ANIMATION SPOT
By Howard
Beckerman
WALT'S GARAGE
Legend has it that Walt Disney began making films in a
garage that eventually flourished in the fertile Hollywood soil into a
sprawling collection of buildings that became the largest, most complete
animation studio in the world. Recently, while touring Florida's Walt Disney
World, a Magic Kingdom that engulfs an area twice the size of Manhattan Island.
I stumbled into a 1982 version of Walt's Garage.
Disney World is designed so that each turn in the road
offers a new set of surprises; you never know exactly what lies just around the
bend. Strolling through the small section of the 27,000 acres belonging to the
Disney interests that is the theme park is like walking through a Walt Disney
film. The whole thing has been storyboarded to gain the interest of each of the
possible 40,000 persons that might pass through there at the height of the
season on a single day. There is just enough action, music and clever uses of
showmanship to evoke just the right amounts of nostalgia, sentimentality,
humor, reverence and patriotism to carry any visitor from one attraction to the
next. What seemed to be lacking, surprisingly, was the one thing of which
Disney had been the unchallenged master, animation.
With all the emphasis on the three dimensionality of the
place, the buildings and stores that evoke a fantasy of main street circa 1900,
or the towering edifice that is the trademark of the park, Sleeping Beauty's
Castle, or even all of those electronically controlled Animatronic figures that
sing and dance, you begin to wonder, "Where's the animation?"
After receiving a delightful tour of the behind the scenes
aspects of the park! I found that there are plans to include animation in the
near future and that much of it will be done on the premises. In other words,
there is already in ex istence a small group of artists at work on animated
subjects for the park, a sort of Disney Studio East. That's where "Walt's
Garage" comes in. Allow me to explain.
Walt Disney World, the Magic Kingdom Theme Park at least, is
actually on the second floor of the property. The first floor" is a maze
of tunnels har boring various offices dealing with the crafts people that keep
the whole thing going. There is no basement since the park is built on a former
swamp, hence the designation “first floor" for the offices. The tunnels
contain all of the wiring and plumbing for the Kingdom and the easy
accessibility of these features helps to get things repaired without digging up
the streets above. (Con Edison take note.) Also, a costumed actor can pass
under other sections of the park while heading to a predesignated place. A
spaceman walking through Liberty Square, a depiction of colonial America, would
disturb the illusion. But what about "Walt's Garage"?
Well, it seems that there is at present a sudden flurry of
industrious activity at Disney World. A new section is to be opened on October
1st and all hands are busily engaged in striving for this deadline. This
totally new area, which was part of the park's original plan when it was opened
ten years ago but which has had to wait for funding, is called EPCOT for,
Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. This massive construction project
has meant the expansion of the labor force, which is hired through a placement
center that refers to the hiring of artists, actors or bricklayers as
"casting." This has also led to the use of trailers out near the
EPCOT site to house the architects, administrators, etc. that need to be in
that vicinity.
One of these trailers contains some animation boards, a sort
of homemade animation camera rig, a moviola and a handful of enthusiastic
animation artists. Ironically, the studio that spawned the most up-to-date
animation facility in the world has this humble setup in Orlando making
cartoons much as they were done in the early days of the medium. The people
working there call it, “Walt's Garage."
What kind of things are they doing there? Well, right now
they are incorporating certain popular Disney characters such as Jiminy Cricket
to explain how things work and as a guide for visitors to the EPCOT section
when it opens.
Ralph Kent, a director of WED Enterprises, the arm of the
Disney organization that designs and builds the lifelike Animatronic
characters, has been with the company since the 60's and after working at the
studio did a turn at Disneyland in Anaheim. His first love is animation and it
is he who has instituted the new animation group at Disney World, Kent has
managed to at tract some talented younger artists who share his excitement for
creating animation. Each Spring, Kent and Kragh Lillethorup, who heads the
Disney World graphic arts department, tour the northeastern states for likely
talent to be employed as apprentices during the Summer. Students are selected
at their schools by way of interviews and portfolio submissions.
The few that are chosen are flown to Orlando at the
company's expense and are paid $250.00 a week during their sojourn at the park.
From this talent pool it is hoped that future artists will be found who can fit
into the work pattern when positions open up. Some of these young people have already
worked in the animation unit. It will be interesting to see how much animation
will find its way into the pattern of the Magic Kingdom or the EPCOT sections.
The question arises though as to whether the animation
experiment will be beefed up and expanded, or whether its tasks will be usurped
by the home studio. Perhaps the best thing to do is to set up a small wooden
structure on Main Street for the sole purpose of doing animation and nail a
sign over the door and call it simply, "Walt's Garage."
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