Disney Completes Dali Animation

jbottero writes "Wired News has an interesting piece on a Salvador Dali animation coming out of Disney Studios. It seems that in 1946, Walt Disney and Dali teamed up on a short film called Destino. The film was shelved for money reason, and now, 57 years later, Disney animators has finished what Dali started. The six minute film will be shown in theaters next year before a Disney feature film. The remnants of the aborted film include 150 storyboards, drawings and paintings, which have sat for the last half-century in the Disney vaults. Notably, some of the project was modeled on the animation program Maya. An interesting quote from the article, Dali describes Walt Disney as one of America's greatest surrealists."

Comments

Dali Rocks!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

As Dali was the greatest painter in the last 100 years, I'm very excited to see this, but who did the completion? Modern surreallism tends to be dull and played out, and Dinosaurs was probably not very mind boggling.

I hope they did large amounts of acid to try and get the same inspriation that Dali had.

Re:Dali Rocks!!!

[DrLudicrous]

I'd say that is debatable. One of the greatest, yes, the greatest, no. I'd give that to Picasso, whose most famous periods of painting were almost exactly 100 years ago.

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide did not exist until 1938- most of Disney's best stuff predates this, or came just after it (think Fantasia, 1940). I am of the opinion that Disney's animators were definitely fungally-enhanced when they did Fantasia. Dancing mushrooms?

Re:Dali Rocks!!!

[eclectro]

I wouldn't even go that far. Dali had a few unique paintings and drawings, then things slid downhill. A case study in dysfunctionality.

I wouldn't call him one of the "greatest". I would however call him one of the most famous. Famous should not be equated with greatness.

There's a couple of interesting books out about him.

The Great Dali Art Fraud and other Deceptions Out of print, get it through a library. Covers art scams that he was involved in. Evidently he would hire himself out to sign blank sheets of paper all night long before anything was printed on them.

The result is that there are countless reproductions hanging in galleries purportedly "signed" by Dali with high prices on them. Many of them are of very low quality (and I'm not even an art expert and I can tell it). People still buy them at these high prices because he is "famous", though I doubt their worth is even a fraction of what people pay. If you have seen his scribble signature it's obvious that he signed things at a high speed and with little care. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that he is still signing prints even though he has been dead since 1989.

There's also The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali.

There are two things I know. Never buy a "Corot" painting, and never buy a signed "Dali".

However, I can whole heartedly reccomend the Dalimix unisex cologne. It has a clean fresh scent that I think is better than Ck1, and you might be able to find it at Big Lots for $9.99

Notable ?

[Animaether]

Notably, some of the project was modeled on the animation program Maya

And this is notable, why ?
Maya has been a mainstay for movie production involving 3D elements for a long time now. Or is this supposed to conjure images of Maya-on-Linux and thus make it relevant to Slashdot somehow ?

This isn't any more notable than a CGI team doing shots for CSI using Bipeds from Character Studio ( 3ds max plugin ) for one of those tacky sticks-in-bullets-holes-tell-us-where-the-bullets- went animations.

Effects houses will use the software that gets the job done, and hardly ever is the choice "notable".

Just my 2cts on -that- topic.

Disney completing a shelved project like this, for a 6-minute short, on the other hand, is more interesting.

Re:Notable ?

[shadowcabbit]

It's notable because now thousands of geeks are going to flock to the theater to see whether or not they can tell which bits were done in 1946 and which were done on Maya in 2003.

Seriously, though, the fact that an unfinished project using 20th century technology was completed almost 60 years later using 21st century technology, and supposedly it's going to look completely seamless-- I'd call that remarkable.

(On a related note, is it just me, or does the phrase "20th century technology" still not evoke the feeling of "whoa, that's old" as it should?)

Re:Notable ?

[mskfisher]

It's notable because they took the original ideas from the 1940s and were able to render them much more easily with the tools we have available today.

If the film had been completed in the 1940s or '50s, it would've been more difficult (or at least time-consuming) to get the perspectives correct. As the article says:

"It makes perfect sense that Disney used computer technology to do the 360-degree turns and to make some of the images seem more dimensional than they might in a 2-D cartoon," said [Leonard] Maltin, whose books include Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. "Dali's work was always very dimensional, and he was keenly interested in playing with perspective."

