HIS CINEMATIC CREATIONS :
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Though Walt had gathered a series of Academy
Awards, he was not completely satisfied. He wanted to create the world’s first
feature-length animated film 'Snow White.' Almost everyone thought that he was crazy. But
Walt was a better businessman than many people realized. He knew that movie houses were
now, no longer showing as many cartoons as they did earlier. Also his counterparts were
giving his Mickey Mouse a tough fight with their cartoon–Popeye. He said once,
"I knew if we wanted to get anywhere we’d have to go beyond the short
subject."
Walt now fully concentrated on this challenge; he added 300 additional artists and taught
them advanced skills of working. All his employees were working very hard on ‘Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs’. Many a times, scenes were added and cut. When the film |
| was almost on its final stage, Walt felt that
the character looked too pale, so he ordered inkers and painters to blush her cheeks in
some thousands of drawings. The film was released on Dec. 21, 1937 in Los Angeles with
Charlie Chaplin, Jack Benny, George Burns and many others as the audience. The film was so
sensational that it brought tears in the eyes of the audience. |
With the money he made in Snow White, Walt built a studio in Burbank, with an investment
of $3 million. He worked on films like Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi. Pinocchio enabled
the artist to create an animated world of startling details and design. Fantasia came
along with mind-boggling music, and Bambi brought a sense of reality on the screen,
portraying animals. But all these films bombed at the box office. The Disney Studio was
further burdened with a debt of $4.5 million.
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During the Second World War, Disney Studio made several films for the armed forces. But they hadn’t yet recovered from their debts. Soon after, Walt released two more films Victory through Air Power and Song of the South. The next film Cinderella was also released eventually. Walt once mocked on his animators. "You give ‘em the lines, they rehearse a couple of times, and you’ve got it on film…it’s finished. You guys take six months to draw a scene." In early 1960’s he produced a series of films like Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians. Few other films released simultaneously were, Johnny Tremain, Old Yeller, Darlly O’ Gill and the Little People, Swiss Family Robinson and Pollyanna. |
His famous film Mary Poppins was released in 1984, which won 13 Academy Awards. Meanwhile,
Walt also created a new company -Touchstone Pictures with the release of his movie Splash
the same year.
All through his life he made a number of
fabulous films. The Living Desert (1956), Treasure Island (1950), RobinHood (1951), The
Shaggy Dog (1956), and The Absent Minded Professor (1961) were some of them. Animated
Pictures-as Peter Pan (1953) and The Sword in the Stone (1963) were also successful at the
box–office. Walt also produced television series like Davy Crockett, The Mickey Mouse
Club, and Walt and Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.
The Disney empire acquired the country’s top television network– Capital Cities
/ ABC. The $19 billion deal was the second largest in the history of the U.S. The other
Companies within the Disney fold are : 10 TV stations, 21 radio stations, seven daily
newspapers and 4 cable networks. The company gained worldwide fame and
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| enlisted their name in the topmost industries of the
world. Sales figures crossed $12 billion and over 100,000 people were employed. |
For more than seven decades, the Walt Disney Company has succeeded in making its name
pre-eminent in the field of family entertainment. From humble beginnings as a cartoon
studio in the 1920s to one of major corporations today, it continues its mandate of
providing quality entertainment for the entire family.
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