a story lives forever
Register
Sign in
Form submission failed!

Stay signed in

Recover your password?
Register
Form submission failed!

Web of Stories Ltd would like to keep you informed about our products and services.

Please tick here if you would like us to keep you informed about our products and services.

I have read and accepted the Terms & Conditions.

Please note: Your email and any private information provided at registration will not be passed on to other individuals or organisations without your specific approval.

Video URL

You must be registered to use this feature. Sign in or register.

NEXT STORY

Work on 'Bambi': movement and color

RELATED STORIES

Walt Disney and the ostriches waking
Jules Engel Film-maker
Comments (0) Please sign in or register to add comments

I looked at the man as somebody who had an enormous talent and that's very private talent, it's not spread around. But he had that. He didn't flaunt it. He never did that. It was simply, he explained why things don't work. And I listened to him, I heard him and he was right. Because he had a way of thinking and that wasn't your way of thinking, that was his private domain. And that domain, no-one could press or push or shove. And from that domain he was teaching you. You gained by his… when he looked at the ostriches, for instance, in that number and they were asleep, you know? They were all curled up. And slowly, they came up, you know? And it was so clumsy, so ugly, that he told them, 'How would you behave if you're asleep'? You know? You would put his head down, you would come out of that, you make a [sound]  with your mouth, you know? He went through a whole thing: what an ostrich can do, how he or she would behave, you know? How much you could get from it. So he was teaching them at the same time and he was not even aware that that's what he's doing. It wasn't just a question of helping. No, he was teaching them. They knew from nothing. They could draw, but when it comes to this aspect of it, which is timing, and put this other stuff out in front of the world, they didn't have the touch. What gave them that touch? So to a large degree he was teaching them. He was not aware that he was teaching them, but that's what he was doing, yeah.

The late Hungarian-American film-maker Jules Engel is best known for his contribution to the field of animation. His work includes the dance sequences in Walt Disney's 'Fantasia' and the creation of 'Mr Magoo'. His films and lithographs are housed in museums all over the world and have won many awards.

Listeners: Tamara Tracz Bill Moritz

Tamara Tracz is a writer and filmmaker based in London.

William Moritz received his doctorate from USC and pursues parallel careers as filmmaker and writer. His forty-four experimental and animation films have been screened at museums in Paris, Amsterdam and Tokyo, among others. He published widely on Oskar Fischinger, James Whitney, Bruce Conner, the Fleischers and 200 pages of animation history for an AbsolutVodka website. He wrote chapters for the "Oxford History of Cinema", appeared in several television documentaries, curated art exhibits and received a lifetime achievement trophy from the Netherlands Royal Academy for his work with visual music. He has served on film festival juries and received an American Film Institute filmmaking grant. His poetry and plays are also performed and published. He is a leading expert of Oskar Fischinger and recently published a biography of him. He teaches at The California Institute of the Arts.

Tags: Walt Disney

Duration: 1 minute, 59 seconds

Date story recorded: April 2003

Date story went live: 24 January 2008