Sounds Like They Did It Right

[the darn]

I always cringe when Disney takes one of their early artistic works (back when it at least seemed like someone cared what made it to the screen)and trots it out all "modernized" or worse, sequelized. In this instance, at least from what I can gather, they've produced something with artistic merit. I saw sketches and such of this project on the Fantasia Legacy DVD, and immediately was impressed by the bizarre vision it presented. Noone today would consider Disney avant garde...but it (well, more like HE) really was back in the day. I'm glad to see this innovative idea finally come to fruition. One can only hope that it might serve as a wake-up call as to the potential of animation as art, instead of just babysitting-fodder.

"teamed up" = Disney alone owns the copyright

[kaltkalt]

somehow I have the feeling that even though the original work had multiple authors (disney, dali), this "finished" version will be entirely disney's and not a cent will go to the Dali estate. Mickey just wouldn't have it any other way. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Re:Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus

[Shorty Lugnuts]

When this DVD does finally arrive, I hope it includes the original 15 seconds of this test reel they have. It would be nice to see the original work before any CG enhancement.

Re:Who?

[SanLouBlues]

Well, I am a Dali superfan and I can say that he was without a doubt one of the best painters of all time. Only Escher's optical illusions are comprable to Dali's, but Escher did mostly works based on geometry, while Dali worked more with raw creativity. Every one of his paintings has a double image, and in several there are multiple ways to percieve what you're seeing. Not to mention the paintings are on par with classical masters such as Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Van Eyk, which no other painter has achieved in modern times. He is sort of similar to Kandinsky, both wanted to show what was inside of minds, but partially thanks to the drugs and the boundless talent, Dali's haullicinations stayed away from complete abstractionism.

I've also heard that he made a bunch of live action movies too, but I've never seen any.

Re:"one of America's greatest surrealists?"

[WTFmonkey]

Jimi Hendrix. Hunter Thompson. Not visual art, but what the hell.

Destino

[Anonymous Coward]

"Destino"
What could happen if the minds of genius like Walt Disney and Salvador Dali produced an amazing piece of art to be seen in the big screen? The answer is the never-completed animated short "Destino".
Work, in the form of original concept drawings, as well as 18 seconds of animation, done by Salvador Dali in 1946 at the Disney studio , is being dusted off by Disney vice chairman Roy E. Disney and will be completed as an art house cartoon by the Disney studio - well, at least according to the London Sunday Times a couple of years ago. "I am going to finish the work of Salvador Dali", Disney told the newspaper. "At Disney, we need to recover our history." The production will be supervised by Disney, who is a son of Roy Disney (Walt Disney's brother), and John Hench, now a senior vice-president at Disney, who worked with Dali as his assistant in 1946. According to the Times, Dali blamed the failure to finish the film on labor strikes that hit the movie industry at the time. However John Canemaker, in Before The Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists, quotes Walt Disney as saying, "Jesus Christ! $70,000 down the drain", in response to Dali's very un-Disneyesque work. Canemaker's new book, Paper Dreams, includes a photo showing Dali at work on the project.

But some people were lucky to see these 18 seconds of animation in June 2002 durring the exibit "Rescued Treasures: Restored Films from American Archives and Studios" presented by heas of restoration Scott MacQueen showing amazing restorations and rare gems from the arquives of Walt Disney. The neraly unseen "Destino" was followed by another great work of colaboration (Hitchcock/Dali) in "Spellbound". This special screening was held at the American Museum of Moving Image.

We don't get confirmation or another new info in the status of this production of "Destino", but you can read a full-lengh article below with the story of this proposed project based on my extensive research (including some info from the great Christopher Jones article for The Boston Globe and the book "Paper Dreams" written by John Canemaker). The article is written in portuguese but there is some new treats - three new amazing drawings and paintings of "Destino". Enjoy!

un chien andalou

[Phoenix Dreamscape]

For those of you who don't know, Dali has a small history in film: IMDB's profile. They also have a wonderful picture of him.

Most notable of those is Un Chien Andalou that he did with the somewhat famous director Luis Bunuel. It's only a few minutes long and it makes *NO* sense at all, but it's very fun to watch.

