A Q&A with Floyd Norman, the film’s subject, will follow. The following is an excerpt from a blog post on Norman’s site, Mr.Fun’s Journal.
“When a group of young artists arrived at the Walt Disney Studios back in 1956 we wandered the offices, hallways and story rooms soaking up everything we could. Finally we had access to the work of the Disney Masters and we were determined to learn everything we could. Did we steal from them? You’re damn right we did. We wanted to draw like them, we wanted to paint like them. We wanted to BE them. Not surprisingly, young artists would check the wastebaskets in the evening looking for Milt Kahl sketches or the paintings of Eyvind Earle. On occasion, a background artist would discard a painting and toss it into the trash bin. You can bet there was an aspiring background artist who couldn’t wait to get his or her hands on this remarkable painting. After all, this is what young artists do. This is how we learn. As a young story artist I roamed the upstairs story rooms in a attempt to soak up everything I could from the old Disney storytellers. I studied the storyboards of Al Bertino, Milt Banta, Joe Rinaldi and Bill Peet. I wanted to know how these guys thought. I wanted to know how these guys drew. I, along with my colleagues attempted to ‘steal’ everything we could find from these Disney Masters.”
