Walt disney animation art book
The Art of Walt Disney: From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms and Beyond
May 28, 2017
[The version I read was the 2011 edition, where the most recent film releases were Tangled for Disney and Toy Story 3 for Pixar (just before the release of Cars 2)]
The Art of Walt Disney is a part-art-book part-biography of Walt Disney himself and the growth of his eponymous company. It's a huge volume, a coffee table style book, with full pages of lavish artwork and concept designs, brought into a framework with a narrative about Disney's beginnings and the creation of each of their works.
It runs mostly chronologically, about how Disney got into animation originally, through the creation of Mickey Mouse, production of shorts, and eventual move to feature length films. The stories are told in great detail, with nods to significant personel and explanations of work and technology. The narrative up through the first five feature films (Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi) is excellent, and you get a real sense of the development of the studio and the productions.
Aaaaaand then it went from a five-star review to a three-star review from there. It continues with a sense of "well, we've explained the basics, now lets rattle on through the rest". The other films are all talked about individually, in order, but in nowhere near as much detail. The death of Walt Disney, and the Dark Period and the Renaissance are all explained but it always felt like it kept coming up short and moving on to the next topic too quickly. A lot of the time for films, descriptions were kept to a handful of short paragraphs, the majority of which were just synopses of the film plot. In places these descriptions border on film reviews, with the author stating whether the result was good or bad as if it was fact. I took the short and blunt medicore review of 'The Emporer's New Groove' quite personally (it's my favourite).
After the run through the film progression, up to Tangled, the book goes into the development of the Pixar studios, how they became successful and were eventually brought into the Disney fold. After this is a short piece on live-action productions, and the book ends with chapters on the Disney theme parks.
It's a good, broad overview of the history of Disney. It's difficult to review because the first third/half is SO fantastic, I wish it had continued like that for the whole volume. The first half is a definite must-read for Disney fans, but the rest doesn't go into enough detail to be satisfying.
The Art of Walt Disney is a part-art-book part-biography of Walt Disney himself and the growth of his eponymous company. It's a huge volume, a coffee table style book, with full pages of lavish artwork and concept designs, brought into a framework with a narrative about Disney's beginnings and the creation of each of their works.
It runs mostly chronologically, about how Disney got into animation originally, through the creation of Mickey Mouse, production of shorts, and eventual move to feature length films. The stories are told in great detail, with nods to significant personel and explanations of work and technology. The narrative up through the first five feature films (Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi) is excellent, and you get a real sense of the development of the studio and the productions.
Aaaaaand then it went from a five-star review to a three-star review from there. It continues with a sense of "well, we've explained the basics, now lets rattle on through the rest". The other films are all talked about individually, in order, but in nowhere near as much detail. The death of Walt Disney, and the Dark Period and the Renaissance are all explained but it always felt like it kept coming up short and moving on to the next topic too quickly. A lot of the time for films, descriptions were kept to a handful of short paragraphs, the majority of which were just synopses of the film plot. In places these descriptions border on film reviews, with the author stating whether the result was good or bad as if it was fact. I took the short and blunt medicore review of 'The Emporer's New Groove' quite personally (it's my favourite).
After the run through the film progression, up to Tangled, the book goes into the development of the Pixar studios, how they became successful and were eventually brought into the Disney fold. After this is a short piece on live-action productions, and the book ends with chapters on the Disney theme parks.
It's a good, broad overview of the history of Disney. It's difficult to review because the first third/half is SO fantastic, I wish it had continued like that for the whole volume. The first half is a definite must-read for Disney fans, but the rest doesn't go into enough detail to be satisfying.