IN THE RETINA
We pay tribute to Walt Disney and his early contributions to animation, with a focus on one of his most significant accomplishments: the synchronization of audio and video.
Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago in 1901, where he developed an early interest in drawing. He took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio (now The Walt Disney Company) with his brother Roy. With Ub Iwerks, he developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success; he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. His passion for animation, music and technological advances made him a pioneer in the audiovisual sector, introducing innovations in the production of cartoons. He was a precursor of narrative techniques such as the Mickey Mousing, which consists of synchronising the accompanying music with the actions that take place on screen, imitating their rhythm in an exact way. He also devised his own sound system, Fantasound, the precursor of today’s surround sound in cinemas. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards with twenty-two Oscars and fifty-nine nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors
>> In the retina program IMAXINARIA
Screening Fantasía on the opening day
>> Wednesday march 6th | 19:45h – FANTASIA
Walt Disney Studios | 125 min | EEUU | 1940 | +7
Fantasia was ranked fifth at the 1940 National Board of Review Awards in the Top Ten Films category.[181] Disney and Stokowski won a Special Award for the film at the 1940 New York Film Critics Circle Awards.[182] Fantasia was the subject of two Academy Honorary Awards on February 26, 1942—one for Disney, William Garity, John N. A. Hawkins, and the RCA Manufacturing Company for their “outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia”, and the other to Stokowski “and his associates for their unique achievement in the creation of a new form of visualized music in Walt Disney’s production Fantasia, thereby widening the scope of the motion picture as entertainment and as an art form”
Third animated feature film from Disney. It consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Music critic and composer Deems Taylor acts as the film’s Master of Ceremonies who introduces each segment in live action.The soundtrack was recorded using multiple audio channels and reproduced with Fantasound, a pioneering sound system developed by Disney and RCA that made Fantasia the first commercial film shown in stereo and a precursor to surround sound. Acclaimed as one of the greatest animated films of all time, in 1990, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant”.
