Sunday, July 20, 2014

Meeting Walt Disney

By Keith Mahne



This is one of my absolute favorite Walt Disney videos... and he is only in it for 14 seconds. The music in the video as well as seeing Walt in his park just pulls at the heart-strings. The video was shot in 1956, just one year after Disneyland opened. Walt's appearance in the film is short and sweet but powerful; at least in my opinion. Continue after the page break and have a look...




From the video description:

"Shot by my grandfather on his Bell & Howell Filmo using 16mm Kodachrome film stock. This footage was taken a year after the California theme park opened.

It was quite a surprise going through this and seeing my grandmother meeting Walt Disney himself! I've been doing my best to find out what they were shooting at the front of the park. So far I've been unsuccessful.

Transferred to HD (1080PsF 23.98) by myself off a Spirit and Color Corrected using a da Vinci 2k Plus. Slowed to 18fps to match the original film speed."


What did you think? Could you imagine going through old family videos and seeing your grandmother actually meeting Walt himself?!? I swear I watched the part with Walt a hundred times as I see a man who is just taking a few minutes between filming to enjoy his creation. The fact that this was filmed in the 50's, features Walt relaxing in his "Happy Place", knowing that it's pure, unedited footage of a GREAT man just being himself, and the music just makes the video so touching. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

1 comment:

  1. Very, very cool. That's really neat to see a relative meet Walt in person. That's a story 99.99% of us wish we could tell.

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