Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

THE ART AND CREATION OF WALT DISNEY’S CLASSIC ANIMATED FILM

SNOW WHITE

AND

SEVEN DWARFS

THE

3

SNOW WHITE

AND

SEVEN DWARFS

THE

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic November 15, 2012–April 14, 2013

The Walt Disney Family Museum San Francisco, California

Our Museum Collection

Collecting the Magic

Celebrating Walt’s Genius

A Welcome Event

Who Is the Fairest?

I’m Wishing

Hide in the Woods!

Just Like a Doll’s House

Seven Little Men

I’ve Been Tricked!

6

9

10

14

28

38

62

90

106

140

164

184

204

224

238

250

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256

Contents

A Musical Interlude

Two Journeys

A Special Sort of Death

A Dream Comes True

The Ten Best Pictures

Glossary

Index

Artists and Animators

Acknowledgments

10

Until Walt Disney released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, the world had

never seen a colorful, feature-length animated film with engaging characters and stunning

environments. The film marked a pivotal milestone in animation. Calling upon the

experience they gained from creating the early Disney animated shorts and the

award-winning Silly Symphonies, Walt Disney and his artists defined the artistic foundation

that would shape all subsequent animated films. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The

Creation of a Classic commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the film’s release, is

especially significant because it is the first special exhibition organized by The Walt

Disney Family Museum, which is dedicated to celebrating the genius of Walt Disney.

The exhibition art is drawn from the collections of The Walt Disney Family Museum,

the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, Andreas Deja, Dave Pacheco, and ardent

Snow White collector Steve Ison. Since the few nitrate cel setups that remain at the Walt

Disney Company are too fragile to travel, the Studio’s current ink and paint department

painted replica cels. Such challenges created serendipitous opportunities to use other

elements of animation to illustrate the storyline. The exquisitely drawn story sketches,

for example, quite marvelously reveal the evolving vision Walt and his artists had for the

film. Exhibition visitors will gain an understanding of the collaborative process that

produced a creative milestone in cinematic history.

Celebrating Walt’s Genius

Lella Smith Creative Director

21

The Fairest One

By comparison with some of the sketches pictured on the previous pages, the final design of Snow White was relatively realistic—although, of course, her proportions were quite unlike those of an actual human being. The differences are emphasized in the model sheet on the facing page, with its comparative poses juxtaposing Snow White, on the right, with rotoscoped tracings (see page 40) of her model, Marjorie Belcher, on the left.

Snow White Head Model Sheet

Photostat: print on paper

Snow White Model Sheet

Fantasy in Depth

Disney Studio Artist

Queen’s Castle on the Mountaintop

Concept art: graphite on paper

The Disney camera department in the 1930s. At right is a standard camera table; at left is the multiplane.

The opening sequence is one of the special scenes that made use of the studio’s newly developed multiplane camera crane. Animated scenes were usually filmed on a camera table designed to hold the background painting and the animation cels pressed tightly together, to ensure maximum registration. The multiplane was, instead, a towering structure that allowed the camera to shoot through widely separated planes of animation and scenic elements, creating a believable sense of perspective and depth. As the camera moved through a forest toward a distant castle, the audience was not looking at a flat painting but rather was drawn into a convincing animated world.

I’m Wishing

T

he garden sequence, which served to introduce Snow

White to the audience and depicted her first meeting

with the Prince, was one of the last sequences in the

picture to be developed and produced. Walt knew that

this would be one of the most difficult sequences in the

picture for his writers and artists to tackle, and

purposely delayed work on this section until his staff

had sharpened their skills and gained experience on

other, less demanding parts of the story.

Part of the challenge here was to determine the

tone of Snow White’s first meeting with the Prince.

Some early approaches to the sequence had depicted a

casual, bantering, flirtatious encounter, similar to those

in contemporary live-action romantic comedies. Walt

eventually discarded this idea in favor of a more

innocent, charming romantic scene. Even then, he and

the writers struggled to convey the necessary plot

information without an excess of spoken dialogue. The

simple, apparently effortless staging that audiences see

on the screen took months of painstaking effort,

analysis, and experimentation to create.

At one point in story development, the writers

suggested that Snow White, dreaming of romance,

might construct an imaginary scarecrow prince by

placing an inverted bucket atop a fencepost, addressing

this effigy as “Prince Buckethead.” The real Prince,

entering the garden unseen, would observe her charade,

and Snow White would be startled to hear the real

Prince’s voice apparently issuing from Prince Buckethead.

This idea was eventually discarded from the film, though

it later appeared in some comic and storybook versions

after the film’s release.

Snow White, dressed in rags, scrubs the steps in the castle garden and dreams of romance.

