The Aptitude of Animated Visual Stories The Walt Disney Inspiration
Compelling Dynamic & Epic Variety Visual Storytelling
Storyboards are a fantastic and beautiful investment to the pre production of animated film and television.
They are used in commercials, advertising and many forms of media that require a written word to be conveyed into a visual language.
The first animations storyboard were created and born at the Walt Disney Studios by a Canadian born man named Win Smith. (1888-1941) (LINK COMIC)
1930 Promotional Illustration by Win Smith
A win it certainly has been for the compelling of beautiful cinematography and dynamic films bred from the written word of a script.
Animation is just that.
ANIMATED.
To lump your visual stories with an inordinate amount of dialogue yields a dive.
To be able to compel a visual story without any use of words, means you have your story game dialed in.
Using language is beautiful for verbal stories, but here we are in the game of visual storytelling.
Disney preferred to make the story points and delineate the characters through visuals wherever possible.
According to Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson (see below an original drawing cell from these animation masters from 1934 from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – a very groovy vintage feel i have the good fortune to be in possession of)
…according to these animation giants who had direct experiential knowledge working with Disney, The Walter Elias Disney standard for dialogue in his visual stories followed:
4 PRINCIPLE RULES IN HIS ANIMATIONS:
1. Do not write dialogue that describes what you are seeing.
2. The words and thoughts behind them should be unique to the specific character
3. Dialogue must be written so that it offers something to animate.
4. Dialogue must be written so that the actor doing the voice can contribute something
“Walt usually left out the dialogue until a sequence had been developed to the point where he could see how little was really needed. If the idea could be put over with an expression, an action, a sound effect or with music, he would refrain from using dialogue.”
Compelling and dynamic visual stories need to stand on their own two feet in terms of your visual compellings.
It is a testament to the energetic momentum of motion and creative expression that need not words to understand and a resonance to the very true fact that 70 percent of all human communication is NON VERBAL.
To be able to compel stories visually to such a degree that one can read it without needing any explanation is where the rubber meets the road in terms of a dialed in compelling visual storytelling acumen.
The energy of you as a human is a very creative energy given the two cerebral hemispheres your brain compels and the ENGINE OF HEART you contain.
To be able to create anything new comes from the harmony of ones own SOUL propelled by their MIND and engined by their HEART.
Being a cog in someone else’s creative wheel can still enable you your own propulsion of how you choose to compel your own creativity but history and energetics show with certainty that the uniqueness and confidante of ones own creative expression is where new and individual ideas are bred from.
Visual stories thrive when they impact the audience to a degree in which they are engaged, interested and can resonate with that which they have their eyes peeled upon.
To be able to impact and engage another human to the universality of which we all share in our humanity is where your success lies in being able to compel effective visual stories.
Walter Elias Disney is an ethereal magic and when on this planet, a genius unparalleled in his visionary ideals.
One may only need observe the empire of the Walt Disney name that is still in play today decades after his departing from the Earth plane.
Although it was denoted that his films were never quite made the same and the end of a highly creative era when his physical body tapped out on December 13th. 1966.
It left an enormous and obvious gap to the Disney film fabric, and although his studio continued to function, a good deal of originality was lost out of his films as a result of the loss of his creative input.
This kind of energy that enables such propulsion and is able to live on despite the loss of the life of his creatively-minded being is a testament to his genius of connectivity to his heart’s calling which is UNIVERSAL to the human condition.
One need not adapt or adopt to the other ideals in order to gain their own success, yet in the entertainment industry many practices play off the ideas and creative endeavours of past and merely recycling them.
To be led by your own autonomy is your heart is a much more creative vibration than to recycle the ideas and compellings of other humans.
BEING ORIGINAL IS AN AXIOM TO THE DISNEY VIBE.
Disney’s insistence on the need to use the “established” characters who made up his studio’s repertory company did in no way mean he wanted to repeat gags or situations from other films.
He often expressed his dislike of sequels and would often dismiss ideas stating that artists were “relying too much on the old stuff”.
