SNOW WHITE

AND
THE

SEVEN DWARFS

THE ART AND CREATION OF WALT DISNEYS CLASSIC ANIMATED FILM

Written by J. B. Kaufman

Foreword by Diane Disney Miller

SNOW WHITE

AND
THE

SEVEN DWARFS

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic

November 15, 2012April 14, 2013
The Walt Disney Family Museum
San Francisco, California

Contents
6 Our Museum Collection

164 A Musical Interlude

9 Collecting the Magic

184 Two Journeys

10 Celebrating Walts Genius

204 A Special Sort of Death

14 A Welcome Event

224 A Dream Comes True

28 Who Is the Fairest?

238 The Ten Best Pictures

38 Im Wishing

250 Glossary

62 Hide in the Woods!

252 Index

90 Just Like a Dolls House

254 Artists and Animators

106 Seven Little Men

255 Acknowledgments

140 Ive Been Tricked!

256 The Walt Disney Family Museum

Celebrating Walts Genius

Until Walt Disney released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, the world had

never seen a colorful, feature-length animated film with engaging characters and stunning
environments. The film marked a pivotal milestone in animation. Calling upon the
experience they gained from creating the early Disney animated shorts and the awardwinning Silly Symphonies, Walt Disney and his artists defined the artistic foundation
that would shape all subsequent animated films. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The
Creation of a Classic commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the films release, is
especially significant because it is the first special exhibition organized by The Walt
Disney Family Museum, which is dedicated to celebrating the genius of Walt Disney.
The exhibition art is drawn from the collections of The Walt Disney Family Museum,
the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, Andreas Deja, Dave Pacheco, and ardent
Snow White collector Steve Ison. Since the few nitrate cel setups that remain at the Walt
Disney Company are too fragile to travel, the Studios current ink and paint department
painted replica cels. Such challenges created serendipitous opportunities to use other
elements of animation to illustrate the storyline. The exquisitely drawn story sketches,
for example, quite marvelously reveal the evolving vision Walt and his artists had for the
film. Exhibition visitors will gain an understanding of the collaborative process that
produced a creative milestone in cinematic history.

Lella Smith
Creative Director
Walt Disney Animation Research Library

10

The Fairest One

Snow White Head Model Sheet

Photostat: print on paper

Snow White Model Sheet

Photostat: print on paper

By comparison with some of the sketches pictured on the

previous pages, the final design of Snow White was relatively
realisticalthough, of course, her proportions were quite
unlike those of an actual human being. The differences are
emphasized in the model sheet on the facing page, with its
comparative poses juxtaposing Snow White, on the right,
with rotoscoped tracings (see page 40) of her model,
Marjorie Belcher, on the left.

21

22

Fantasy in Depth
The opening sequence is one of the special scenes that made
use of the studios newly developed multiplane camera
crane. Animated scenes were usually filmed on a camera
table designed to hold the background painting and the
animation cels pressed tightly together, to ensure maximum
registration. The multiplane was, instead, a towering
structure that allowed the camera to shoot through widely
separated planes of animation and scenic elements, creating
a believable sense of perspective and depth. As the camera
moved through a forest toward a distant castle, the audience
was not looking at a flat painting but rather was drawn into
a convincing animated world.

The Disney camera department in the 1930s.

At right is a standard camera table; at left is
the multiplane.
Disney Studio Artist
Queens Castle on the Mountaintop
Concept art: graphite on paper

33

Im Wishing
Snow White, dressed in rags, scrubs the steps in the castle garden and dreams of romance.
Standing by a wishing well, she wishes aloud for the Prince of her dreamsand hears her
voice echoing back from the well, a sign that her wish will come true. And it does: the
Prince, riding past on horseback, is attracted by her lovely voice and enters the garden. He
declares his love for Snow White in song. But the Queen is listening too, and, consumed
with fury, she orders her Huntsman to take Snow White into the woods and kill her.

