With the a his new book available now for purchase, Pixar’s Pete Docter took to D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event with fellow author Don Peri for a look at the evolution of Directing at Disney: The Original Directors of Walt’s Animated Films.

Here’s a look at everything we learned at the at the Directing at Disney panel at the 2024 D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event.

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What We Learned

  • Panelists included Pixar Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter, and author Don Peri who gathered for an intimate chat (with a few hundred fans) to talk about Pete’s new book; Directing at Disney: The Original Directors of Walt’s Animated Films. Please note that links to the book on this page are affiliate links which means we may get a commission from any purchases you make.
  • Before becoming the fan-favorite director of films such as director of MONSTERS, INC.< UP, INSIDE OUT, and SOULf, Docter started as Pixar’s third animator in 1990 helping flesh out story and characters for TOY STORY. He’s been involved with just about every title from the house of Lamp since and currently oversees the entire creative slate.
  • Peri proved to be an invaluable contributor to the project for Docter as a Disney historian and author of existing books including Working With Walt and Working With Disney and the co-author of Walt Disney’s First Lady of Imagineering: Harriet Burns and now Directing at Disney: The Original Directors of Walt’s Animated Films

  • From starting at Pixar in its literal earliest days, Docter saw a lot of similarities in the path of the fledgling computer animation studio with what he saw looking back at the early days of the Walt Disney Studio. He shared some diagrams from his new book featuring the organizational layout of how animated films were made from the earliest days in the 1920s up through the 1940s where the idea of a singular “director” was really firmly engrained. Surprisingly, it wasn’t always an obvious workflow to have a director in charge of the entire feature. To an extent that was basically Walt in the early days but as the complexities of his features (and his own company) began to grow, it became clear that having a dedicated person helming the ship was vital to creating a good story.

  • Docter shared that Walt soon realized that the best way to get best possible product isn’t to have really strong people who are good at everything but to have very specialized teams that are each masters in their own categories.
  • The panel also shared some of the less-often recited names of people who were influential for directing some of the earliest titles at Disney including Wilfred Jackson, Clyde Geronimi, and Dave Hand along with several other people along the way in various supporting capacities.
  • With someone like Pete Docter attached, you know that this is a nerd’s nerdy tome and it should prove to be a crucial inclusion for fans of filmmaking and especially of Disney history.

Photos

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See it for Yourself

D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event took place in Anaheim from August 9 – 11, 2024. 

MORE INFO: Check out all of our coverage for D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event at MouseInfo.com/D23

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