Walt: The Man Behind the Myth was about the life of Walt Disney, the birth of his revolutionary company, and how he still impacts our

world today.

The documentary began with a voiceover by Dick Van Dyke, introducing Walt Disney over the credits. It then transitioned into b roll of

Disney’s family, pictures of Walt and his siblings, as well as videos of his father and mother. My favorite part was the black and white video of his parents, which added depth and added a sort of connection that pictures of young children couldn’t really do. After a brief introduction of Disney’s childhood, Walt Disney’s mother, Flora, was introduced using two interviews. The first was with Walt’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller, and the second with Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney. Diane was on the right side of the screen during her interview, while Roy was on the left. Creating this contrast between the two interviews helps keep the viewer interested, because of the noticeable difference in the shots. However, the lighting and background was the same for both interviews. After Walt moved to Chicago was when his career first seemed to sprout. Walt wasn’t very interested in school, besides the fact that he had his cartoons published in the school newspaper. At this part, the b roll was images of Walt’s published cartoons, which were very interesting to see! The third interview was with Dave Smith, a Disney Company Archivist. His interview was set up almost the same as Diane’s, with him being on the left side with the similar lighting and background. The fourth interview was with Bob Thomas, a Walt Disney Biographer. The fifth interview was with Dorothy Pruder, Walt’s niece. Her interview was set up the same as Roy’s.

Walt’s first jobs were pretty uneventful, until he took a job at the Kansas City Film Ad company, where he drew simple cartoons. From his

love of cartoons, stemmed his interest into animation. Finally, he made “Laugh-o-grams”, which were short animations. He sold the first one to the Newman Theater in Kansas City. When he realized that it was too difficult for one person do do all the animation, he started the laugh-o-grams company, where he and a few other men made animations. The sixth interview was with J.B Kaufman, who is an author and historian. His interview was set up the same way as Roy’s. As he was talking about how animation is, or at least was, back then, too difficult for just one person, he spoke specifically about the “police station” scene. While he was commenting on this, b roll of the police station scene was played, helping reinforce how complicated even animating just that one scene was. What they did in this company was “modernizing” fairy tales, which seems to be a reoccuring theme in Disney’s animations as his career expands. The b roll which played over the interview with J.B Kaufman was the “Puss in Boots” animation, one of Disney’s early modernized fairy tales. Instead of the original story of Puss in Boots, the modernized version is the cat going with his master to the movies, to see the latest motion picture. One thing that I would have liked to see would be dates, such as when the photos were taken, and when the animations were created. I think it would have helped me create a timeline in my head, of sorts. Throughout the film, b roll is played of some of the early films that Walt Disney did, for example, one where his niece, Dorothy Puder. After playing the clip, she spoke about it, calling it “one little film we did”. It was kind of cool to me, to see her at a young age making silly films with her uncle, who then would become one of the greatest influencers in animated films. The seventh interview was with Virginia Davis, an actress in Disney’s first film after being signed with a company. However, he blew all his money on this film, barely making it past the halfway point. After this, his company went out of business. Instead of giving up, Walt went to Hollywood. Believing in himself, he sent the unfinished print of “Alice’s Wonderland” (the failed film) to a cartoon distributor named Margaret Winkler (viewers were provided with a picture of her face, as well as the telegrams back and forth between the two). This provided the jump start Walt needed, as he asked his brother Roy to join him and they started the Disney Brothers’ Studio, according to interviewee Bob Thomas (b roll of all the Alice’s Wonderland film posters). After being pushed to undertake a new idea, came Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. These were the first films distributed by Universal, the largest production company to distribute his films thus far. A new interviewee, Charles Soloman (an author and historian, this was one of the few interviews with the interviewee on the right), enlightened viewers on the sly Mintz, and how he played Disney (I liked the b roll in this part, because it showed a picture with multiple people, and then highlighted Mintz). After Mintz basically claiming Oswald, Disney needed to create a new character. He decided a mouse, and his wife decided the name “Mickey”. The b roll in this part was very interesting, as it showed really the first renditions of the character. The first real video of Disney was then used, to help describe the newness of sound design in animation. Over this interview with Disney himself, they over layed B roll of what he was describing. How they had to record one track of sound, so everything had to be done precisely and all at the same time (there they used a video of them actually recording the sound, it was quite interesting to see). After this description, the documentary used the most classic and well known old Disney animation, Steamboat Willie. These animations with sound were revolutionary. Although Mickey was famous, Walt continued to strive for new and innovative ideas, which lead to the Silly Symphonies. He created “The Skeleton Dance”, which is well known in my generation for “Spooky Scary Skeletons”, a halloween bop! The next interview was with Ray Bradbury, who was talking about his personal experience with going to see “The Skeleton Dance”.  After him, came Ollie Johnston, an animator. He was also in one of the few interviews with the interviewee on the right side of the screen. The first interview that I noticed used a different angle was the interview with Marc Davis, an animator and Imagineer. His shot was tighter, with his face and shoulders covering about 50 percent of the screen on the right side. Another interview was different, the one with John Hench, who was also an artist and imagineer. He was on the left side of the screen, also with a tighter shot. Another interview was different, with Robert Stack (an actor). He was on the left side of the screen, but the shot was a lot wider, showing his head down to about where his legs were sitting on the chair. It seemed the further I watched, the more the style seemed to change, which was really a turning point for me. I got bored watching the same two shots, so mixing the angles up really brought my attention back. As the story progressed, so did Walt’s animation techniques. For example, he ended up buying the exclusive rights to technicolor, which helped him animate the first colored animations. The colored animation, Flowers and Trees, won an Oscar, the first ever given to an animation. After, in 1993, Walt’s daughter, Diane was born. A while after, Walt began on the first of his larger projects, Snow White. He had so much invested into it, and it was successful. It had a red carpet, Hollywood premiere. Then came the creation of the multiplane camera, it could film different levels, allowing the backgrounds and the characters and the foreground to all be seperate. I think it’s so cool, and honestly it was cool to see how it worked and helped me understand the animation of that time. They had really awesome footage of it, and found nice b roll that really showed you how it worked in the final product. This was all explained by an interviewee named Bob Broughton, who is a Camera Effects Artist. Walt Disney had a love for model trains, which actually lead to him wanting to create an amusement park. To fund his park, he turned to television.