he garden sequence, which served to introduce Snow

White to the audience and depicted her first meeting
with the Prince, was one of the last sequences in the
picture to be developed and produced. Walt knew that
this would be one of the most difficult sequences in the
picture for his writers and artists to tackle, and
purposely delayed work on this section until his staff
had sharpened their skills and gained experience on
other, less demanding parts of the story.
Part of the challenge here was to determine the
tone of Snow Whites first meeting with the Prince.
Some early approaches to the sequence had depicted a
casual, bantering, flirtatious encounter, similar to those
in contemporary live-action romantic comedies. Walt
eventually discarded this idea in favor of a more
innocent, charming romantic scene. Even then, he and

the writers struggled to convey the necessary plot

information without an excess of spoken dialogue. The
simple, apparently effortless staging that audiences see
on the screen took months of painstaking effort,
analysis, and experimentation to create.
At one point in story development, the writers
suggested that Snow White, dreaming of romance,
might construct an imaginary scarecrow prince by
placing an inverted bucket atop a fencepost, addressing
this effigy as Prince Buckethead. The real Prince,
entering the garden unseen, would observe her charade,
and Snow White would be startled to hear the real
Princes voice apparently issuing from Prince Buckethead.
This idea was eventually discarded from the film, though
it later appeared in some comic and storybook versions
after the films release.

39

An important turning point in story development

was the idea of the wishing well, which in turn led to
Snow Whites song Im Wishing. These inspired
inventions made the sequence far more charming and
less dialogue-heavybut they were late developments,
introduced into the picture in the spring of 1937, after
months of story conferences had already taken place.
Of all the technical challenges in producing Snow
White, none was more daunting than creating human
characters who acted and moved in a convincing way.
Snow White, the Prince, and the Queen were never
intended to be strictly realistic characters, but they did
have to represent a fantasy element that was
recognizably grounded in reality, and they had to be
strong enough characters to carry a feature-length
storyand no animation studio had yet produced
human characters who could do that.
The Disney studio met this challenge by filming
live-action reference footage of actors cast in these
roles. The model for most of Snow Whites scenes was
a young girl, Marjorie Belcher, daughter of a local
dance instructor, who would become familiar to later
audiences as part of the dance team Marge and Gower
Champion. Under the direction of animators and
sequence directors, she played Snow Whites scenes on
the studio sound stage while a cameraman filmed her
actions. Frames from this footage were then enlarged
and traced onto animation paper by use of a rotoscope.
Max Fleischer had invented the rotoscope in 1915, and

40

Fleischers studio had used it in creating Out of the

Inkwell cartoons. In the Fleischer films, audiences saw
a clown perform with uncannily lifelike movements,
his actions literally traced from reality.
Two decades later, the Disney studio used the
rotoscope in a different way: the tracings did not appear
in the film, but served as guides. After studying them,
the animators could start afresh, constructing a wholly
original animated performance for Snow White. They
could consult the tracings for technical details: the turn
of an ankle, the lift of an arm, the movement of a skirt.
As production proceeded, the studio abandoned the
rotoscope in favor of a less labor-intensive device, the
photostat machine, which was used to enlarge and
copy the frames of live-action footage. The artists
worked with individual photostats as they had with the
rotoscope tracings. This procedure was in place by the
time the garden sequence was produced.
Thanks to the technical support of the live-action
reference footage, Snow White avoided problems that
had plagued human characters in earlier cartoons: her
actions were convincing and lifelike, but without the
eerie stilted quality of raw rotoscope tracings. Snow
White herself, in terms of design, is anything but
realistic; her body proportions are not those of an actual
human being, and her performance is conceived in terms
of her personality, like that of other animated characters.
But her walking, dancing, and other movements have
the weight of human authenticity.

