Peterson’s company manufactured all of the Weber furniture for Disney’s studio. Kem Weber (kneeling), Walt Disney (in hat), and Howard Petersen in 1939. It wasn’t until I was working on the book and got a glimpse of the original Weber blueprints that I found out it was actually called a Compact Animator’s Desk.” After a couple of years, I asked for something ‘a little more compact.’ For the next 30 years, I thought I was sitting at an assistant’s desk because it was so much smaller. “When I started at Disney in May of 1984 on ‘The Black Cauldron,’” Bossert says, “they showed me to an office and said, ‘Here’s your desk.’ It was the basic, Kem Weber Animator’s Desk, big, wide, and solid as a rock, like sitting at a monument. Naturally, Weber received a steady stream of input from Disney, but Weber also solicited ideas from one of the greatest animators of the 20th century, Frank Thomas, who used the prototype of the desk he helped Weber design-built by the Peterson Showcase & Fixture Company-to complete his work on “Pinocchio.”Īs an animator, Bossert knows these desks well. Bossert offers fresh insights into the Disney-Weber relationship, particularly in the way it affected the half-dozen or so different desk styles Weber designed for character animators, layout artists, and animation directors. In his latest book, Kem Weber: Mid-Century Furniture Designs for the Disney Studios, author and former Disney animator David A. Collection of Tony Anselmo photo by Frank Anzalone. Even the birch plywood desks these animators sat at were customized for their tasks, whether they were sketching storyboards, executing the entry-level grunt work of the “inbetweener,” or painting backgrounds.ĭisney animator office with Kem Weber furniture, courtesy The Walt Disney Family Museum. Weber’s low-rise buildings, which quickly filled with the company’s roughly 800 employees, were sited to maximize northern exposure, ensuring optimal natural light for Disney’s small army of animators. Together, they created a work environment that was designed expressly for animators. As a builder, though, Walt Disney may have been even more ambitious, spending much of 1938 and ’39 consulting with his new studio’s architect, Kem Weber. “It was the basic, Kem Weber Animator’s Desk, big, wide, and solid as a rock, like sitting at a monument.”Īs a filmmaker, Disney always had big plans. But even before the financial success of “Snow White” was assured, Disney had pushed “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia,” into production at his company’s cramped Hyperion Studios-hence the need for a new animation facility in Burbank. At the time, Disney’s first full-length animated feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” was on its way to grossing $8 million at the box office, a new record for a motion picture. In the summer of 1938, Walt Disney put $10,000 down on 51 acres of land in Burbank, California, for a new animation studio. Courtesy of Mark Kirkland photo © Dave Bossert. Shows Wed-Sat 5:30pm & 8:00pm / Sun 1:30pm & 4:00pm.Ollie Johnston’s Kem Weber Compact Animator’s Desk. Drawn to Life presented by Cirque du Soleil and Disney. We’ll follow her as she leaps into a whimsical world of animation and discovers new possibilities that animate the story of her future. Guided by a magical pencil and a quirky troupe of imaginative muses, she embarks on an inspiring quest filled with her childhood Disney memories. The show tells the story of a determined girl who discovers one last gift left by her animator father: a sequence of unfinished drawings. This love letter to the art of Disney Animation celebrates life in all of its motions and emotions. The show is absolutely alive with all the high-flying, mind-blowing exuberance that Cirque du Soleil is famous for. The art of classic Disney Animation is reinterpreted through Cirque du Soleil’s innovative design, acrobatic performances, dazzling choreography, and eclectic costuming alongside all-new characters created by Disney Animation artists and an original score inspired by timeless Disney music. Gather your whole family for an unforgettable leap into this amazing new show-a live acrobatic journey where the stage is transformed into a giant animator’s desk. Set your imagination in motion and get ready for a first-of-its-kind creative collaboration between iconic memory-makers Cirque du Soleil and Disney.ĭrawn to Life invites you into an astounding world where the art of Walt Disney Animation Studios is experienced like never before.
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