Walt Disney was continuously improving his art. In fact, many people say he elevated the animated cartoon to an art. As shorts became less profitable, Walt knew he had to diversify. He began to train his staff to ready them for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” To do so, he brought experts into the studio to teach the animators how to draw better. Some of these lessons are now available in “Before Ever After” (affiliate link).
The Fall 2003 issue of “The ‘E’ Ticket” featured a profile of Disney collector Richard Kraft, who had a collection of Disneyana (Disney memorabilia) that any Disneyland fan would envy. It included a Frontierland canoe, a Bog Thunder Ranch sign, and an assortment of Ferdinand the Bull items. Overall, he had 10,000 items in his collection, and many of them were big ticket.
Popular wisdom holds that “curiosity killed the cat.” This phrase is used to warn people against being to inquisitive for their own good. If you don’t ask questions, you won’t find out any information that could get you dead. Eliminating curiosity is good for people or organizations with something to hide. It also good for those who want to exert dogmatic control on their followers. However, humans need to be curious. It improves imagination and leads to greater creativity.
“Frozen 2” is one of those rare sequels that is better than the original. The team, somehow, remained true to the source material, created characters that are like real people, and explored several levels of story depth, including creativity and what people are really like. I loved “Frozen” so much that my roommates in Malta got me Olaf themed gifts for Christmas. I’m not saying I planned our entire New Zealand trip around the release of “Frozen 2,” so I could see it in English, but… In case I need to say it, spoilers after the trailer.
The Walt Disney Company has been considered powerhouse in creative endeavors. With its innovations in animation, movies and theme parks, people associate the Disney brand with creativity. So, aside from my two books, “Disneyland Is Creativity” and “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity,” what are the best books about Disney and its creative process? Here are my Top 8:
“Brain Storm: Unleashing Your Creative Self” – Don Hahn
gives readers practical advice for getting more creativity from life. He uses
his life experience and his work at Disney to provide some of the best insights
and most fun stories for creativity.
“The Imagineering Way: Ideas to Ignite Your Creativity” –
The imagineers explore creativity principles and provide examples on how to add
more creativity to your everyday life! Use it in conjunction with “The
Imagineering Workout: Exercises to Shape Your Creative Muscles” and get your
creative muscles in shape.
“The Imagineering Workout: Exercises to Shape Your Creative
Muscles” – The imagineers give you some exercise to improve your creative
output in this companion book to “The Imagineering Way: Ideas to Ignite Your
Creativity.”
“One Little Spark! Mickey’s Ten Commandments and The Road to
Imagineering” – Marty Sklar leads us on an exploration of the rules that
imagineers follow to come up with and implement their ideas. Go inside the idea
process with the experts at the Walt Disney company.
“Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration” – The section on Steve Jobs makes this book about Pixar and creativity worth the read. Ed Catmull does an outstanding job with this story of the Pixar Studios. Read my review at our archive website http://www.penguinate.weebly.com.
“Dream It! Do It! My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdoms” – Marty Sklar was a prominent imagineer who got his start writing for Disneyland before the park opened. “Dream It! Do It!” is Sklar’s autobiography as it relates to his work with the Walt Disney Company. Check out the review at our archive website http://www.penguinate.weebly.com.
“How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day
of Your Life” – Pat Williams takes an honest and positive look at Walt Disney’s
life. Williams pulls out creativity principles using Walt’s biography as the
basis for illustrating those principles.
“Walt Disney: An American Original” – Biographies are a great way to get inspired and to dig into what made someone creative. Bob Thomas’ seminal work on Walt Disney was released not long after Disney’s death. It is one of the most accurate portrayals of Walt’s life and how he accomplished what he did. Start here before looking at the more modern biography by Neal Gabler.
Tell us which book on Disney and creativity is your favorite!
The Walt Disney Company traditionally rereleased its
animated classics to theaters about once every seven years. Even as video
cassettes were becoming popular, Disney kept its animated classics “in the
vault” and off the shelves. Rereleasing films was profitable because Disney
could fill out its movie slate for the year with a film that had no additional
production costs. The money from the rereleases was almost pure profit minus
the advertising budget.
With pent-up adult demand for something from childhood that
they could share with their children and the importance of introducing the
characters to a whole new generation that would then want to see those
characters in the parks, Disney’s rereleases were more than just profitable.
They kept the company in the news, and they made the attractions in the parks
more relevant to children who otherwise wouldn’t have seen the movies.
The rereleases, in essence, drove profits at the box office
and at the parks, especially during some of the Walt Disney Company’s rougher
periods. It wasn’t enough.