Copyright 2060(C)

[asbestos_lead]

So when will this film become public domain?

similiar: Tortoise and Hare by Harryhausen

[claud9999]

Note that Harryhausen and some animators are going to complete one of Harryhausen's very early works. Thought that might also be of interest, as it's an animation work that will be completed many years after it began.

Some of the interviews with Harryhausen on (I think) the Jason and the Argonauts mention this as well. (But searching /. does not have any mention of it.)

Details: http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/ThisMonth/Artic le/0,,28065%7C28067%7C28069,00.html

Re:disney does for dali

[blibbleblobble]

"disney can now do for dali what it did for the hunchback of notre dame!"

Don't care, I'm not doing business with any company which has fucked up US copyright law as badly as Disney has.

Re:Disney Does Dali

[ahoehn]

Actually: I was at Dali Universe in London last weekend, and realized how much of Dali's work contains adult themes; and by adult themes I don't mean balancing checkbooks. I would say that a good third of the works I saw at the exhibition had overt sexual themes. I'll be interested to see what Dali without the sex looks like in a Disney cartoon.
Of course this goes well with Disney's tradition of subtley showing phalluses to children.

SOMEWHAT famous?

[chochos]

Some would say Buuel is the greatest surrealist filmmaker ever...

The story makes no sense. The images make some sense. It was a critique/homage to Federico Garcia Lorca, a gay writer that was part of their group (the surrealists in Europe in the 1930's). Garcia Lorca was an Andalucian, Buuel called him the andalucian dog. He wrote a poem to Dali that was the inspiration for the eye-slashing scene. There is also a critique in that movie, to the writer Juan Ramon Jimenez: the rotten donkey on the piano is a reference to Platero y yo, Jimenez's masterpiece (a story about a donkey and a boy).

Dali himself appears briefly in the movie, he's one of the priests being dragged along with the piano and the rotten donkey. Buuel also appears, he's the man who slashes the girl's eye.

Surreal Disney

[Jack William Bell]

. . . Dali describes Walt Disney as one of America's greatest surrealists.

Disney is dead, watch your overcoat.

Spellbound

[gidds]

Some more of Dali's 'lost' work that I'd like to see is the dream sequence in Hitchcock's film Spellbound. A short sequence made it into the final film, but it was originally planned to be 20 minutes long; some of the filmed-but-cut material sounds fascinating.

None of the bits were done in 1946

[Galvatron]

From the article: "...the remaining paintings, sketches and storyboards, along with 15 seconds of a test reel, were enough source material for director Dominique Monfery and his team of 25 Disney animators, based in Paris."

It sounds to me like they basically just took the outline that had been created, and made a completely new animation. I don't think that anything on screen will be from the 40's, but the storyboards and whatnot will have guided the 00's animators.

perspective drawings in 40's animation

[e7]

I remember reading about the Disney company's first (?) use of CG, in The Black Cauldron. There was a shot where the characters step into a rowboat and it was supposed to bob up and down, but when the animators tried to hand-draw the boat, it deformed like it was made out of rubber. So ... the hundreds of perspective drawings required by the Dali short would have been just horrendous, if not impossible.

Re:Disney Does Dali

[sevenofnine]

Dali was one big walking hardon....
Im sure most people only knows the oil paintings he made like the clocks and elephants...
But most of his work was hand drawings and let me tell you, they where not for the faint of heart.

There was an exibition last summer here in finland with about 100 of them. 99 of them included atleast breasts or female geneterial (SP?)...

Re:Disney Does Dali

[Jon Abbott]

I'll be interested to see what Dali without the sex looks like in a Disney cartoon.

Being that Disney owns Miramax (the company that makes films that generally use the word "fuck" more times than the word "the"), perhaps they will put Destino at the beginning of one of those films...

I've been to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL, and while there are a lot of pieces where adult themes are tossed about, there are plenty of pieces that aren't... If you get to visit the St. Pete museum sometime in the future, be sure to check out The Hallucinogenic Toreador -- it's a huge oil painting that has more subtle meanings than I've ever seen in a painting (by any artist). Sadly the online version does not do it any justice...