This is again, a testament to his creativity of originality where new ideas and creative imaginings propel heights of success as no one had ever experienced or viewed them before.
This is demonstrable in the era of the “remake” where past films are remade to a more current implementation, but are basically recycled stories that have already been creatively compelled in the world.
Disney had a standard for fresh ideas and creativity.
He was open to artists reusing ideas if they could innovate them and make them seem new as is recorded in “The Disney That Never Was” book by Charles Solomon.
Disney was an IMAGINEER. His IMAGINATION combined with a PIONEERING kind of vibration.
The chronicles and historical references to his expressions and the manner in which he dialed in his MO as a creative entrepreneur expose how beautifully unique and powerful the expression of his HEART’S ENERGY combined with the CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE OF HIS GENIUS MIND.
The two are intrinsically linked.
He maintained an optimism and fervour despite being oppressed and encumbered with normalized psychological, emotional and physical abuse compelled by his own father Elias Disney, a Canadian born in Ontario.
This is a resonance personal to my heart and the inspiration I gain from the magnificence of Walt’s ability to overcome personal adversity by way of one’s own creative compelling is a very healing and cathartic vibe.
It also lends itself to a complex psychology, of which i have experiential knowledge, which was denoted in Bill Pete’s observational assessment of him. Bill Peet, regarded as the most talented story artist in the studio insisted there were really three Walt’s.
The Dreamer, The Realist and The Spoiler.
Before any story meeting Bill said it was a good idea to call the guard at the Studio gates to find out which Walt had arrived that morning.
Walter Elias Disney never faltered from his own aptitude of indulging in his own creative abilities, regardless of betrayal, criticism and adversity completely unnatural to his own human lifeforce energy.
He was autonomous and fervent with this MIND & HEART’S imaginings and the implementation of them.
Researching Walter Elias Disney As An Animation Enthusiast & Visual Storyteller is an Endeavour That Will Pay You In Dividends.
Each human has an individual blueprint to compel in this life, and the influences and knowledge you choose to engage and adopt for your own propulsion can prove a very supportive feel.
The stories i have encountered that delineate to me more clearly who Disney was as a man and a creative are spot on in terms of the understanding that we are all children at heart and we all have incredible and infinite potentials at our disposal to harness a creative tapestry of our own life’s making that is our human right to do so.
There are also many aspects of ourselves that can be expressed in what is seemingly one being, made up of dynamic parts of our own selves.
The autonomy and confidence Disney contained was an axiom to his modus operandi.
To have faith and confidence in ones own vision and to remain tethered to the truth of your own creative heart and mind is where Disney excelled in his own self mastery of governance.
Experiential words from Disney legend, Dick Huemer to the impact of Walt Disney’s incredible energetic force:.
To take cues from the Walt Disney in terms of originality and taking advantage of all that your creativity within your own autonomy allows, you can breed very successful visual stories and fresh ideas.
No one is you and that is your power, so have confidence in your ideas and always work to enhance and progress in your craft.
With hard work and an open mind as well as the confidence to be expressive in your compellings, is where you can truly thrive as an artist. Experience is your best teacher so rather than scouring the internet for ideas, go out and have some adventures!
Find out what lights your heart on fire and tell stories in an imaginative, autonomous and original manner.
Who knows, maybe one day you will breed into this world, that which has never been seen before and impact your humanity to a great thrive as a result.
Disney, the filmmaker who goes down in history as the one to win the most Academy Awards in his filmography achievements is a hard act to follow, but you need not follow him, nor anyone or anything.
You need only be creative in your own right and take cues from those who inspire and guide you to your most optimal state of creative expression.
Walter Elias Disney is a man who can certainly inspire a good deal of imagineering potential by dissecting and discerning how his beautifully genius creative mind and heart worked together to produce such memorable and iconic films.
There Are No Limits To Your Creativity, And There Are Certainly No Bounds To Where Your Imagination Can Lead You.
Disney has demonstrated this wholeheartedly and if you ever find yourself stagnating or at a loss for your own creativity, he and his creative history, and analyzing his animated films, can certainly provide you a wealth of inspiration.
