Skip to main content

"Wonderful World of Walt" - Short Film (Series) of The Day and Exclusive Behind the Scenes

Creative Capers, an animation studio out of Altadena, California, has begun to produce and publish via YouTube episodic, 2-minute videos in a stop motion series which they call, The Wonderful World of Walt. The inspiration for the films comes from rare, unachieved audio recordings of the most famous animation film legend of all, Walt Disney.



So far three short films in the series have been published on the Creative Caper YouTube channel, each focusing on a slightly different aspect of Walt Disney’s personality, life, and career. That being said, more imagination goes into these shorts than you might imagine, as all the animators, design crew, and creative team at Creative Capers have to work with is Walt’s voice. Everything, from the minutiae of Walt’s office and desk to his personality-specific gestures have to be thought-up by the team at Creative Capers from scratch, with the challenge of still doing justice to Mr. Disney.



The first episode is entitled, “Mr. Disney…What do you do?” and covers the subject of Walt’s later years of working at his studio his role in the Disney Co. at that time. In it, Walt, sitting at his desk and talking to someone else over a microphone, relays the story where an “intelligent little boy…about ten or eleven,” asked him exactly what his job was. “Did you draw all of those pictures yourself?” the boy asked Disney, who had to take a second-take and try to figure out a way to describe his job the boy.

The second episode is entitled “Teenagers N’ Things,” and it brings to life a recording of Walt talking about his relationship with his daughter in how it related to his designing Disneyland. In this episode we see a less-formal Walt, animated sitting on a bench, eating popcorn and watching live-action Disneyland tourists as they walk by him.

The third episode, in the same black-and-white style of the first, sees Walt at a theater, watching Bambi and narrating a story to a friend. The episode is entitled, “Daddy…Why did you have to kill Bambi’s mother?”, and it features Walt answering that very question, the discussion interweaving his professional and personal life.



What I thought quite a charming creative stylistic twist is that each episode changes settings to fit in the mood of the project: The first episode differs from the second in that it is in black-and-white, which seems to fit the occasion appropriately. The first from the second from the third in the occasion.



Here's a short history of the studio, followed by several behind-the-scenes photos that the kind folks over at Creative Capers were able to share with me:

"Creative Capers Entertainment is an award winning animation and design studio that has worked on numerous Disney projects over the years. Terry Shakespeare and David Molina left Bluth Studios after Land Before Time to work in Disney Consumer Products. When Sue Shakespeare founded Creative Capers with the two directors in 1989, a partnership with Disney was already formed.

Having the chance to work on classic Disney characters, whether it be Mickey and the gang, or Merlin fighting the Disney Villains at the Magic Kingdom, it has been a great joy of Creative Capers to work on the same characters as Uncle Walt himself.

Walt Disney's legacy has always been an inspiration for the studio and we wanted to show our love for the man by bringing him back to life through this stop-motion series. The Wonderful World of Walt will be snippets and stories from the man himself about his studio, his life, dreams, and passions.

There will be no shortage of trains, musings on the Magic Kingdom, and what it took for Walt to build the empire we all know and love. In the fashion of Disneyland the Show and the Wonderful World of Color, we can't wait to explore more stories of the life and legacy of Walt Disney. Episode 3 will be coming soon!

You can follow us @creativecapers on Instagram and @capersofcce on twitter to find out when the next Wonderful World of Walt episode presented by Bupkis Motors will air. Stay tuned!"



Cartoon Brew, another great animation-news site, did a post featuring several behind-the-scenes photos which you can go see here. You can also have another peek behind the scenes in the behind-the-scenes video and through the posts on the Creative Capers Instagram profile. (You might have to scroll through their feed some to find the correct posts.)

You can stay tuned for the upcoming interviews and articles by subscribing to Stop Motion Geek via the “subscribe” button at the top right corner of our homepage, or by following us on Facebook @StopMotionGeek, or by visiting https://www.facebook.com/StopMotionGeek/. You can also stay up-to-date with the blog by following us on Instagram or @stop.motion.geek.blog.

