Monday, March 30, 2015

The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis and the Secret of Walt Disney’s Movie Magic


There’s history to American animation, and I don’t just mean the cutesy stuff. Behind every Disney classic were hundreds of artists, photographers, costume designers, cameramen, and cell painters, all laboring to make Technicolor fantasies come to life. If you’re a film student and you wonder if it might’ve been fun to work for Walt Disney in the 40’s, then you’re right, it would’ve been fun. But it wouldn’t have been rewarding. The pay was low, the hours were long, and deadlines were strict, and you’re name wouldn’t live on forever. That was where Herman Schultheis came in.

    Schultheis’ name is forgotten to history. He was just another guy hired by Disney, originally an electrical engineer and amateur photographer in German, who found work as a light and sound technician, moving through different departments in his career. He would photograph the production drawings for animated movies like Bambi, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and others. The drawings for the movies went through many changes, and different styles were explored for all the characters and backgrounds. The various stages would all be forgotten if not for the scrapbook that Schultheis kept; it’s a treasure trove of beautiful artwork.

    One of the most beautiful pieces in the collection is the concept art for the Rite of Spring sequence in Fantasia. The drawings are simple, just colored pencil and watercolor, but the artwork is wonderful. Schultheis also saved the space photographs from local observatories which were used for the (scrapped) galaxy sequences in the movie. The drawings from Night On Bald Mountain are here as well, with the skeleton horses, demons, and flying witches. It’s both beautiful and creepy to see.

   One of the most unique things about the Disney studio is the type of work performed by the women there. While the drawings and production art were all done by men, the cell painters were all women. They colored in the animation cells, spending all day painting in the traced draw
ings. A lot of the model makers were women too. I wonder if they were paid the same as the men?

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