Standing by a wishing well, she wishes aloud for the Prince of her dreams—and hears her

voice echoing back from the well, a sign that her wish will come true. And it does: the

Prince, riding past on horseback, is attracted by her lovely voice and enters the garden. He

declares his love for Snow White in song. But the Queen is listening too, and, consumed

with fury, she orders her Huntsman to take Snow White into the woods and kill her.

40

An important turning point in story development

was the idea of the wishing well, which in turn led to

Snow White’s song “I’m Wishing.” These inspired

inventions made the sequence far more charming and

less dialogue-heavy—but they were late developments,

introduced into the picture in the spring of 1937, after

months of story conferences had already taken place.

Of all the technical challenges in producing Snow

White, none was more daunting than creating human

characters who acted and moved in a convincing way.

Snow White, the Prince, and the Queen were never

intended to be strictly realistic characters, but they did

have to represent a fantasy element that was

recognizably grounded in reality, and they had to be

strong enough characters to carry a feature-length

story—and no animation studio had yet produced

“human” characters who could do that.

The Disney studio met this challenge by filming

live-action reference footage of actors cast in these

roles. The model for most of Snow White’s scenes was

a young girl, Marjorie Belcher, daughter of a local

dance instructor, who would become familiar to later

audiences as part of the dance team Marge and Gower

Champion. Under the direction of animators and

sequence directors, she played Snow White’s scenes on

the studio sound stage while a cameraman filmed her

actions. Frames from this footage were then enlarged

and traced onto animation paper by use of a rotoscope.

Max Fleischer had invented the rotoscope in 1915, and

Fleischer’s studio had used it in creating Out of the

Inkwell cartoons. In the Fleischer films, audiences saw

a clown perform with uncannily lifelike movements,

his actions literally traced from reality.

Two decades later, the Disney studio used the

rotoscope in a different way: the tracings did not appear

in the film, but served as guides. After studying them,

the animators could start afresh, constructing a wholly

original animated performance for Snow White. They

could consult the tracings for technical details: the turn

of an ankle, the lift of an arm, the movement of a skirt.

As production proceeded, the studio abandoned the

rotoscope in favor of a less labor-intensive device, the

photostat machine, which was used to enlarge and

copy the frames of live-action footage. The artists

worked with individual photostats as they had with the

rotoscope tracings. This procedure was in place by the

time the garden sequence was produced.

Thanks to the technical support of the live-action

reference footage, Snow White avoided problems that

had plagued “human” characters in earlier cartoons: her

actions were convincing and lifelike, but without the

eerie stilted quality of raw rotoscope tracings. Snow

White herself, in terms of design, is anything but

realistic; her body proportions are not those of an actual

human being, and her performance is conceived in terms

of her personality, like that of other animated characters.

But her walking, dancing, and other movements have

the weight of human authenticity.

The images on these pages illustrate the use of live-action reference as an aid to the animators. On the opposite page, Marjorie Belcher is filmed on a studio sound stage, playing one of Snow White’s scenes while standing at a prop well. Her actions are synchronized to the song “I’m Wishing.” This image was one of dozens of photostats from this scene, blown up from frames of 16mm film so that the artists could study minute stages of the girl’s movement.

On this page, the photostats are translated into three drawings that demonstrate steps in the animation process. At top, animator Jack Campbell, after studying the live action, produced one of a series of character animation drawings of Snow White playing the scene. In the center, the rope, pulley, and bucket were drawn separately by effects animator Sanford “Sandy” Strother. At the bottom, both elements were combined in a single animation drawing. These “ruff ” pencil drawings were cleaned up, then traced in ink on cels. Painted in color, the cels were combined with the background painting and photographed to produce the finished scene.

Live-Action

Reference

Jack Campbell (character animation), Sanford Strother (effects animation)

Snow White Pulls Bucket Up from the Well

Top: Cleanup animation Center: Effects animation Bottom: Ruff animation drawing

Joe Grant

Seated Queen

Concept art: charcoal and pastel on paper

66

Disney Studio Artist

Early Huntsman Sketch

Concept art: graphite and colored pencil on paper

In the Grimms’ story, the Huntsman was only a minor character. Some later stage versions had greatly expanded his role in the plot, and this influenced early concepts for the Disney film. During story conferences, the writers considered giving him a name—“Humbert” was a strong contender— and possibly making him a sadistic character, one who actually relished the idea of killing Snow White.

113

Disney Studio Artist

Color Model Sheet of Dwarfs

Photostat: print on paper with colored pencil highlights

As the dwarfs’ appearances became better established, the lead animators defined their facial features in meticulous detail for the benefit of assistants and cleanup artists. With hundreds of people drawing the same characters, it was important to maintain consistency, even to fine points of color shading, eyelids, and eyelashes.

