Transcript for:
Creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Disney Short Films

just--how is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs created and how are the famous Disney short films made you give you the answer we take you behind the closed doors of the famed Walt Disney studio in Hollywood doors usually barred to all visitors during the past three years the studio staff has grown from less than 300 to more than 700 artists and musicians they worked in shifts night and day to complete this unique experiment in entertainment remember as a kid how you made your own movies by drawing little figures on the pages of a pad and flipping the pages to make the biggest move that's the basic principle behind animated pictures today but that's not all there is to it first you need a story thinking up funny stories is the job of Walt Disney's writers Gagnon and sketch artists after much trial and error several hundred rough drawings illustrating the high points of each story are completed let's follow the story into conference where Walt Disney and his hard-boiled directors look it over not a picture long or short goes into production without Walt's personal okay next a director whipped the script and dialogue into final form then he calls in his assistants including his musical composer and claims the score of the picture timing out each scene carefully he even acts out every move of the action so that the men who work with him can visualize what the scene will look like on the screen now he sets his expert animators to work the skilled artists who draw every movement in complete detail just as you will see it in the theater each animators drawing board is lighted from below he looks through the paper at the character he has previously outlined and draws the next movement in correct position this clever animator is using a mirror to capture a tricky facial expression like this let's move along to the test camera Department here the animators rough drawings are photographed in sequence one at a time this film is developed and returned to the animator who checks to see how good it is by running it in a small projection machine called a movie Ola in this movie Olaf as the animator runs his film backward and forward we catch a graceful glimpse of the screens newest heroine Snow White herself now we're in one of the studio projection room where Walt and his staff study the rough animation of a sequence about the seven loveable little dwarf once they are okay the thousands of pencil drawings go to the inking Department here hundreds of pretty girls in a comfortable building all their own well lighted air conditions throughout cover the drawings with sheets of transparent celluloid then they painstakingly trace every line of every drawing in ink following exactly in every detail the original animation drawings now the picture moves into its final stage color in the studio paint laboratory all colors used are made up from secret formulas expert chemists developed more than 1500 different shades of color for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the inked celluloid next go to the painting department where more pretty girls apply the final colors on the back Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs required 250,000 celluloid painted like this one in another department of the big Disney studio artists delicately paint the beautiful stage settings for the picture these backgrounds are done in watercolor artists worked for months on backgrounds like the interior of the seven dwarfs cottage but the colossal task isn't finished even yet the celluloid and backgrounds must still be photographed by the master camera in Technicolor here the operator puts a Donald Duck celluloid on top of background as the overhead camera exposes one frame of film to photograph Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs this operation had to be repeated more than half a million times next the film passes into the hands of technicians and the sound effects are record finally a Symphony Orchestra records the musical score the hit tunes that will fill listeners the world over now comes a crucial moment the pictures well premiere in Hollywood crowds love to see an animation exhibit set up outside a theater