Walt Disney By: Scott Thomson

Background Developed interest in drawings after he was paid to draw the horse of his Retired Neighbor Became the Cartoonist of his school’s newspaper in High School Took night courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts

Early Career Disney worked at Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio as an apprentice before he was laid off for “lacking imagination” and having “no good ideas” Himself and a fellow worker started a new company where they made “Laugh-O-Grams” They produced a 12 minute long animated film called “Alice’s Wonderland” unfortunately it was too late and the company went bankrupt

Career Continued After this he moved to Hollywood cause his brother had TB Luckily a woman named Margaret Winkler needed a new series and the brothers quickly started Disney Brothers Studios--- which became The Walt Disney Company and began making a series to go with Alice’s Wonderland Soon Winkler’s husband took over the Alice Series and he demanded new material after the series end Leading to the creation of “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit”

The Start of it All Disney wanted more money but Winkler wanted a reduction in pay Ultimately leading to the two dividing ways and Winkler taking all of Disney’s staff beside except Ikler (a friend who was with Disney since the Laugh-O-Grams) To replace Oswald they developed Mickey Mouse “Ikler designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul.” From there “Steamboat Willie” was made, which was the first sound cartoon, leading to a contract with Pat Powers so Walt could use “Powers Cinephone” sound system

More Struggles Walt hired a composer and some local artists and they created a “Silly Sympathy” series and called themselves the “Nine Old Men” The Disney Brothers felt they were being underpaid and again were denied a raise. Powers hired Ikers to work for him leading to the composer also quitting. Causing Walt to have a nervous breakdown

The Turn Around The Disney Brothers signed a contract with Columbia Pictures and Mickey Mouse’s popularity sky rocketed Together the Brothers and Columbia Pictures produced “Flowers and Trees” which won an Academy Award for Short Subject (Cartoon) He received an Honorary Award for Mickey Mouse and then another Academy Award for “The Three Little Pigs” described as the most successful short animation of all time The success of these films lead to the Brothers having a staff of almost 200 people now  Disney realized the importance of telling emotionally gripping stories that would interest the audience, and he invested in a "story department" separate from the animators, with storyboard artists who would detail the plots of Disney's films

The Golden Age Disney became tired with Short Films and began making “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” the industry thought it would be a bust and named it Disney’s Folly The film was the first to have full color and sound, this “folly” ended up grossing 6.5 million dollars Shortly after the development of Snow White the films Dumbo, Pinocchio, and Fantasia were developed Historians call this era the Golden Age of Animation

The Development of Disney World After animations like Donald Duck and Bambi Walt released Cinderella, earning nearly 8 million in its first year Soon after Peter Pan and Treasure Island Walt began to focus less attention on Films, leaving that to the key animators, and explored the idea of an Amusement Park He sent “Imagineers” to every Amusement Park in the U.S to get an idea of what to make After a year of construction Disney Land opened in July 1955 The park was described as one that "tastefully combined some of the pleasant things of yesterday with fantasy and dreams of tomorrow” It attracted 3.6 million guests that year

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyZfIlxwsfI