Directing at Disney: The Original Directors of Walt's Animated Films. This item is unavailable.Directing at Disney: The Original Directors of Walt's Animated Films

For film buffs, Disney fans, and animation enthusiasts, a fascinting and personal look at seven men who defined the craft of directing an animated film under the tutelage of Walt Disney.

If you were asked to name the director of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, could you do it? How about Bambi, Pinocchio, or Cinderella? We know and love directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Frank Capra, and Alfred Hitchcock, but even Disney fans know very little about the directors of their favorite classic animated films.

     The job itself is mysterious. What does a director actually do? The name evokes someone wearing a baseball cap, leaning back from the camera to yell, “Cut!” through their megaphone. How do you do that in animation? Can you tell an animated character, “Once more, with feeling”?

     In fact, when the very first animated films appeared, there were no directors. With no actors, sets, costumes, or sound, what appeared on-screen was simply decided and drawn by one or two artists, with little need for planning. But as Walt Disney refined and improved the quality of the films he made, his staff grew to include hundreds of specialized artists, all of whom needed to know what they were making and how their part contributed to the overall. While Walt himself did this in his early films, the need to track the hundreds of details and creative decisions soon mandated a separate and distinct role. And as Walt’s interests grew to include live action, television, and theme parks, he relied more and more on these lieutenants to shape and guide his animated films.

 Directing at Disney: The Original Directors of Walt’s Animated Films chronicles the progression of this unknown yet pivotal role from the 1920s through the 1970s. For students of filmmaking and management, this book serves as a go-to resource for this creative and sometimes technical role. For all Disney fans, these personal portraits of Walt’s closest collaborators offer a fuller picture behind the stories, characters, and creation of Disney’s beloved animated films, as well as a fascinating reflection of Walt’s own growth as a creative leader

Searching for more ways to celebrate Disney? Explore these books from Disney Editions:

The Story of Disney: 100 Years of WonderThe Official Walt Disney Quote BookWalt Disney: An American Original, Commemorative EditionPeople behind the Disney Parks: Stories of Those Honored with a Window on Main Street, U.S.A.Delicious Disney: Disneyland: Recipes & Stories from the Happiest Place on Earth

Pete Docter is an American film director, animator, and screenwriter from Bloomington, Minnesota. He is best known for directing Inside Out, Monsters, Inc., and Up and as a key figure and collaborator in Pixar Animation Studios. The A.V. Club has called him "almost universally successful." He has been nominated for six Oscars (two wins thus far for Up and Inside Out--Best Animated Feature), three Annie Awards (two wins), a BAFTA Children's Film Award (which he won), and a Hochi Film Award (which he won). He has described himself as a "geeky kid from Minnesota who likes to draw cartoons."
Don Peri is the author of Working with Walt: Interviews with Disney Artists and Working with Disney: Interviews with Animators, Producers, and Artists. In addition to nearly a hundred interviews with creative leaders of the Disney films, he assisted director Ben Sharpsteen in writing his memoirs, giving Don an inside look at what it took to direct films under Walt's supervision.