Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes

Don Hahn produced some of the most successful animated films of all time, including Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar®. Three of his films, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. are now on the Library of Congress collection as culturally, historically and esthetically significant. Don’s films include Disney’s Maleficent, Frankenweenie, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantis, and Emperor’s New Groove. He was a founder and executive producer of the acclaimed Disneynature Films, executive produced the PBS American Masters documentary Tyrus about Disney Legend Tyrus Wong, and has directed the acclaimed documentaries Waking Sleeping Beauty, and Howard featured on Disney+. He has authored many books on animation, guest lectures at Microsoft, Deloitte, Apple, and is on the advisory board of the Walt Disney Family Museum and a former trustee of PBS SoCal. He holds two Academy Award nominations, two Emmy nominations, two Golden Globes for Best Picture, two Honorary Doctorate degrees, and in 2022 he was named a Disney Legend for his extraordinary contributions to The Walt Disney Company.

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Innovation

1. Review and New Approach

2. Artist/Actor

3. Don’t Be Ordinary

4. Sketcher

5. Plus or Minus

6. Mood Symbols

7. Breaking the Constraint Barrier

8. The Agony and the Ecstasy

9. Making All Parts Work Together to Shape a Gesture

10. Forces (Energy, Animation, Power, Vim, Vigor, and Vitality)

11. Pure Performance

12. Different Concepts

13. A Time for This and a Time for That

14. Look to This Day

15. Entertainment

16. Follow-Up Department

17. Entertainment II

18. Playing to the Balcony

Drawing

19. A Sack of Flour

20. Pantomime (Drawing) Preparation

21. That Darned Neck

22. Crayolas?

23. Hands (Those Darned?)

24. Plight of a Gesture

25. Concepts for Drawing

26. Drawing Appropriate Gestures for Your Characters

27. Drawings Ain’t Just Drawing

28. The Importance of Sketching

29. Getting Emotionally Involved

30. Gesture Further Pursued

31. Caricature

32. Perspective

33. Have Something to Say and Keep It Simple

34. Keeping Flexibility in Your Drawing

35. Seeing and Drawing the Figure in Space

36. Don’t Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Good Drawing

37. Hey, Look at Me … Look at Me!

38. Learn From the Mistakes of Others

39. Quest and Fulfillment

40. Getting Adjusted to New Production

41. More Animal Talk

42. In Further Praise of Quick Sketching

43. Impression – Expression = Depression

Expression

44. Drawing a Clear Portrayal of Your Idea

45. Think Caricature

46. Going Into That World!

47. Understanding What You See

48. An Inspirational Journey

49. Comic Relief

50. If It Needs to Lean, Then Lean It

51. Don’t Tell, But Show!

52. Mainly Mental

53. The Shape of a Gesture

54. Dreams Impossible to Resist

55. Short Book on Drawing

56. Encompassing Reality with All Your Senses

57. Gestures, Moons, and Tangents

58. Include Your Audience

59. The Wonders of the Right and Left Hemispheres

60. Making the Rules of Perspective Come to Life

61. In Further Praise of the Rules of Perspective

62. There Is No End to Thinking Overlap

63. Space is Created

64. Words and Experience

65. Look, This Is What I Saw

66. Breaking Away

67. The Shape of the Gesture II

68. A Tribute

Afterword/Bonus Material

Credits