Whenever the lower third came up for the interviewee, they had their name, position, and their signatures. I think the reason the (person

who created the documentary) had the interviewees write their signature was because of Walt Disney’s famous signature. These interviews also always followed the rule of thirds, which honestly I wish was mixed up a little more. I got kind of sick of seeing the same two shots over and over again, even though they were different people. There was also one interview where there were two people in the shot, which kind of surprised me to see that kind of difference between interviews, but I liked it a lot. It was something different. The rate of interviews seemed to increase the longer the documentary went on.

I like how it wasn’t just voice over, or just interviews. There was a mix of both, with the voiceover providing a  well scripted story line, and

the interviews providing extra background information and life to the story. B roll was also very well done, keeping the viewer interested and lining up with the voiceover and interviews. I liked the difference with colors in the b roll, some were black and white and some had been color corrected to add color to originally black and white pictures or videos. I thought some of the b roll was kind of sweet, showing the lives of Disney and his wife, showing us that there was more to them than just this revolutionary idea of animation. They were actual people, who went ice skating and had a dog. It brought the viewers closer to the story. The b roll I liked the most, was when it was focused around his studio. I loved the behind the scenes aspect of it, and I loved the in depthness. However, there were random current-day shots, which I didn’t like. It ruined the immersion, and honestly confused me.  I also really liked the music throughout most of it, it felt very accurate to the time period. It also gave the story an extra feel, such as when Disney and his wife went on vacation, the music was fun and relaxing, but while the narrator was talking about Lilly’s (his wife) miscarriages, the music was more somber and suspenseful. There was one part, where the music seemed to imply there was more going on than the viewer was aware of.

However, sometimes I did get lost. Some information just didn’t flow together, or just didn’t seem to be very important in the overall

story. Honestly, it seemed like they tried to cover too much in one documentary. I wanted to know more about his studio and his movie ideas, not so much about his political ideas.

Overall, I think I would recommend this documentary for someone whos interested in the history of Walt Disney. I think that it was a

good watch, but it got boring in some parts, especially when I was mostly expecting to learn about his studio, not his entire life history. It was well done, but not a must watch.