The Walt Disney Company

With a little help from Sphero and my dear old friend, Mike Talarico, whom works for Disney Feature Animation, I finally got the chance to visit The Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank - as well as a quick tour of the Roy E. Disney Animation Building.

For those who don't know, Disney Animation is the reason I wanted to be an artist from a very young age. As a child, my Grandmother, Mother, and Aunt would take my cousins and I to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves every year - it would show annually at a long-gone two-screen theater that once sat near Colfax and Wadsworth in Lakewood, Colorado. When I was about six or seven years old I saw a making-of film about Snow White. When I saw the animators making those frame sketches it hit me - people have to DRAW these cartoons! That was it.

Needless to say, Visiting Disney Feature Animation is a childhood dream come true for me, with roots deeper even than my visits to Pixar Animation Studios - which were absolutely thrilling as well, to be sure.

I'm a lucky guy with good pals. Here are some photos from the visit to Burbank...

Happy guy! 

The entry gate off of Alameda.

Team Disney - The Michael D. Eisner Building

 

Disney Legends statue in front of Team Disney

Handprints from four of Disney's Nine Old Men - legendary animators!

The original preserved Animation Building - no longer used for animation but rather other sorts of production. So much history in this structure. Gave me chills and a magical feeling.

 

And the original Ink & Paint Building right across the way!

Part of The Art of Disney Animation display inside the old Animation Building

Heading over to the new(er) Disney Feature Animation Building

The Roy E. Disney Animation Building - under renovation - but I got to see some of the inside...

And of course, in room A113, the office of John Lasseter himself