Walt Disney Treasures: Behind the Scenes at the Walt Disney Studios

The Story Of The Animated Drawing (1x4)

: 30, 1955

Walt Disney opens the show with a lecture on how the art of animation has taken its rightful place as "the last of the fine arts." He then consults his staff's book project The Art of Animation and shows to the viewer that bringing still pictures to life actually dates back to prehistoric times, proving his point by showing several cave paintings depicting creative ways how a caveman would tell about actions with an inanimate picture. He then goes into ancient Egypt and depicts of how an old mural looked very similar to animation depicted on film strips. We then flash-forward to artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci and Walt tells of how his famous picture detailing the proportions of the human figure has animation-like qualities to it. Walt then showcases several toys that played on "persistence of vision" and were forerunners of making pictures move, after which he tells of how animation was exhibited to a wide audience for the first time with the French "Théâtre Optique" in the 1890s, even before movie cameras and projectors were invented.