This fourth installment in The Archive Series showcases the scenic background and layout art that gives every piece of Disney animation a time and place. The Animation Research Library and curator John Lasseter, the Walt Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer, have assembled over 300 pieces of artwork from the company's shorts and masterpieces from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Tangled, and even the upcoming Winnie the Pooh. With many two-page spreads and several 30-inch gate-folds, Backgrounds & Layouts includes famous as well as unpublished work of the great layout artists and background painters such as Eyvind Earle, Claude Coats, Walter Peregoy, Maurice Noble, James Coleman, Serge Michaels, Al Dempster, Bill Layne, Art Riley, Brice Mack, and Lisa Keene. Collectors and animation enthusiasts couldn't be more thrilled with the first three books in the series, and they are eager to add Backgrounds & Layouts to their libraries.
Note: The decision was made to consolidate all Disney publications under the name Walt Disney Company. This profile is for Walt Disney, the characters he created, and the company he founded. Any questions, please ask in the Librarian's Group.
Walter Elias “Walt” Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist. Disney is famous for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Disney became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation he co-founded, now known as The Walt Disney Company, today has annual revenues of approximately U.S. $35 billion.
Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, a character for which Disney himself was the original voice. He has been awarded four honorary Academy Awards and has won twenty-two competitive Academy Awards out of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual. He also won seven Emmy Awards. He is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong.
Disney died of lung cancer in Burbank, California, on December 15, 1966. The following year, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) (commonly referred to as Disney) is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, the company was reincorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and travel. Taking on its current name in 1986, The Walt Disney Company expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theatre, radio, publishing, and online media. In addition, it has created new divisions of the company in order to market more mature content than it typically associates with its flagship family-oriented brands.
The company is best known for the products of its film studio, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, today one of the largest and best-known studios in Hollywood. Disney also owns and operates the ABC broadcast television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, and ABC Family; publishing, merchandising, and theatre divisions; and owns and licenses 11 theme parks around the world. On January 23, 2006, it was announced that Disney would purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. The deal was finalized on May 5. On December 31, 2009, Disney Company acquired the Marvel Entertainment, Inc. for $4.24 billion. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6, 1991. An early and well-known cartoon creation of the company, Mickey Mouse, is the official mascot of The Walt Disney Company.
The fourth and last entry in the Walt Disney Animation Studios Archive Series is a large coffee table book devoted to layout (mostly in black and white) and background art (mostly in color). It's nice to be able to gaze at the often very beautiful and intricate background art of Disney shorts and features. Especially pan shots can now be watched in their entirety. Of course, background art of most of Disney's feature films is included, but my personal favorites are the backgrounds for the shorts 'Modern Inventions' (1937), 'Defense Against Invasion' (1943), and 'Pigs is Pigs' (1954), all by anonymous artists. At the end of the book there are photographs of the known artists in this book.
As with the other Archive Series entries, this is a picture book. There's practically no text, let alone useful information. But the art inside certainly is beautiful.
With the exception of introduction and acknowledgement sections this book lets the stunning background and layout art shine without comment. It goes in chronological order, is beautifully printed, and included so many of my favorites (Sleeping Beauty, Dumbo, Frozen, etc.) that I was completely drawn in to every single page.
An amazing collection of art, and a beautiful book for anyone interested in art and film and/or Disney fans. Aside from the forward at the beginning and credits, it's entirely art, and it's pretty big too. You could spend hours looking over every detail! There's work from the early Disney stuff like some of the Mickey shorts and Silly Symphonies to more recent ones like The Princess and the Frog and Tangled.
A nice sample of backgrounds from the very beginning of Disney animation to The Princess and the Frog. There were a couple of films I felt they could have used more impressive backgrounds or given a few more examples of. Namely, Atlantis: the Lost Empire, Hercules, Mulan, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.