Mei Man: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

Chapter 213 The Dwarf

In Disney's studio, Colin saw part of the original animation of the movie "Snow White" created by Walt and others.

The early animation industry has always been labor-intensive work.

Due to technical limitations, the animation in this period has always been hand-painted, and each frame of animation often needs to be drawn one by one.

In the Disney studio, you can see the backs of those lying on the workbench and drawing with a pen everywhere.

"This is?"

Standing behind a Disney painter, Colin saw that the other party winked at the face in the mirror for a while before continuing to lower his head to create. He couldn't help casting a puzzled expression at Walt beside him.

"A little animation creation technique, by observing the expression changes in the mirror, can make the image of the characters in the pen more vivid."

In this regard, Walt explained with a accustomed expression.

At the same time, in front of the workbench on the other side, some painters who have completed the creation stopped the paintbrush in their hands, and repeatedly flipped through the sketches in their hands to confirm whether the characters in the pen were wrong.

Compared with when Colin visited before, there are now many more staff members in the Disney studio.

According to Walt's explanation, most of them were recruited for the production of the new movie "Snow White".

The creation of a feature-length animated film is more cumbersome than it appears on the surface. Disney not only needs to face financial difficulties, but also a huge technical problem.

After passing the studio where "Confused Symphony" was produced, the group soon came to the location of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".

The first thing that catches the eye is the prominent dwarf statues on Walter's table.

This is a statue that Walt specially asked someone to make. The purpose is to restore the image of the seven dwarfs in fairy tales. As an important role in animation after Snow White, Disney naturally pays great attention to the creation of the images of these dwarfs. In order to distinguish For their characters, Walter not only arranged different shapes for them, but also designed different personalities for each of them, and these personalities can be distinguished at once by their names.

For example, Sleepy adj is a little dwarf who looks drowsy. According to Walt's design, this guy can't stay awake and likes to doze off, but if something exciting is about to happen, he will Will open sleepy eyes in response.

Others are Sneezy adj (sneezing spirit), Happy adj (pistachio), Grumpy adj (angry), etc., each dwarf is endowed with a distinctive character by Walt, so that they will not appear in "Snow White" reduced to a real supporting role in the film.

Of course, such a rich character design is not all a good thing. At least Disney has taken great pains in finding voice actors for the seven dwarfs. The staff of the studio has so far only gathered six actors to serve as the dubbing jobs for the seven dwarfs, and the remaining Dopey adj (confused) dubbing actor has never been able to find a suitable partner.

"In this case, why not just let him not speak in the film?"

Faced with Walt's troubles, Colin opened his mouth and proposed his own method, or this is what Walt himself will do in the future, because he has not found a suitable voice actor for a long time, so he simply let the foolish guy keep silent in the movie .

"Anyway, there are enough dwarfs who can speak, and a dwarf who can't speak has more memory."

"You're nothing short of a genius, Colin!"

Undoubtedly, Colin's proposal helped Walt solve a problem that had been bothering him for a long time, for which he couldn't help sighing excitedly.

After successfully solving a problem that had troubled him for a long time, Walter seemed a little excited, and Lilian who was beside him was also affected by his emotions and gave Colin a thankful smile.

In addition to the image of the dwarf, Colin also saw the prototypes of the protagonists of the animation, Snow White and the prince, in Walter's studio.

According to Walt, in order to allow the audience to better bring them into the animation, he deliberately chose real-life characters as prototypes for these two characters.

Like the image of a prince, it is based on the famous actor Douglas Fairbanks. He is the first movie star to settle in Beverly Hills. He is the husband of "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford. David Griffith formed the "iron triangle" of the golden age of American silent films.

And in 1919, he co-founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, David Griffith, and his wife Mary Pickford to distribute the films he made.

At the same time, Douglas was also one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the first president of the Academy.

The image of Disney's prince is taken from his appearance in the film "The Mask of Zorro".

As for Snow White, another core character of the animation, after many considerations by Disney, Walt and others finally chose the famous actress Jenny Gaynor as the prototype. It was also the first and only time an actress won an Oscar for more than one role in one year.

From a later point of view, Disney's approach was actually not too successful.Compared with those lifelike animal shapes or vicious and cruel stepmother images, the appearance of Snow White and the prince is a bit vulgar, and it is a bit dull in cartoons that emphasize novelty.

However, standing in this era, we cannot criticize Walt or Disney too much.

After all, this is only the first feature-length animation created by Disney, and everything is still being explored.

At least during this period, the animated characters produced by Disney are still very faithful to the original works, which is already very precious.

On the other hand, in addition to character design, Walt even found a special dance model for Snow White. This lady named Maggie Champion began to learn dance since she was a child. Father's studio as a ballet instructor.

The purpose of Disney’s recruitment to the studio is to improve the realism of Snow White’s animation by portraying Maggie Champion’s actions. In the future, Maggie Champion will not only serve as an action model for Snow White Appeared, and later also acted as the action model of the blue fairy in the animated film "Pinocchio" produced by Disney, and the dancing hippopotamus in "Fantasia".

