Chapter 212 Dwarf (1/2)

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

The early animation industry has always been labor-intensive.

Due to technical limitations, animations of this period have always been hand-drawn, and each frame of animation often needs to be drawn one by one.

In Disney Studios, people can be seen lying on the workbench with pens.

"What is this?"

Standing behind a Disney artist, Colin saw the other party winking at the face in the mirror for a while before continuing to lower his head to create, and couldn't help but cast a puzzled expression at Walt on the side.

"A small trick for animation creation, by observing the changes in expressions in the mirror, you can make the image of the characters in your pen more vivid."

In response, Walt explained with a familiar expression.

At the same time, in front of the workbench on the other side, a painter who had completed his creation stopped his brush and repeatedly turned over the draft in his hand to confirm whether the characters in his pen were wrong.

Compared with Colin's previous visit, there are many more staff in Disney Studios now.

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

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

After the studio where "Symphony of the Lake" was produced, the group soon arrived at the location of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".

The first thing that caught the eye was the conspicuous dwarf statues on Walt's desk.

This is a statue specially made by Walt, the purpose is to restore the image of the seven dwarfs in the fairy tale. As an important role in the animation second only to Snow White, Disney naturally paid great attention to the image creation of these dwarfs. In order to distinguish them from their characters, Walt not only arranged different shapes for them, but also designed different personalities for each of them, and these personalities can be distinguished at a glance through the names.

For example, sleepy adj is a dwarf who looks sleepy. According to Walt's design, this guy can never stay awake and likes to doze off, but if something exciting is about to happen, he will open his sleepy eyes to react.

Others like sneezy adj, happy adj, grumpy adj, etc., each dwarf is given a distinct personality by Walt, so that they will not become a real supporting role in the movie "Snow White".

Of course, such a rich character design is not entirely a good thing. At least Disney has taken great pains in finding voice actors for the seven dwarfs. In order to be able to gather seven distinctive and personalized voices, Walt has almost searched the entire studio staff. So far, only six actors have been gathered to voice the seven dwarfs. The remaining dopey adj voice actor has never found a suitable object.

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

Faced with Walter's troubles, Colin proposed his own solution, or this is also what Walter himself did in the future. Because he had not found a suitable voice actor for a long time, he simply let Hu Tudan remain silent in the movie.

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

"You are simply a genius, Colin!"

There is no doubt that Colin's proposal helped Walter solve a problem that has been bothering him for a long time, and he couldn't help but sigh excitedly.

Successfully solving a problem that has troubled him for a long time, Walter's mood seems a little excited, and Lillian, who is beside him, is also infected by his emotions and gives Colin a thankful smile.

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

According to Walter, in order to allow the audience to better bring into the animation, he deliberately chose real people as prototypes for these two characters.

For example, the image of the prince is based on the famous actor Douglas Fairbanks, who was the first movie star to settle in Beverly Hills and the husband of "American Sweetheart" Mary Pickford. The couple and David Griffith formed the "iron triangle" of the golden age of American silent films.

In 191, Chaplin, David Griffith and his wife Mary Pickford co-founded United Artists to distribute their own films.

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 was taken from his appearance in the film "The Mask of Zolo".

As for another core character of the animation, Snow White, after Disney's consideration, Walt and others finally chose the famous actress Janet Gaynor as the prototype. She also won the Best Actress Award at the 1st Academy Awards. She was also the first actress to win an Oscar for playing multiple roles in one year, and it was the only time.

From a later perspective, Disney's approach was not very successful. Compared with the lifelike animal figures or the cruel and cold stepmother, Snow White and the prince looked a bit vulgar and a bit dull in the animation that emphasized novelty.

However, standing at this time, we can't blame Walt or Disney too much.

After all, this is just the first feature-length animation created by Disney, and everything is still in the process of exploration.

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

On the other hand, in addition to the design of the characters, Walt even found a special dance model for Snow White. This lady named Maggie Champion started learning dance since she was a child and worked as a ballet coach in her father's studio at the age of 12.

Disney recruited him to the studio in order to improve the realism of Snow White's animation through the action portrayal of Maggie Champion. Later, Maggie Champion not only appeared as the action model of Snow White, but also as the action model of the Blue Fairy in the animated film "The Adventures of Pinocchio" and the dancing hippopotamus in "Fantasia" produced by Disney.

