For most of next year, patrons attending the Walt Disney Family Museum will be treated to a first-ever retrospective exhibit from one of Walt Disney’s world class animators – Mel Shaw. Shaw’s influence on Disney animation ranged from the late 1930s through the 1990s. He… Read More »The Walt Disney Family Museum hosts a new exhibit “Mel Shaw: An Animator on Horseback”
The Walt Disney Family Museum just announced a new advisory committee to complement its Board of Directors. The committee is made up of eleven extraordinary individuals, some with connections to the Disney legacy, some independent, whose personal and professional achievements and experience will provide important strategic guidance for the museum. Among the new members are animator Andreas Deja, producers Don Hahn, and Pixar Animation Studios creative genius John Lasseter.
The museum’s Advisory Committee is made up of the following distinguished members:
Andreas Deja first applied for a job as a Disney animator at the age of 10. Born in Poland and raised in Germany, he recalls writing the Studios immediately after seeing The Jungle Book. The Studios wrote back to Andreas explaining that there were no openings, but they were always on the lookout for new talent. At the age of 20, Andreas applied again and was accepted. Andreas began his Disney career working with Eric Larson, one of the legendary “Nine Old Men,” and went on to work on animated films such as The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Andreas oversaw the animation of Triton in The Little Mermaid, Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, Jafar in Aladdin, Scar in The Lion King, Mickey Mouse in Runaway Brain, the title character in Hercules, and Lilo in Lilo & Stitch. In 2007, Andreas was honored with the Winsor McKay Award from the International Animated Film Association.
Don Hahn is producer of the worldwide phenomenon The Lion King and the classic Beauty and the Beast, the first animated film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Don is Executive Producer of the acclaimed Disneynature Films Earth, Oceans, African Cats,and Chimpanzee, and Disney’s Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie. Don’s other credits include Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantis, Fantasia 2000, and The Emperor’s New Groove. Don’s books on animation, art, and creativity include the best seller Brain Storm, the acclaimed educational series Drawn To Life: The Complete Works of Walt Stanchfield, and the much anticipated Before Ever After: The Lost Lectures of Disney’s Animation Studio due out in the fall of 2015. Don also serves on the Board of Directors of PBS SoCal.
John Lasseter maintains creative oversight of all films and associated projects from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, and is involved in a wide range of activities at Walt Disney Imagineering. John made his directorial debut in 1995 with Toy Story, the world’s first feature-length computer-animated film. John also directed A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Cars (2006) and Cars 2 (2011). John has executive produced all Pixar features since Monsters, Inc. (2001). To date, Pixar’s films have earned more than $8.5 billion in gross box-office receipts. Since assuming creative oversight of Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2006, John has served as executive producer on all of its feature films and serves as executive producer for Disneytoon Studios’ films. In John’s role as Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering, John was instrumental in bringing Radiator Springs to life with the successful 2012 launch of Cars Land, a massive 12-acre expansion of Disney California Adventure Park. Prior to the formation of Pixar in 1986, John was a member of the computer division of Lucasfilm Ltd. John was part of the inaugural class of the character animation program at California Institute of the Arts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in film in 1979.Read More »Walt Disney Family Museum assembles Advisory Committee
The Annie Awards, which honor excellence in animation in film, video, and television, were held last night, and Disney won many of its categories in TV, but got snubbed when it came to the movies.
Big Hero 6 was nominated for Best Animated Feature, and Outstanding Achievement Directing in an Animated Feature Production, but lost in both categories to Dreamwork’s How to Train Your Dragon 2. Last year, Disney won both categories on the strength of the blockbuster film, Disney’s Frozen. Big Hero 6 did walk away with one award, for Animated Effects in an Animated Production. Baymax would be proud.
Disney did much better with television, winning eight trophies overall. Five of them went to the Disney Channel’s “Disney Mickey Mouse” show, which had the second-most wins of any title.
The Walt Disney Family Museum also won the evening’s Special Achievement Award, which recognizes the unique and significant impact the winner has had on the art and industry of animation.
Here are all the Annie Awards that Disney won on January 31, 2015:Read More »Disney Wins Several Awards at the 42nd Annual Annie Awards
Walt’s Grandchildren. Image courtesy of the Walt Disney Family Foundation
Editor Note: This article is republished in honor of Grandparents Day, September 7, 2014. It was originally written after a 2011 event at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.
Family togetherness and memories of shared experiences to last a lifetime … those are at the heart of Walt Disney’s many creations — from cartoon characters and heart-warming movies that have entertained generations to Disneyland, which has delighted guests between the ages of 2 and 102 since opening in 1955.
Family meant a great deal to Disney, both personally and professionally. His daughter, Diane Disney Miller, told me that despite her father’s success, she and her sister, Sharon, lived a fairly typical family life. The girls had two loving, caring and protective parents. Her dad, she said, was a hugger who enjoyed family dinners at home, weekly outings with his girls, even time regularly spent driving his daughters to school on his way to the studio.
