Here’s Walt Disney explaining his breakthrough invention for animation, the multi-plane camera. A few things I love about it:
- Walt Disney The Guy is a total personification of what Walt Disney The Company represents. He has the technical mastery to understand how the craft works at the micro level, but that doesn’t keep him from connecting emotionally and keeping a wide perspective on how the product makes people feel. That’s what makes this video so great — it’s a good technical overview of the subject, but it connects that technical aspect to the emotional effect.
- A lesson I continue to re-learn the longer I work in tech (and that we talk about a lot at foursquare) is that compelling technologies are often a huge pain in the ass to use at first. It takes a lot of patience and foresight to envision the future where refinement and economies of scale make that technology easier and more practical to use. It’s often the people who put in the effort early on when it’s hard who end up with the best implementation later when it’s easy.
- Doesn’t this remind you of those Sesame Street shorts where they show you how different products are made? Mmmm, nostalgia.
(via BERG London)
Walt says the blueprint for the camera came out of the studio’s School for Self-Improvement. How come I never got to attend that school?
I heard about this technique as a kid animator, but never saw Walt’s intro.
Congrats on your great write rhymes site. Very cool interface.
[...] Watch short Walt Disney documentary film (7 minutes) [...]