Here are the credits for the videos:
Executive Producer: Sue Shakespeare
Produced and Directed by Terry Shakespeare and David Molina
Stop Motion Animators: Terry Shakespeare, Matthew Bates, and David Molina
Special Process by Nicholas Reiber
Film Editor: Christian Weyne
Prop Artists: Ron Harris, Terry Shakespeare, David Molina, and Matthew Bates
Walt's Wardrobe: Alareece DiAndrea
Puppet Designed by David Molina and Terry Shakespeare
Additional Animation: Creative Capers Entertainment
Walt Disney Interview by Pete Martin and Diane Disney Miller























Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interview with Joseph Wallace, Director and Animator of Psychedelic, Cut-out Stop Motion Music Video for Canadian Artist Parker Bossley's "Chemicals"

Parker Bossley as seen in Chemicals . Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace. “I think the thing I’ve always found wonderful about cut out animation is that it’s one of the most immediate forms of animation,” muses British stop motion animation director Joseph Wallace – currently based in Bristol, UK, where, in January of this year, he founded the stop motion studio Hangar Puppet Animation Studio – in discussion of the medium he employed in his most recent film – the surreal, psychedelic music video for Canadian artist Parker Bossley’s debut single, Chemicals , which has already won a Vimeo Staff Pick. Perhaps more than anything else – perfectly suiting the film’s subject matter –the style and medium allow to film to transcend to time itself, just as Wallace implies, undoubtedly allowing the film to become just that – immediate. Almost so much so one gets the feeling they’re clawing at air in search for a handle on reality as they fall…along with Bossley – also the film’s protagoni...
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Interview with Bradley Slabe, Co-Director of Stop Motion Love Story, "Lost & Found" (Part 1/2 of Interview with "Lost & Found" Directors)

Knotjira (foreground) and Knitsune (background) in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. The true essence of art – a reflection of life itself – is very much akin to the Japanese aesthetic of “wabi-sabi”: it’s imperfect, impermanent, and, at times, profoundly...incomplete. It is both at once a fundamental truth, and, curiously, more often than not, a thing incredibly hard to acknowledge, to make peace with. Yet perhaps our resistance is justifiable, for once we admit that the world is full of unknowns – unknowns that aren’t ideal, that aren’t perfect – we are just as soon confronted with the actualization of a deep, intrinsic, and very human fear: the fear of a future full of...unknowns that aren’t ideal, that aren’t perfect. Yet it’s the confrontal of that fear that is the most terrifying reality of all, for the moment we make peace with it we have just as soon have acknowledged that our paths in life aren’t in our own hands, or something we can contro...
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Interview with Samuel Lewis - Animator, Character Designer, and Sculptor on Stop Motion Short Film, "Lost & Found"

Knotjira, a clumsy dinosaur made of wool, as seen in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. “If I had to pick a starting point for my career as a stop motion animator I would have to say it was my obsession as a six year old with a book called ‘Playing with Plasticine’ by Barbara Reid,” Samuel Lewis – a London-based stop motion and 2D animator and director, whose most recent labor of love can be seen in his contribution to the Australian stop motion short film, Lost & Found – tells Stop Motion Geek. Upon reflection, Lewis explains that his love for the medium of stop motion began very early in life, and has merely managed to burn ever brighter in his fervor to master the craft. “I would spend countless hours fixated on sculpting tiny snails, fruit bowls and dinosaurs to the point where I would stay inside on family holidays sculpting a surfer in a beach scene rather than going to the actual beach that was only a short walk away,” Lewis recalls wistfully. “...
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Interview with Andrew Goldsmith, Co-Director of Stop Motion Love Story, "Lost & Found" (Part 2/2 of Interview with "Lost & Found" Directors)

Knotjira (left) and Knitsune (right) in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. The true essence of art – a reflection of life itself – is very much akin to the Japanese aesthetic of “wabi-sabi”: it’s imperfect, impermanent, and, at times, profoundly...incomplete. It is both at once a fundamental truth, and, curiously, more often than not, a thing incredibly hard to acknowledge, to make peace with. Yet perhaps our resistance is justifiable, for once we admit that the world is full of unknowns – unknowns that aren’t ideal, that aren’t perfect – we are just as soon confronted with the actualization of a deep, intrinsic, and very human fear: the fear of a future full of...unknowns that aren’t ideal, that aren’t perfect. Yet it’s the confrontal of that fear that is the most terrifying reality of all, for the moment we make peace with it we have just as soon have acknowledged that our paths in life aren’t in our own hands, or something we ...
Post a Comment
Read full article »

