Walt Disney bridging Past and Present
Walt Disney bridging Past and Present
“When your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme, when you wish upon a star your dreams come true.” Walt Disney is by far one of the influential people of the twentieth century. Try to imagine a world without Walt Disney’s magic, his movies, or even his theme parks. He has signal handedly shaped the entertainment industry in to what we know today. He pioneered the fields of animation, movies, and entertainment. Walt Disney was our bridge from the past to the future.
Walt had a very early interest in drawing and art. When he was seven years old, he sold small sketches and drawings to nearby neighbors. Instead of doing his homework, he doodled pictures of animals and nature. He attended McKinley High School in Chicago. There he divided his attention between drawing and photography. At night he attended the academy of fine arts to better his drawing abilities. At his teacher’s invitation, he would tell his classmates stories while illustrating on the chalkboard. At the age of sixteen he began driving an ambulance for the American Red Cross. After a year of driving for the Red Cross, Walt decided to pursue a career in commercial arts, which soon led to his experiments in animation (Walt Disney, Biography, 2002).
He began producing short animated films for local businesses. During this period he combined live performers with cartoon figures, made most popular in the movie Mary Poppins. Soon after that he returned to straight cartoon format, he produced twenty-six cartoons in the Oswald the Rabbit cartoon series. After his twenty-sixth cartoon in that series he lost his rights to the Oswald character in a New York contract dispute. He knew he needed a dynamic new character. Referring to a series of sketches he settled on a cartoon mouse as his next star. Originally the mouse’s name was Mortimer, but thankfully his wife suggested the name Mickey. Soon after that he had finished two Mickey Mouse cartoons. However prior to their release he saw his first talkie and realized that the future of films was in sound (Walt’s Story, 2002). Immediately he went to work on a third Mickey Mouse cartoon called Steamboat Willie incorporating sound and therefore revolutionizing the film and...