Disclosure: I was invited to a tour of the Disney Animation Research Library as part of an expense-paid trip by Disney.  The trip included the Disney Planes red carpet premiere, events related to The Little Mermaid, and a special meeting with the Super Buddies. Special thanks to Fox Carney, Manager of Research at the Animation Research Library, Lella Smith, Creative Director, Tamara Khalaf of the Design Department, Researcher Doug Engalla, and several other gifted individuals who generously shared their insights with us.

Disney Animation Research Library behind-the-scenes look

For generations, Disney Animation has inspired and delighted.  My dad was one of the very first to walk through the gates of Disneyland when it first opened, and he passed his love of all things Disney on to me.  My family’s love of Disney has followed me my whole life.  You can imagine my delight when I recently got an amazing sneak peek into the top-secret Disney Animation Research Library (ARL) as part of a blogger event celebrating the upcoming Blu Ray release of The Little Mermaid on October 1!

My wonderful friend Rachel over at The Link Fairy calls the ARL the real live Disney vault, and she is right!  Artwork from every Disney film, from Snow White to Nightmare Before Christmas, is stored at the ARL.

During this fantastic tour we got a behind-the-scenes glimpse at some incredible original artwork, including the glass panels painted with forests to create depth at the opening of Sleeping Beauty and the original study Pinocchio marionette puppet model used to animate the movie.  Pinocchio was the first movie I ever saw when I was three (my daughter’s age), so seeing the tiny, fragile original marionette being carefully preserved for the next generation was quite a moving experience.

Disney Animation fun facts

I learned some fun and amazing facts about Disney animated films at the ARL.  Did you know that…

Fun Fact #1

About 65 million works of art from Disney animated films are currently being stored at the ARL…and counting! They are all being meticulously photographed and documented.

Fun Fact #2

The Little Mermaid’s Ariel’s hair was originally blond.  Lella Smith, the ARL’s Creative Director, showed us early drawings of Ariel where she had a remarkable resemblance to Tinkerbell. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel’s hair was inspired by the hair of a female astronaut floating in space.  Directors Ron Clements and John Musker saw the astronaut on TV and decided to make Ariel’s hair one body rather than individual strands.

Fun Fact #3

The Little Mermaid villainess Ursula was originally based on characters portrayed by movie and TV star Joan Collins.  Ursula was tall, thin, and absolutely terrifying.  We were told that the animators struggled for a long time with Ursula’s image, worried that she was too severe and scary.  As we saw through the the original artists’ sketches, Ursula underwent countless makeovers before the animators settled on the version we know today.

Fun Fact #4

The Little Mermaid was originally never going to be made at all.  Walt Disney toyed with the idea of making The Little Mermaid into a movie in the 1930s, and even hired a famous Scandinavian artist to create heavily stylized artistic renderings of the Little Mermaid.  Ultimately Walt Disney abandoned the project because in Hans Christian Andersen’s original version, the Little Mermaid dies, and Disney felt it was too dark to be a successful family film.

Fun Fact #5

Before computer animation, elaborate hand-painted scenery had to be used to create special effects.  To create the illusion of depth in movies like Sleeping Beauty, the camera was mounted on scaffolding layered with painted glass panels.  The camera was lowered through the scaffolding layers as it filmed.  This technique was called the multi-plane camera, and it is how some of the forest scenes in Sleeping Beauty and Bambi were created.  Very few of these glass panels survive today, and those that do are stored individually on lined shelves at the ARL.  The Little Mermaid was one of the last films to use this technique, for King Triton’s castle.

Fun Fact #6

The Little Mermaid was the last Disney film to animate using the traditional hand-painted cels.  All animation now is completed on computers.  Animators will now draw a character or background, scan it into the computer, and manipulate it that way.  Creating a hand-drawn animated film like The Little Mermaid would take three to five years, and in the case of Sleeping Beauty, up to 16.

Fun Fact #7

Up to thirty drawings are shown per second on the screen in animated films.  In each drawing, the character changes position slightly, creating the illusion of movement.  According to Lella Smith, it has not been unusual for the ARL to receive a million pieces of art for one film.

Fun Fact #8

The animators rarely considered their drawings to be “art”?  For them, this is their job, part of a working process, and according to Fox Carney, Manager of Research at the Animation Research Library, drawings from movies over the decades, and even to this day, often have coffee cup stains on them.  Once the art is housed at the ARL, it is considered a piece of history, and even the artists who created it have to wear white gloves to handle it, in spite of any coffee stains on it.

Fun Fact #9

In the original version of Lady and the Tramp, Lady was not a cocker spaniel.  According to the early sketches we saw, she was a frisky mixed breed dog with long pointed ears and a pointed nose.  Similarly, Snow White started out looking like Betty Boop.  Animators discover their ideal version of a character through countless renderings.  This was especially true with Ariel and Ursula from the Little Mermaid.

Touring the ARL is an experience I will carry with me and treasure always.  It was the incredible opportunity to witness first-hand how some of the most beloved animated films of all time started with just a blank piece of paper that soon became filled with endless possibilities.