The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life

10. The Engineering of Enchantment

10 The Engineering o-f Enchantment W HEN Shamus Culhane first arrived for work at Disney's Hyperion Avenue studio in 1935, he could hardly believe his eyes. Used to crowded, dingy New York animation facilities, he was shocked to find everything cheerfully painted in "bright tints of raspberry, light blue, and gleaming white:' He was equally startled to see that each animation team was ensconced in its own room, with "beautifully designed desks, upholstered chairs, cupboards for storing work in progress." And most amazing of all, each room had a moviola, a small projector for running and testing reels of animation. These were very expensive machines, and as Culliane noted, most studios had only one for their entire staff.l Ward Kimball, who entered the Disney realm around the same time, had a strikingly different impression. Beginning work as a lowly in-betweener , he labored in the basement of one of the buildings along with dozens of others. With no air conditioning, the large room was so hot and damp that many of the in-betweeners would strip to the waist in the summertime . Sitting at small drawing tables in row after row and drawing like madmen to meet expectations, they looked like men on a slave ship, Kimball remembered.2 As these two recollections indicate, the Hyperion studio comprised a wide variety of physical circumstances and work conditions. Topnotch in certain ways - especially in its offerings to the stars among the animators 184 I The Disney Golden Age and story men - the studio offered considerably less to those lower in the production hierarchy. The new Burbank facility, of course, aimed to remedy all problems of space and comfort. With typical energy and commitment, Disney became involved with every aspect of its development, from designing animators' chairs to drawing up plans for underground utilities. He sought to build a kind of worker's paradise. The state-of-the-art facility overflowed with the most advanced kinds of amenities, aids, and equipment - air conditioning ; sophisticated animation desks; spacious and well-landscaped grounds; buildings designed to capture natural light; separate buildings (connected by an underground tunnel) for the Inking and Painting, Camera, and Cutting Departments; a theater; individual soundstages for recording music, dialogue, and sound effects; a restaurant and a soda fountain for employees. While still plotting the construction, he would take groups of employees out to the site and talk excitedly about the studio, even though perplexed observers could see only "a treeless wasteland of nothing but tumbleweeds." When the Burbank compound was finally completed and the move from Hyperion Avenue took place, from the late fall of 1939 through the early spring of 1940, Disney and his staff capped a years-long evolution. Their refinement of an entertainment production process had made the Disney Studio the envy not only of Hollywood but of many throughout the United States.3 1. Producing the Fantastic In many ways, the grand construction project in Burbank represented not just an upgrade of the studio's physical plant but an elaborate reflection of the Disney way of making movies. As it had evolved over the years, production increasingly involved many departments and intricate, interlocking activities. Walt provided a clear picture of how a Disney movie actually took shape in a piece entitled "Mickey Mouse Presents;' which he contributed to a 1937 book of essays on Hollywood moviemaking. There he proudly described his studio units and their work: the Story Department, which initially plotted a tale; the director, who made an extensive blueprint of sections and scenes for the film; the Background Department, whose layout sketches related characters to setting; the animators, who developed characters and key action scenes in accordance with layout sheets and exposure sheets; the assistant animators, who contributed the "in-between" drawings while their assistants cleaned up rough sketches; the musical director, who scored appropriate music for various scenes; the effects animators, who added special visual touches; the inking and painting staff- all women who traced the animators' pencil drawings onto cels and then added color; The Engineering ofEnchantment I 185 the camera technicians, who shot the film a frame at a time; and the sound effects and dialogue experts, who added the final touches.4 As the intricate process of making films developed, the Disney Studio pioneered a series of innovations that became critical to its success. The storyboard, for example, a series of sketches pinned up on...