68th BAFTA Film Awards Nominations in: 'BoxTrolls', 'Lego', 'Hero 6' Lead

Three animated films stand in the BAFTA Film Awards Animated Film category and they are: Laika/Focus Features The BoxTrolls , Disney's Big Hero 6 , and Warner Bros. The Lego Movie .  Also, in the best British Short Animation category stand (Stop Motion) The Bigger Picture , Monkey Love Experiments , and My Dad . BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION THE BIGGER PICTURE Chris Hees, Daisy Jacobs, Jennifer Majka MONKEY LOVE EXPERIMENTS Ainslie Henderson, Cam Fraser, Will Anderson MY DAD Marcus Armitage ANIMATED FILM Big Hero 6  Don Hall, Chris Williams The Boxtrolls  Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable The Lego Movie  Phil Lord, Christopher Miller The winners will be announced on February 8th at the Royal Opera House in London.  The awards ceremony will be hosted by Stephen Fry.
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Interview with Chris Randall, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Second Home Studios

Chris Randall in the Mills & Reeve Innovation 50 list. Source: https://twitter.com/SecondHomeChris/status/904681346060230656 “I came to animation mainly from a point-of-view of blind curiosity,” Chris Randall—the creative director and co-founder of Second Home Studios, a Birmingham, United Kingdom-based, award-winning animation studio—tells Stop Motion Geek. “I’d always loved the medium but never took it seriously, or saw myself with a part to play in it. It wasn’t until after Uni that I realised I basically like tinkering and trying out new things, whilst at the same time telling stories. So, animation is a perfect fit for me.” First founded in 2004, Second Home Studios has garnered multiple BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards and nominations for many of the films in their diverse repertoire of artistic and commissioned projects, encompassing all styles of animation—from stop motion to CGI to 2D—as well as puppetry and mixed-media. In their fourteen-and-counting years...
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Interview with Mark Smith, Director and Writer of Stop Motion Short Film, "Two Balloons"

A still from Two Balloons featuring the character of Elba. Photo courtesy of Mark Smith. As I sit, listening to Peter Broderick’s moving composition for piano  More Of A Composition , I close my eyes and envisage an enormous funnel cloud skimming across the crystalline face of an ocean – the skies are murky and unusually dark, lightning crackles, spider-webbing across the darkened skies before then vanishing, and still, after its gone, an electricity continues to hum in the air and I simply  know  that it’s going to soon strike again. And as the scene presents itself to me, I suddenly feel something similar to what director Mark C. Smith felt when he saw the same image as he sailed to a small island called Grenada along with his wife in a timeworn sailboat. For him, in that moment inspiration struck, and the idea suddenly came to him for his heartfelt stop motion film,  Two Balloons . For me, I open my eyes and feel as I did the instant  Two Balloons  ...
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Interview with Lucy J. Hayes, Producer of Stop Motion Love Story, "Lost & Found"

Knitsune in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. Ever since her childhood, Lucy J. Hayes – the producer of Lost & Found , an extraordinarily beautiful short film that make for a profound mediation on the impermanence and imperfection of life and beauty – she’s wanted to play some part in the creative industry, in some way, shape, or form. For Hayes, that dream went unquestioned. However, the challenge turned out to be figuring out quite where she belonged in the creative industry. “I dabbled in acting and directing, however, I was terrible!” Hayes tells Stop Motion Geek. It wasn’t until she began to put on plays with her friends in her adolescence and early adulthood that the answer to her search dawned upon her: All that Hayes found came innately to her – everything from her ardor for creative work to her love for working with creatives to bring an idea, the kernel of a story, to fruition – she found in the title of “producer.” Knotjira (left) and...
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Vincent & Puppet Scales

Tim Burton's Vincent  is a masterpiece; the short was animated by the brilliant Stephen Chiodo .  I do love that the short was shot in black and white film, ask any true film-lover and
Post a Comment
Read full article »

Interview with Robert Shaw, Director, Writer, and Co-Animator of Stop Motion Short Film "The Machine"

Parables and allegories, amidst every other kind of story that can be told, have a unique and extraordinarily powerful quality that is all their own: They allow us – the audience – to learn lessons about and to see ourselves, others, and the world in which we live through a completely different lens – that of narrative. The best allegories and parables, in fact, have the unique ability to simultaneously act as conduits for important lessons and to also exist as literal stories, which gives them the unique ability to challenge beliefs and ideas held by the audience in a way that only art can do. Some of the most cherished stories ever composed, illustrated, and put on film are parables and allegories, and what makes them so exceptional are how powerful the lessons are that they teach. The Machine meets The Farmer in The Machine . Photo courtesy of Robert Shaw. Robert Shaw, in his haunting and beautiful stop motion short film The Machine – which he wrote, directed, and co-anim...
Post a Comment
Read full article »