Live-Action
Reference
The images on these pages illustrate the use of live-action
reference as an aid to the animators. On the opposite page,
Marjorie Belcher is filmed on a studio sound stage, playing
one of Snow Whites scenes while standing at a prop well.
Her actions are synchronized to the song Im Wishing.
This image was one of dozens of photostats from this scene,
blown up from frames of 16mm film so that the artists
could study minute stages of the girls movement.
On this page, the photostats are translated into three
drawings that demonstrate steps in the animation process.
At top, animator Jack Campbell, after studying the live
action, produced one of a series of character animation
drawings of Snow White playing the scene. In the center,
the rope, pulley, and bucket were drawn separately by effects
animator Sanford Sandy Strother. At the bottom, both
elements were combined in a single animation drawing.
These ruff pencil drawings were cleaned up, then traced in
ink on cels. Painted in color, the cels were combined with
the background painting and photographed to produce the
finished scene.

Jack Campbell (character animation),

Sanford Strother (effects animation)
Snow White Pulls Bucket Up from the Well
Top: Cleanup animation
Center: Effects animation
Bottom: Ruff animation drawing
All images: graphite and colored pencil on paper

47

50

Joe Grant
Seated Queen
Concept art: charcoal and
pastel on paper

59

The Huntsman

In the Grimms story, the Huntsman was only a minor

character. Some later stage versions had greatly expanded his
role in the plot, and this influenced early concepts for the
Disney film. During story conferences, the writers considered
giving him a nameHumbert was a strong contender
and possibly making him a sadistic character, one who
actually relished the idea of killing Snow White.

66

Disney Studio Artist

Early Huntsman Sketch
Concept art: graphite and colored
pencil on paper

Character Design

110

As the dwarfs appearances became better established, the

lead animators defined their facial features in meticulous
detail for the benefit of assistants and cleanup artists. With
hundreds of people drawing the same characters, it was
important to maintain consistency, even to fine points of
color shading, eyelids, and eyelashes.

Disney Studio Artist

Color Model Sheet of Dwarfs
Photostat: print on paper with
colored pencil highlights

113

Heigh-Ho!

Like their house, the dwarfs workplace is filled with handcarved objects. This ingenious little clock, carved in the side
of a tree, announces the end of the dwarfs workday. To strike
the hour, little figures emerge from the doors and strike tiny
hammers against a tiny anvil. The figures and the clocks
minute hand were animated on cels; note that the hour hand,
which remains stationary throughout the scene, can be
painted directly on this background painting.

Disney Studio Artist

Tree Clock Strikes 5:00 P.M.
Cleanup layout drawing with
layout slip: graphite and colored
pencil on paper

At one point late in 1936, the mine sequence was discarded

from Snow White altogether, a casualty of the films
overabundance of gag and story material. With that sequence
missing, the dwarfs first appearance came as they marched
home, singing Heigh-Ho. Then, late in the summer of
1937, a shortened version of the mine sequence was restored
to the picture.

117

122

Dopeys Adventure Upstairs

124

Homer Brightman
Dopey Searches the Premises
Story sketch gags: graphite and colored
pencil on paper

During the 1930s, in producing the Mickey Mouse and Silly

Symphony shorts, the studio had developed a standard
practice: each films story outline would be circulated
throughout the studio and all personnel invited to submit
gags or story situations. Anyone whose ideas were used in the
film would qualify for a bonus. The invariable result was a
wealth of story material from the entire studio staff, from

which the story department could select the best ideas.

The same practice was followed on Snow White, and some
sequences, including Spooks, elicited such a flood of ideas
that only a fraction of them could be used. One of the
unused ideas can be seen on page 122; another, on these
pages, is a complicated series of Dopey gags suggested by
story stalwart Homer Brightman.

125

Disney Studio Artist

Dwarfs Kitchen with Pie Dough
Background painting: watercolor on paper

197

Why Dont We Make Her a Bed?

On these two pages are sketches from the Bed-Building

sequence, which was filled with slapstick gags as the dwarfs
enthusiastically plunged into their task. Ever ingenious, they
selected four strategically placed trees in the forest and used
the trunks as bedposts, constructing the bed between them.
Here Dopey trims the excess branches from one of the
bedposts, but overlooks an important detail.

