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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."

21 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. disney does for dali by Frymaster · · Score: 4, Funny
    disney can now do for dali what it did for the hunchback of notre dame!

    i can barely wait for the action figures...

    1. Re:disney does for dali by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you had a Dali action figure, would you know it?

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  2. Notable ? by Animaether · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.
    1. Re:Notable ? by shadowcabbit · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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?)

      --
      "Why Subscribe?" Good question...
    2. Re:Notable ? by mskfisher · · Score: 4, Interesting
      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."
      --
      0x0D 0x0A
  3. Sounds Like They Did It Right by the+darn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas un post.
  4. Re:Who? by Thjorska · · Score: 5, Funny

    the dude who painted the melting clocks.

    If you ever have the urge to sum up an artist's work in one sentence again... don't.
    --
    Current Karma Status: Roadkill
  5. Re:Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus by Shorty+Lugnuts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  6. One of Fantasia's Successors by Mr.+Fusion · · Score: 5, Informative
    With all the cutbacks and bad decisions Disney's made these past few years, it nice to see they've resurrected a gem of an idea like this one.

    So what happened originally you ask? Here's an excerpt from The Straight Dope:

    • Destino's fate is shrouded in as much mystery as its beginning. Disney and Dali, by mutual agreement, abandoned the project in 1947 after numerous storyboards and a 17 second test reel were completed. Hench said Disney felt the market for omnibus features had evaporated. Others privately felt that Dali's more extreme style and ideas may have been too much for Disney's midwestern sensibilities. After work on the short was shelved, much of the artwork was stolen from the studio and eventually showed up on the New York art market. Dali and Disney, however, remained good friends afterwards and continued to visit in each other's home countries.

    For more related articles, here are some great links too:

    -Mr. Fusion

  7. There's more on this in Wired Magazine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This month's issue has several images from the movie, along with a photo of Dali and Disney together during the collaboration.

  8. Do they slice a cow's eye open? by SpaceRook · · Score: 4, Funny

    That would be cool.

    1. Re:Do they slice a cow's eye open? by SoTuA · · Score: 4, Funny

      Did that in high school. Wasn't as cool as it was hyped to be.

      Now, slicing open *a whole rat*, now that's entertainment!

  9. It screened at Telluride by gessel · · Score: 5, Informative

    It really was worth the hype. Disney himself (grandson of the Walt) introduced it, and was justifiably proud of it. It's being introduced to compete for an Oscar. The joke was "imagine having your animated short up against Salvador Dali and Walt Disney."

    Anyway, it's a surprisingly effective melding of Dali imagery and Disney animation. The animator at Disney who had done the original work is still alive and still working at Disney, and worked to finish the movie, and the original soundtrack was restored for it.

    It's short, but if there's a screening, it's worth going just to see it. There's so much detail that the video transfer will be meaningfully less.

  10. Re:Who? by SanLouBlues · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:Dali Rocks!!! by mcpkaaos · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hate to burst your modern, surrealistic bubble, but Dali's inspirations came from his dreams, not from drugs. Taking acid to obtain Dali's inspiration is like kicking yourself in the nuts to get as pissed off as George Carlin.

    --
    It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
  12. Some Kind of Record by Esion+Modnar · · Score: 4, Funny
    I mean, 57 years to produce 6 minutes of film.

    That's like a minute per decade, almost.

    --

    They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
  13. Re:Who? by wfberg · · Score: 4, Funny

    the dude who painted the melting clocks.

    If you ever have the urge to sum up an artist's work in one sentence again... don't.


    Pop-quiz!

    The dude who splashed paint on canvas spread on the groud.
    The dude who cut off his ear and painted sunflowers.
    The dude who started off those dotty paintings.
    The dude who made that picture of a pipe that says it isn't a pipe.
    The dude who wrote Romeo & Juliet.
    The dude who wrote those books where he was going on and on about all the stuff he was thinking and doing and you couldn't figure out what was fact and what was fiction the grammar didn't work out anyway pretty damn boring book that was.
    The dude who cuts animals in half and suspends them in formaldehyde.
    The gal who made an exposition out of her own dirty bed.
    The dude who painted a can of soup.
    The dude who composed the Ring.
    No, not that other dude who wrote about the Ring.
    The dude who wrote that book and then all those Arabs went medieval on him, only he hid.
    The dude who wraps buildings up like a parcel (and his wife, too).
    The dude who directed E.T.
    The gal who made those nazi films that died the other day.
    The dude who poured lighter fluid over his guitar and burnt it on stage.
    The dude who wrote the book about killing lots of people while using lots of snobby eighties brands.
    The dude who was in that black&white film where the front of a house falls over, but he's standing where the window comes down and there's no glass in it.
    The gal who sings about wanting a Mercedes Benz.

    --
    SCO employee? Check out the bounty
  14. Re:Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    He also made some scuplture, some music, and a deck of terot cards

    He even made a cook book. Serously.

    Here: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/8013/dali/da li.htm

  15. Re:Disney Does Dali by ahoehn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
  16. Re:"teamed up" = Disney alone owns the copyright by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, who cares? Dali and Disney are both dead. The people that should get paid are the ones that did something to this artwork recently.

    Yeah, I'm one of those 14-year copyright wackos. Feel free to ignore.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  17. Re:Dali Rocks!!! by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 4, Informative

    "I don't do drugs; I am drugs."
    Salvador Dali

    And he was right.

    Turn it on, Salvador!

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.