When Michael Eisner took over the company, things changed
drastically as he followed through on Ron Miller’s (the then defunct CEO) plan.
For the first time, Disney classics would be available in their entirety on VHS.
The video series reaped immediate cash rewards and provided a much need capital
input into the company while possibly sacrificing future profits and relevancy
in the process.
Eventually, Disney would return videos “to the vault.” The
announcement would increase demand for the videos because they would no longer
be available for purchase though they would remain on video rental store
shelves until the videotapes wore out. Videos would also be released in
different versions and levels, including Masterpiece, Gold Series and Platinum
series. This strategy kept the profits flowing while also keeping the films and
their characters relevant. It still wasn’t enough.
To drive further interest in its intellectual property and
keep the park characters relevant, Disney offered up direct-to-video sequels.
Unable to rerelease the classics to movie theaters on a wide scale, (Who would
go see “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” on the movie screen when they could
stay at home and see the same movie with the family at a much cheaper price?) the
new videos were often inferior in quality and storytelling, but they were effective
for the price and benefits reaped. On television, other characters made it to
Saturday Morning. “Tailspin,” based on the Jungle Book characters, and “Timon
and Pumbaa”, based on the Lion King characters, were relatively successful and
kept the spirit of the shows (and their related tie-in profits) alive.
Still, Disney needed a way to produce box office profits and
buzz with as little risk as possible. Remaking the classics has accomplished that
in spades.
In 1994, Disney had a moderate hit ($44 million) with a live
action “The Jungle Book” starring Jason Scott Lee, Cary Elwes and Lena Headley.
In 1996, it had a much more successful live action film ($320 million) in the Glenn
Close vehicle “101 Dalmatians.”
While some may classify Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”
as a remake, it is really a retelling. It has many elements similar to the
animated classic but is different enough to rate its own story. Still, it’s $1
billion box office take certainly didn’t deter Disney from the remakes. “Maleficent”
($758 million) is another live action film, based on Disney’s telling of “Sleeping
Beauty,” but still different enough to be its own story. Even “Pete’s Dragon” didn’t
stick strictly to the script of the original. “Christopher Robin” (not quite
$200 million) and “Dumbo” ($352 million on a $170 million budget – whoever authorized
that budget didn’t understand why the firs was released) had different
storylines compared to the originals and were considered flops as they didn’t
score highly with critics or at the box office.
“The Jungle Book” (2016), which almost made $1 billion,
featured groundbreaking cinematography and stuck close to the original animated
feature. “Beauty and the Beast” was a lot like the original, too, and this may
be the beginning of the downfall because it brought in $1.2 billion. Why write
a new script if you can just use the old one?
Enter the ultra-busy actor, producer, executive producer, director,
chef and whatever else Jon Favreau. Favreau is responsible for directing “Iron
Man” and for starring as Happy in several of the Marvel films. He’s taken part
in the “Star Wars” movies and shows Disney has/is creating. He is also the producer
and director of “The Lion King” and “The Jungle Book” (2016). He made a cooking
show in his spare time “The Chef Show” because he missed the time that he spent
with the chef that taught him how to cook on his movie “Chef.” Look up his IMDB
and be amazed, and then understand the problem.
Favreau’s box office dominance isn’t in question. His
ability to be original is. When someone is so busy with as many projects as he
is, it’s inevitable that he or she will take the easiest road. Adapting “the Lion
King” from the old script and giving it originality, in addition to wrangling
the photo-realistic “not” animation, would’ve have been too much if it were the
only project on his plate. After all, “The Lion King” made almost $1 billion.
More importantly, it’s beloved by millions of fans the world
over. If he had messed it up by taking a risk to make it more original, he
would’ve seen his career with Disney take a dive. Favreau had no choice but to
fulfill expectations and keep the animals looking live-action rather than
animated. Follow the script and no one gets hurt, except those parts that
living animals couldn’t literally do – like dress in drag and do the hula or
march in fascistic fashion.
Favreau was out in a no-win situation. In order for the “not”
animated “Lion King” to have been a better film, he would’ve needed to cut some
of the fluff (literally and figuratively) out of the film while concentrating
on character and using human expressions to get the animals to show emotion. He
would’ve needed to take a risk in the same way that the gorgeous and expensive
Broadway show took a risk. He would’ve needed to lead the innovation and story
team to bring something new to the screen that would’ve added to the film’s
legacy. He didn’t have the time to do what he needed to do to make the film
better, so rather than create something new, he took the safe road to
profitability. And we’re all creatively the worst for it.
