shows the climax of the film and includes art such as "Witch in Rowboat" and "Snow White with the Witch Offering the Poison Apple."  Here you can also see another cut scene: "Snow White in Dream Sequence" where she and the prince are dancing in the clouds.
Finally, the exhibit ends with "Happily Ever After."  There is beautiful art of the final sequences of the film including "The Pursuit of the Witch", Snow White's Glass Coffin", Fall, Winter, Spring", "The Witch and the Vultures", "The Rocky Slope", and "Happy Ending."
If you can't make it to the exhibit, pick up Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs The Art and Creation of Walt Disney's Classic Animated Film by J. B. Kaufman.  This goes along with the exhibit and features many of the pieces in the exhibit.

Walt Disney Family Museum

Last weekend I was able to head to San Francisco to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum for D23 days.  The Snow White exhibit: The Creation of a Classic is now open.  The exhibit is in an auxiliary building that the museum uses for special events.  The event did not allow enough time to check out the exhibit  but it really is impressive.  There is some amazing work on display, and in excellent condition being over 75 years old!

I had the opportunity to attend From Page to Screen, a talk with J.B. Kaufman and Lella Smith.  Kaufman is a Disney author and historian who has been working and researching for a Snow White book for 10 years!  His book The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the museum catalog Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Art and Creation of Walt Disney's Classic Animated Film also written by Kaufman, are truly amazing!  Lella Smith is the creative director for the Walt Disney Animation Research Library and the curator of the new exhibit.

Lella discussed some of the things she found for the exhibit and some of the tales of finding work.  Kaufman traced Snow White's history on stage and theater and the path of the Grimm story to Walt Disney's masterpiece.  Much of what was discussed can be found in Kaufman's book.  I would love to hear more from Kaufman - he really has quite the wealth of knowledge and had stories I had never heard.  I'll share more with you all next post.

D23 days started with a similar talk by Lella (a bit of a disappointment to those of us who had just heard the same talk earlier that day).  Alice Davis was present in the audience and she added a few of her stories and memories of working with Walt and for the studios.  Then they took us over to the museum.  An hour is really not enough to fully experience the exhibit.  The exhibit is really exciting to see, but I found it to have an odd flow to it.  It wasn't as large as I was expecting after seeing the books, but Lella explained they had found hundreds of works they wanted to include but had to keep cutting it down to fit in the space.  The exhibit is well worth the time though.  No pictures are allowed in the museum so you'll have to visit it to see (or pick up Kaufman's book).

A couple of other notes - The museum does a program called Inside Track for members where they can answer trivia questions about the museum and turn them in for a button.  This month's trivia is all Snow White related.  Be sure to pick up a card even if you aren't a museum member - it is a postcard of Walt and art from Snow White.  The other note is that there isn't a whole lot of special merchandise for the exhibit.  There is a lot of Snow White  related things for sale - pins, figures, postcards, and whatnot, but little that is special for the exhibit.  There are three posters featuring some great art of the Hag and Snow White (one of which was the gift to D23 members) and there is a hat as well.

I'll be going back in December, when I hope to have enough time to take better notes to share with you!

It's Open!

First, let me start off by apologizing for the lack of posts recently.

Now, on to happier news: The Snow White exhibit at the Walt Disney Family museum is now officially open and I'm headed there this weekend.  I look forward to bringing you a full report but in the meantime, be sure to check out The Family Museum's website for information and tickets.

They Made the Magic: Bill Tytla

Grim Natwick wrote of trying to write about Bill Tytla for Cartoonist PROfiles "How does one start to write about a superb artistic talent?"  Natwick points out that Tytla was not one of the Nine Old Men - he taught the Nine Old Men.
Valdimir "Bill" Tytla was born October 25, 1904 in New York.  He dropped out of high school and went to Paris to study.  It was there that Paul Terry contacted him and by 1923 Tytla he joined Terry in New York.  In New York he met Ted Sears and Ben Sharpsteen.  In 1934 Tytla joined the Disney Studios where is first few assignments were working on Clarabelle Cow in Mickey's Fire Brigade and The Cookie Carnival among others.  Tytla said that the working conditions at the studios were terrific and that Walt Disney was miles ahead of the competition in all fields.
Tytla was responsible for many of the dwarfs but is perhaps remembered most for the way he animated Grumpy living up to his name  Natwick said that the scene where Grumpy is given a bath was an "impossible" scene to animate because of the difficult drawings and complicated staging, but Tytla accomplished it with "the determination of an artist with an undaunted spirit and the best mustache in the Studio." (Walt's People, Volume 7).  Tyla said of the time:
"Freddy Moore and I were responsible for the dwarfs.  There were seven of them, all the same size, and only one who didn't have hair on his face.  Each one was a separate color.  We animated all seven of them at once.  On Snow White, Walt always gave us directions.  We were all walking on tiptoes on that one.  We didn't know what to expect.  We were all full of kinds of emotions." (Walt's People Vol.1)
Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson said of Tytla: "Fill was powerful, muscular, high-strung and sensitive, with tremendous ego.  Everything was 'feelings' with him.  Whatever he animated had the inner feelings of his characters expressed through very strong acting."
After the success of Snow White, Tytla became one of the highest paid animators in the studio.  He went on to work on Stromboli in Pinocchio, Socerer Mickey and Chernabog in Fantasia, and Dumbo (modeling the character on his own son).  He returned to the shorts department to work on the Giant in the Brave Little Talior.
Tytla joined Disney playing polo and bought a horse.  During one game, Bill's horse tripped and fell on him, injuring his pelvis; an injury he never fully recovered from.
In 1941, Tytla joined the strike at the Disney Studios.  I. Kelin remembered that Tytla didn't have a problem with the Disney Studios and suspected he joined the strike out of loyalty to his friend Art Babbit.  He returned after but things were never the smae, not getting the strong characters he once did.  He worked on Saludos Amigos and some of the war films but left in 1943.
Tytla worked for Paul Terry, Paramount, Tempo Productions and then tried his own production company where he animated shorts and directed commercials.
Bill Tytla died in 1968 and was named a Disney legend in 1998.