202

Disney Studio Artist

Dopey Chopping Down a Branch
(Out of Picture)
Story sketch: graphite and colored
pencil on paper

Joe Grant
Witch Bringing the Poison Apple to Snow White
Story sketch: mixed media on paper

208

Disney Studio Artist

Snow White on Bier, Dwarfs
Around Her Grieving
Story sketch: graphite and
colored pencil on paper

228

Jack Campbell
Happy Ending, the Prince Lifts
Snow White onto a Horse
Cleanup animation drawing: graphite
and colored pencil on paper

235

Artists and Animators

SAM ARMSTRONG As one of the mainstays

of the background department, Armstrong

painted many of the backgrounds but was also
charged with supervising the color styling of
the entire picture.

ART BABBITT An artist who combined a

volatile temperament with a prodigious talent,

Babbitt animated the wicked Queen before her
transformationno easy taskand also did
some dwarf animation.

NORM FERGUSON Along with Luske, Moore,

and Tytla, he was one of the studios Big
Four animators during the 1930s.Fergusons
versatility is evident in his assignments:
previously he had specialized in Pluto and the
Big Bad Wolf; here he animated the Queen
after she transforms herself into the witch.

JOE GRANT Credited for character design,

Grant was equally important as a member
of the story team. He had worked on some
of the most brilliant Silly Symphonies and
contributed key ideas to Snow White.

ALBERT HURTER Also credited for character

design, Hurter contributed to the settings

as well. His European sensibility influenced
the films designand was responsible
for much of its charming Old World
atmosphere.

HAM LUSKE Second only to Walt in

establishing the heroines design and

determining her personality, Luske then
maintained a tight level of control over
her scenes, doing some of the animation
himself and closely supervising a unit of
animators who were assigned other scenes.

FRED MOORE A naturally gifted animator

and the studios resident specialist in cute

characters. He was one of the two artists
who established the look and personalities
of the dwarfs, and set the standard for their
animation. His touch is especially evident
in Dopey.

PRODUCTION

President, CEO Terry Newell

VP, Sales and New Business Development
Amy Kaneko
VP, Publisher Roger Shaw

Executive Editor Mariah Bear

Published by The Walt Disney Family Foundation
Press, LLC.
104 Montgomery Street in the Presidio
San Francisco, CA 94129

No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
by any information storage and retrieval system,
or by any other means, without written permission
from the publisher.

254

Project Editor Elizabeth Dougherty,

Emelie Griffin
Editor Katharine Moore

Creative Director Kelly Booth

Art Director Marisa Kwek
Designer Michel Gadwa

Production Director Chris Hemesath

Production Manager Michelle Duggan

Weldon Owen is a division of
www.weldonowen.com

All rights reserved, including the right of

reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

GRIM NATWICK Recruited for the feature

because of his knowledge of anatomy and

his well-known knack for animating female
characters, Natwick headed the secondary
Snow White unit.

CHARLES PHILIPPI The top-billed layout

artist on the picture, Philippi served as a

problem-solver on other artists sequences
as well as supervising his own.

BOB STOKES Not usually mentioned

in connection with Snow White, but a

strikingly versatile animator who came in
on short notice and produced key scenes
of both Snow White and the Queenand
held his own with the master animators.

BILL TYTLA One of the two dwarf specialists,

the other being Fred Moore. Tytla was
known for (among other things) his
animation of forceful, powerful characters,
and not surprisingly made a major impact
on the animation of Grumpy.

2012 The Walt Disney Family Foundation Press,

LLC.
The Walt Disney Family Foundation Press is
not affiliated with The Walt Disney Company or
Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Academy Award and Oscar are registered

trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences.
Library of Congress Control Number on file with
the publisher
ISBN 13: 978-1-61628-437-4
ISBN 10: 1-61628-437-4
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2014 2013 2012

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