Walt was happy with his little family, even though Diane learned many years later from her aunt that he had wanted more children but that doctors had advised her mother, Lillian, not to attempt another pregnancy after a series of miscarriages.
It would have “only been me,” Diane said, if her parents hadn’t gone out and adopted her sister, Sharon. Walt and Lillian would later become “very loving” grandparents. And, making Walt a grandfather was the “best thing I ever did for him,” Diane said.
Diane and her husband, Ron Miller, parented seven children; six were born before Walt’s death on Dec. 15, 1966. Five of them — Chris, Joanna, Tammy, Jennifer and Walter Miller — shared memories of their maternal grandfather in a special program on Sept. 17, 2011, at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Ron Jr., born in 1963, was too young when his grandfather died to participate with his siblings and Patrick Miller wasn’t born until 1967.
Image courtesy of the Walt Disney Family Foundation
The program, arguably the best talk in the museum’s nearly five-year history, provided an intimate look at Walt’s family life from his adored grandchildren. Now adults, they had a unique relationship to one of the most creative and influential men of the 20th century. They said both their parents and grandparents did everything they could to give them a fairly typical family life.
The following offers highlights of the program. It’s been plussed and sprinkled throughout with material obtained during an exclusive interview after the event.
The Walt Disney Family Museum has announced a new exhibition that will be sure to excite fans of Alice in Wonderland and Mary Blair. Camille Rose Garcia: Down the Rabbit Hole will be on view from May 9 to November 3, 2013, and features some… Read More »Walt Disney Family Museum Announces Camille Rose Garcia Exhibit, Debuts May 9
The Walt Disney Family Museum is pleased to present the exhibition Camille Rose Garcia: Down the Rabbit Hole. On view from May 9 to November 3, 2013, the exhibition features some 40 works by Garcia alongside seven Alice in Wonderlandconcept paintings by Disney artist Mary Blair from the Museum’s collection. Organized by guest curator Tere Romo, the exhibition celebrates not only Garcia and Blair’s artistry across decades and artistic styles, but also the power of art to draw us into magical worlds that spark engagement and inspiration.
Since its publication in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has been re-interpreted visually in a wide-range of artistic styles and media, including as an animated Walt Disney film in 1951. Over half a century later, Garcia has updated the enduring classic with her distinctive illustrations that capture a young girl’s surreal adventures after following a rabbit down a hole. In this exhibition of Garcia’s book illustrations, Alice’s encounters with the White Rabbit, Mad Hatter and Red Queen are quirky renditions of the main characters set against colorful backdrops. With her conscious disregard for perspective or scale in her compositions, Garcia creates a fresh and contemporary depiction of the dreamlike story. Her illustrations not only draw from a Goth sensibility, but also the thriving “low-brow art” movement in Los Angeles and its references to classic cartoons, 60’s TV sitcoms, rock music, and comic books. However, in keeping with Lewis’s intended audience, the illustrations retain the animation quality of the Disney film that continues to appeal to all generations.Read More »Walt Disney Family Museum Reexamines Alice in Wonderland with Contemporary Artist Camille Rose Garcia alongside works by Disney Legend Mary Blair
Diane Disney Miller with Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas from ABC’s Once Upon A Time in front of a few special Academy Awards at the Walt Disney Family Museum.
Congratulations are in order to the team at the the Walt Disney Family Museum who all contributed to making 2012 a banner year. Since November 2011, annual attendance has increased by 13 percent from 90,000 to 103,000, the number of member households has increased by 43 percent, and the Museum welcomed a 25 percent increase in group sales.
Gabriella C. Calicchio joined the WDFM in November and under her direction, the Museum developed its first-ever, five-year strategic plan, launched an exhibitions program, and opened the first major special exhibition—Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic, which was celebrated by visitors and critics alike. In the intimate theater gallery, the Museum presented two additional exhibitions—Heinrich Kley: From Fantasy to Fantasia and Between Frames: The Magic Behind Stop Motion Animation. The exhibitions have been popular among a wide variety of Bay Area visitors, including young professionals, seniors, and students, as well as tourists and cultural travelers.
Museum co-founder and Board President Walter Elias Disney Miller states, “With a renewed leadership in management that brought us the collaborative development of The Walt Disney Family Museum strategic plan along with our staff and volunteers—who are the heart and soul of this Museum—we now have a clear vision to guide us towards the best museum experience we can offer our visitors while showcasing the legacy of not only my grandfather Walt Disney, but also the men and women of his organization that brought his dreams to life through inspiration and innovation.”Read More »Walt Disney Family Museum Reports Successful Year
I’m one of those kids who love the pixie dust of Disney stories on the one hand and darker stories like Roald Dahl and Maurice Sendak on the other. Sendak captured the imagination of millions of children with his book “Where the Wild Things Are”… Read More »Maurice Sendak exhibit coming to Walt Disney Family Museum