This year, a movie that had a huge impact on me as a kid- Peter Pan- turns 65! The movie is older than my Mom {and my Dad was Zac’s age when it came out!} so for it to have been a part of my childhood 40 years later already says something. Of course, it’s also a big part of my children’s childhoods right now, so it’s safe to say that with it still being prevalent 65 years after it came out- this movie is absolutely a classic.
Peter Pan is about to be released as the next movie in the Walt Disney Signature Collection, so to celebrate I was able to take a trip to the Animation Research Library {ARL} to see some of the original artwork from the movie, along with other pieces of Disney history! I visited the ARL years ago and had goosebumps the entire time- being in the room with the art from my favorite movies was like being in a room full of treasure! Some of the art is what was used in the film, some is concept art and there are even sculptures!
While touring the ARL, we learned quite a bit from our tour guide. Read on to learn more about what it’s like to visit the ARL!
The ARL is where all of the original artwork from Walt Disney Animation Studios- from the 1920’s to present day- resides. There are over sixty-five million pieces of art in the building, everything from sketches to bits of animation to scenery.
Sometimes, current artists or others working on a film or something else related to the animated films will come to the ARL to pull inspiration from the existing pieces! According to tour guide Fox Carney, “Anybody within the Walt Disney company can actually come in and reference art work in our collection and digital files thereof so they can work with them on their project as either reference or physically use them in their projects.”
As you can imagine, it is so important to care for the artwork properly. We want to make sure that the art is there for years to come, but paper gets aged and things happen, so the ARL is kept under certain conditions to try to keep it as optimal as possible for the artwork. The room we’re in above is kept at 50% humidity and a specific temperature for optimal conditions, and there are many safeguards in place for things like fire.
The photo on the top of the image above {the one that spans the whole table} is the big scene from Peter Pan where they take off from the Darling residence and begin their journey to Neverland. It’s amazing to see that it’s just one giant painting!
Each individual piece of art is cataloged digitally, a process that’s still being undertaken, and also stored physically. I don’t know how they’re organized, but they are- the people who work at the ARL can just walk right to a piece of art they’re looking for! I did notice that the pieces were stored by movie, but the movies weren’t stored in chronological order.
Above is the piece of art that our tour guide was showing us in the room. It’s so surreal to see a picture of somewhere you’ve seen before a thousand times in a movie as a stationary location in a photo! I kept expecting Captain Hook to come around yelling about the Crocodile.
Below are some pieces from Peter Pan- these include pieces from different parts of production, from the story process to animation to background painting to layouts and concept art:
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This is the camera that is used to digitize the artwork. A couple of people, one shown below, work together every day to get each and every piece of art scanned in. The cameras take pictures at a crazy high resolution so that the photo quality is amazing- and those lights are no joke, either. They check the set-up every day to make sure it’s ready for the day’s entries!
Not only work from the film gets scanned- anything from concept art to rough sketches gets added. They even take notes on what damage has been done to it- whether someone ripped it or smudged it or even drew on it. I’m sure back when they were animating Peter Pan in 1953 they didn’t expect the images to be scanned by digital cameras into computers later on!
Once an entire scene has been scanned in, you can actually scroll through the computer quickly to see the pieces become animation! If they are scanned in order, they move just like they do when filmed and it’s fun to see the rough sketches “acting” out the scenes! In fact, if you’ve ever seen a TV special where they flip the pages of the art to “animate” them- they don’t do that anymore because flipping the pages damages them, so they digitize them first and digitally flip them!
Peter Pan comes out on Walt Disney Signature Collection Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, 6/5! {You can already get it on digital!} Come back next week for my review of the new release of the classic film and if you haven’t already read about my experience in Walt Disney’s office, be sure to check that out!