Because the film production of "Snow White" was only in the beginning stage, there was not much that Colin could really see.

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

In this era, the creation of long-form animation was not accepted by many people. Even with the success of "Superman and Mickey", most people still believed that it was because of Superman and Mickey, but there was no Mickey in Snow White, and of course there was no Superman character.

Even in this unfavorable situation, Disney still insisted on his creative concept for "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and chose to create animations with excellence.

According to Walt's description, he has created hundreds of thousands of characters for Snow White, ranging from the most basic animals to different human figures. If you want to move all these characters to animation, you need at least millions of cartoons, and this is without coloring. Don't forget that "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is still a color animation.

Hualala, hualala--

In the simple screening room, Colin saw some of the animation clips of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" under Walt's guidance.

On the canvas, several dwarfs are dancing happily towards home. Because there is no coloring, the animation in front of them is just white character lines, and even the background behind them does not exist. However, Walt is very much looking forward to it. Any animation is a process from scratch, and now these white lines on the canvas will become real characters in the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in the near future.

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

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

"This is a fairy tale that everyone is familiar with. In this case, who can resist the story being made into an animated film?"

From Colin's perspective, he is very clear about the success of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", so he highly praises the production of Disney animation.

"That's right."

And now Walt uses Colin's affirmation as the motivation for his own animation film creation.

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

"Long time no see, Colin."

Then, Colin in the studio greeted Luo Yin Disney who came after hearing the news.

"Long time no see, Luo Yin."

Releasing his palm, Luo Yin looked at Colin in front of him and said with a little sigh in his tone.

"You are bolder than I thought, Colin."

From Lillian, he already knew the means of transportation Colin used for this trip. The news that Howard Hughes opened an aircraft repair shop had spread throughout Hollywood, but no one was optimistic about the other party's decision. After all, there is a huge distance between aircraft manufacturing and movies.

Howard Hughes may be able to shoot good movies, but aircraft manufacturing is a completely different field.

"In fact, the journey is safer than imagined."

In response, Colin just smiled and replied.

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

Although Colin explained, Luo Yin couldn't help but shook his head and sighed.

While he was amazed, Colin also noticed that Luo Yin looked much thinner than the last time they met. Obviously, Disney's financial situation has caused him great pressure. In the studio, Walt mainly cares about the production effect of animation, and Disney's finances have always been handled by Luo Yin.

Thinking of this, Colin couldn't help but ask.

"Is Disney's operation going smoothly at present?"

Faced with Colin's inquiry, Luo Yin hesitated for a moment, and looked at Walt next to him. Walt shook his head slightly at him, and Luo Yin immediately said: "You know, the situation in Hollywood this year is not very good, and Disney is only a relatively good studio. The overseas box office of "Superman and Mickey" has come in one after another, and with Mickey's authorization, the production of the film can still be maintained so far."

"Of course, this is only so far. The production of long-form animation is a huge attempt even for Disney. Before this, none of us had produced this type of movie. So in order to ensure that there are no major problems in the production of animation, I have been trying to find an investment object during this period of time. Joseph Rosenberg, director of Bank of America, has expressed his intention to invest. This is the good luck brought by Mickey. This director happens to be a fan of Mickey..."

From Luo Yin's description, Disney does not seem to have encountered too many difficult problems at present, and the investment of Bank of America has also solved the financial difficulties for the studio.

But Colin knows very well.

The investment in the animation "Snow White" was far beyond everyone's imagination, or even Walt and Luo Yin himself did not expect that the production cost of this animated film was as much as 1.75 million. After all, in Disney's initial production cost setting, only about 250,000 was arranged, which was already a very high animation production cost in this era.

It is not just a problem of funds. Even the production cycle of the animation 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 has exhausted its resources.

And all this, Luo Yin, Walt and others in front of them obviously could not have anticipated, they only realized from the cumbersome process of film production that the funds required for this animation might be a little more than originally expected.

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

In this regard, Colin was not in a position to say more. He couldn't tell Walt in front of him that the current Disney funds could not support the production costs of "Snow White". Even if he said it, Disney might not believe it. After all, the production of animation has just started, and everything is still unknown.

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

Although most of Colin's funds were invested in the oil stock market, the production cycle of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was as long as three years, which was enough for Colin to accumulate enough funds to provide investment assistance at a critical moment.

82 Chinese Network

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