Heigh-Ho!

Disney Studio Artist

Tree Clock Strikes 5:00 P.M.

Cleanup layout drawing with layout slip: graphite and colored pencil on paper

Like their house, the dwarfs’ workplace is filled with hand-carved objects. This ingenious little clock, hand-carved in the side of a tree, announces the end of the dwarfs’ workday. To strike the hour, little figures emerge from the doors and strike tiny hammers against a tiny anvil. The figures and the clock’s minute hand were animated on cels; note that the hour hand, which remains stationary throughout the scene, can be painted directly on this background painting.

At one point late in 1936, the mine sequence was discarded from Snow White altogether, a casualty of the film’s

overabundance of gag and story material. With that sequence missing, the dwarfs’ first appearance came as they marched home, singing “Heigh-Ho.” Then, late in the summer of 1937, a shortened version of the mine sequence was restored to the picture.

125

During the 1930s, in producing the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony shorts, the studio had developed a standard practice: each film’s story outline would be circulated throughout the studio and all personnel invited to submit gags or story situations. Anyone whose ideas were used in the film would qualify for a bonus. The invariable result was a wealth of story material from the entire studio staff, from

which the story department could select the best ideas. The same practice was followed on Snow White, and some sequences, including Spooks, elicited such a flood of ideas that only a fraction of them could be used. One of the unused ideas can be seen on page 122; another, on these pages, is a complicated series of Dopey gags suggested by story stalwart Homer Brightman.

Homer Brightman

Dopey Searches the Premises

Story sketch gags: graphite and colored pencil on paper

Disney Studio Artist

Dwarfs’ Kitchen with Pie Dough

202

Why Don’t We Make Her a Bed?

Disney Studio Artist

Dopey Chopping Down a Branch (Out of Picture)

Story sketch: graphite and colored pencil on paper

On these two pages are sketches from the Bed-Building sequence, which was filled with slapstick gags as the dwarfs enthusiastically plunged into their task. Ever ingenious, they selected four strategically placed trees in the forest and used the trunks as bedposts, constructing the bed between them. Here Dopey trims the excess branches from one of the bedposts, but overlooks an important detail.

208

Joe Grant

Witch Bringing the Poison Apple to Snow White

Disney Studio Artist

Snow White on Bier, Dwarfs Around Her Grieving

Story sketch: graphite and colored pencil on paper

235

Jack Campbell

Happy Ending, the Prince Lifts Snow White onto a Horse

Cleanup animation drawing: graphite and colored pencil on paper

Artists and Animators

SAM ARMSTRONG As one of the mainstays of the background department, Armstrong painted many of the backgrounds but was also charged with supervising the color styling of the entire picture.

ART BABBITT An artist who combined a volatile temperament with a prodigious talent, Babbitt animated the wicked Queen before her transformation—no easy task—and also did some dwarf animation.

NORM FERGUSON Along with Luske, Moore, and Tytla, he was one of the studio’s Big Four animators during the 1930s. Ferguson’s versatility is evident in his assignments: previously he had specialized in Pluto and the Big Bad Wolf; here he animated the Queen

after she transforms herself into the witch.

JOE GRANT Credited for character design, Grant was equally important as a member of the story team. He had worked on some of the most brilliant Silly Symphonies and contributed key ideas to Snow White.

ALBERT HURTER Also credited for character design, Hurter contributed to the settings as well. His European sensibility influenced the film’s design and was responsible for much of its charming Old World atmosphere.

HAM LUSKE Second only to Walt in establishing the heroine’s design and determining her personality, Luske then maintained a tight level of control over her scenes, doing some of the animation himself and closely supervising a unit of animators who were assigned other scenes.

FRED MOORE A naturally gifted animator and the studio’s resident specialist in “cute” characters. He was one of the two artists who established the look and personalities of the dwarfs, and set the standard for their animation. His touch is especially evident in Dopey.

GRIM NATWICK Recruited for the feature because of his knowledge of anatomy and his well-known knack for animating female characters, Natwick headed the secondary Snow White unit.

CHARLES PHILIPPI The top-billed layout artist on the picture, Philippi served as a problem-solver on other artists’ sequences as well as supervising his own.

BOB STOKES Not usually mentioned in connection with Snow White, but a strikingly versatile animator who came in on short notice and produced key scenes of both Snow White and the Queen—and held his own with the master animators.

BILL TYTLA One of the two dwarf specialists, the other being Fred Moore. Tytla was known for (among other things) his animation of forceful, powerful characters, and not surprisingly made a major impact on the animation of Grumpy.

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