Because the film production of "Snow White" is only in the beginning stage, there are not many things that Colin can really see.

But even so, from these animation prototypes, character designs or action models, Colin can still feel Walt's love for animation and enthusiasm for creation.

In this era, the creation of long-form animation is not accepted by too many people. Even with the success of "Superman and Mickey", most people still think it is because of Superman and Mickey, and there is no Mickey in Snow White. , and of course there is no Superman role.

Even in this unfavorable situation, Disney still insisted on its creative concept of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", and chose to strive for excellence in animation creation.

According to Walt's description, he has created hundreds of thousands of characters for Snow White, ranging from the most basic animals to characters. If he wants to move all these characters to animation, it will take at least hundreds of thousands Tens of thousands of cartoons, and this is still without coloring, don't forget, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is still a color animation.

Crash, clatter——

In the simple screening room, under the leadership of Walt, Colin had a sneak peek of some animation clips of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".

On the canvas, several dwarves are dancing happily and walking towards home. Because there is no color relationship, the animation projected in front of them is just white character lines, and even the background behind them does not exist. However, Walter However, I am extremely looking forward to it. Any animation is a process from scratch, and now these white lines on the canvas will become real objects in the animation of the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in the near future. figure.

"I believe that Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be absolutely successful."

After stopping the rotating projector, Colin expressed his feelings under Walt's gaze.

"This is a fairy tale that everyone is familiar with. If so, who can resist the story being made into an animated movie."

From Colin's point of view, he is very aware of the success of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", so he highly praised the production of Disney animation.

"Yes."

But now Walt takes Colin's affirmation as his motivation to create animated films.

"Who can resist childhood fairy tales appearing on the big screen."

"Long time no see, Colin."

Immediately afterwards, Colin in the studio greeted Roy Disney who had heard the news.

"Long time no see, Roy."

Letting go of his palm, Roy looked at Colin in front of him, and said with a little exclamation in his tone.

"You are bolder than I thought, Colin."

From Lilian's mouth, he already knew the means of transportation that Colin used for this trip. The news of Howard Hughes opening an aircraft repair shop has spread all over Hollywood, but everyone is not optimistic about the other party's decision. After all, aircraft manufacturing and There's just too much distance between the two movies.

Howard Hughes may be able to make good movies, but aircraft production, that's a completely different field.

"In fact, the journey was much safer than expected."

To this, Colin just replied with a smile.

Indeed, for him, this flight journey is not as dangerous as ordinary people think, on the contrary, it is even a little too ordinary.

Although Colin explained, Roy couldn't help shaking his head and sighing.

While he was amazed, Colin also noticed that Roy looked much thinner than when he met last time. Obviously, Disney's financial situation has put tremendous pressure on the other party during this period of time. In the factory, Walt mainly needs to care about the production effect of the animation, and Roy has always been in charge of handling Disney's finances.

Thinking of this, Colin couldn't help asking.

"Is Disney's operation going smoothly?"

Facing Colin's inquiry, the expression on Roy's face hesitated for a moment, and he exchanged a glance with Walt, who shook his head slightly at him, and Roy immediately said, "You know, The situation in Hollywood as a whole is not very good this year, and Disney is only a relatively well-developed studio in it. The overseas box office of "Superman and Mickey" has come in one after another. With Mickey's authorization, it has been able to maintain the production of the film so far. "

"Of course, this is only so far. The production of feature-length animation is a huge attempt even for Disney. None of us has produced this type of film before, so in order to ensure that animation production does not happen. Too big of a problem. I've been trying to find someone willing to invest in it for a while now. Joseph Rosenberg, director of Bank of America, has expressed interest in investing. It's the luck of Mitch, who happens to be Mitch's director. fan……"

Judging from Roy's description, Disney doesn't seem to be in too much trouble at the moment, and Bank of America's investment has also solved the studio's financial difficulties.

However, Colin is very clear.

The investment in the animation "Snow White" far exceeded everyone's imagination, or even Walt and Roy himself did not expect that the production cost of this animated film was as much as 175 million. In the production cost setting, only about 25 yuan was arranged, which is considered a very high animation production cost in this era.

It's not just a financial problem, even the animation production cycle has been extended from the original 17 months to 30 months.

It can be said that in order to complete the production of "Snow White", Disney can be said to have exhausted resources.

And all of this, Roy, Walt and the others in front of them obviously couldn't predict it, and they only noticed from the cumbersome process of film production that the funds needed for this animation may be a little more than originally expected That's all.

"If you encounter any difficulties in the production of animation in the future, you can find me."

Regarding this, it was inconvenient for Colin to say anything more. He couldn't tell Walt right now that the current Disney funds could not support the production cost of "Snow White". Even if he said it, Disney might not believe it. After all, the production of animation has just begun, and all this is still unknown.

Therefore, Colin only implicitly expressed his friend's position to Walt.

Although most of the funds in Ke Lin's hands are invested in the oil stock market, the production cycle of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a full three years, which is enough for Colin to accumulate enough funds. Give investment aid.

(End of this chapter)