Unnamed Commentator

Then maybe they'll let me stay. People are convinced this is a terrible idea. Newspapers at the time call it Disney's folly. First of all, animated movies at the time, they're cartoons, right? They're like Mickey Mouse does like a silly gag. It's slapstick. It's mostly animal characters because no one has really figured out a way to animate humans in a way that's fun to watch.

Then maybe they'll let me stay. People are convinced this is a terrible idea. Newspapers at the time call it Disney's folly. First of all, animated movies at the time, they're cartoons, right? They're like Mickey Mouse does like a silly gag. It's slapstick. It's mostly animal characters because no one has really figured out a way to animate humans in a way that's fun to watch.

Like this is kind of where traditional animation is at this stage. And everyone's like, who would want to sit through like an hour long movie of that? That's a terrible idea.

Like this is kind of where traditional animation is at this stage. And everyone's like, who would want to sit through like an hour long movie of that? That's a terrible idea.

Like this is kind of where traditional animation is at this stage. And everyone's like, who would want to sit through like an hour long movie of that? That's a terrible idea.

Audiences immediately love Snow White in this very, very deep, intense, visceral level. People are bursting into tears in the movie theater. Sergei Eisenstein, who's the Soviet director who invented montage, he calls it the greatest film ever made. It ends up grossing $66 million at the box office. That's $1937, much, much more today.

Audiences immediately love Snow White in this very, very deep, intense, visceral level. People are bursting into tears in the movie theater. Sergei Eisenstein, who's the Soviet director who invented montage, he calls it the greatest film ever made. It ends up grossing $66 million at the box office. That's $1937, much, much more today.

Audiences immediately love Snow White in this very, very deep, intense, visceral level. People are bursting into tears in the movie theater. Sergei Eisenstein, who's the Soviet director who invented montage, he calls it the greatest film ever made. It ends up grossing $66 million at the box office. That's $1937, much, much more today.

And at the time, it was the highest-grossing sound picture ever made.

And at the time, it was the highest-grossing sound picture ever made.

And at the time, it was the highest-grossing sound picture ever made.

Yeah, the animation really was groundbreaking in a way that I think is hard for us to understand at this point because this is just what animation has looked like for so long for us. But animation before this really was cartoonish and silly and sort of vaudevilly. But Snow White created this really naturalistic, painterly style. which was very, very expensive and labor-intensive to do, right?

Yeah, the animation really was groundbreaking in a way that I think is hard for us to understand at this point because this is just what animation has looked like for so long for us. But animation before this really was cartoonish and silly and sort of vaudevilly. But Snow White created this really naturalistic, painterly style. which was very, very expensive and labor-intensive to do, right?

Yeah, the animation really was groundbreaking in a way that I think is hard for us to understand at this point because this is just what animation has looked like for so long for us. But animation before this really was cartoonish and silly and sort of vaudevilly. But Snow White created this really naturalistic, painterly style. which was very, very expensive and labor-intensive to do, right?

So to make Snow White, Walt Disney is pouring money into his studio. He's having his animators study figure drawing and like the play of light in moving images and this tradition of European fairy tale illustrations. He's also building new technology. He makes what's called the multi-plane camera, which

So to make Snow White, Walt Disney is pouring money into his studio. He's having his animators study figure drawing and like the play of light in moving images and this tradition of European fairy tale illustrations. He's also building new technology. He makes what's called the multi-plane camera, which

So to make Snow White, Walt Disney is pouring money into his studio. He's having his animators study figure drawing and like the play of light in moving images and this tradition of European fairy tale illustrations. He's also building new technology. He makes what's called the multi-plane camera, which

is this hugely expensive piece of equipment that lets you pull the camera through layers of panels when you're depicting a background. So Snow White is not a silly, funny cartoon animal who is stuck on a flat plane. She's this really expressive, human-looking character who can sing and dance gracefully, and she's in this really rich, dimensional space that looks like an oil painting.

is this hugely expensive piece of equipment that lets you pull the camera through layers of panels when you're depicting a background. So Snow White is not a silly, funny cartoon animal who is stuck on a flat plane. She's this really expressive, human-looking character who can sing and dance gracefully, and she's in this really rich, dimensional space that looks like an oil painting.

is this hugely expensive piece of equipment that lets you pull the camera through layers of panels when you're depicting a background. So Snow White is not a silly, funny cartoon animal who is stuck on a flat plane. She's this really expressive, human-looking character who can sing and dance gracefully, and she's in this really rich, dimensional space that looks like an oil painting.