Don directed the live segments of Fantasia 2000 and got to work with Steve Martin, Bette Midler but the most fun he had there was working with Roy Disney, who was the producer on the film. Don explained �Roy is an extraordinary guy, very soft spoken, and very much about quality and quality of entertainment and experience for the audience. It was much more exciting working with him, though it was great working with the stars like Angela Lansbury.

His interest in live action film expanded in 2003 when he produced �Haunted Mansion� starring Eddie Murphy. In 2006 he received his second Academy Award nomination for his work on the short �The Little Matchgirl.� Don acted as interim head of Disney Animation Studios during the same year, collaborating with Ed Catmull and John Lasseter on the Pixar purchase.

�Animation turned out to be the way I could finally combine his passion for music and art in animation. There is nothing else like it. Eric Larson used to say �where can you flex as many muscles artistically as in animation? It�s about drawing, it�s about architecture, it�s about dance, it�s about pantomime, it�s about acting, it�s about music, it�s about writing�� and he was right.�

Obviously Don multi tasks and another hat he wears is that of host and narrator at the El Capitan Theater. About two or three years ago, a scheduled host at one Premiere had to back out at the last minute. They were having a lot of trouble finding a replacement and the brilliant Disney VP Howard Green came up with Don�s name. This really worked out as everyone seemed to have a good time and liked it. A couple of months went by and Peter Pan was coming out so they asked Don again to moderate that one. Then it was Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Nightmare and now at least a dozen others that he has moderated. Don is very honored and flattered by it but also enjoys it because he gets to ask people the questions he wants to know the answers to. For example: Don asked famed sculptor and Imagineer Blaine Gibson on one panel why he had left Animation for Imagineering. Blaine replied that he had been invited to join Imagineering and agonized all one weekend over his decision. On Monday when Blaine told them that he had decided to stay in Animation, he was told he needed to rethink this as Walt REALLY wanted him in Imagineering. This settled the question then and there.

Don gave me an explanation of what an animation produce does and what it�s like to work in animation.

�Animation is the ultimate team sport. At Disney it is and always has been a real team effort� said Don. �The best movies we have made have always been because the chemistry amongst the team is great, great animators, great song writers, great editors, great colorists and that�s what makes these movies great.�

�A producer is like your team builder, you are the first one on a movie and the last one off, a little like the coach on a football team. You don�t literally go out and pass the ball and hike the ball and play the plays but you pull the team together, you work with them, and you get their best work out of them. Sometimes that means rewarding them, sometimes that means encouraging them when they are down, sometimes that means getting better equipment, better tools, sometimes that means being a cheerleader, sometimes a therapist, sometimes that means getting better food, whatever it takes. There is a great definition for a producer that says you �hire the best people you possibly can, and then you do exactly what they tell you to do.� I think that�s the job. You are a servant to the process and yet you are the leader of the process.�

Presently he is working as executive producer on a film called Earth, which is the first nature documentary to come out from the Disney Nature label, that was launched a few months ago by Bob Iger and Dick Cook. It opens on Earth Day next year and is a beautiful feature length nature documentary. At the same time he is directing a documentary on the history of Disney animation. So, as he says, he is the chief cook and bottle washer on that one. Lastly he is in the early days of development as executive producer on a film called Frankenweenie, a stop motion movie with Tim Burton, whom he has known for many years and whom he considers to be one of the rare geniuses in film and art that our generation has.

Stop motion film is the technique that was used in Nightmare Before Christmas. Don did not work on the original film but on the 3D version. To explain the process: �you make a puppet, put an armature inside, you move it, shoot a frame, move it, shoot a frame and that�s what creates the action.� Directing a documentary is also completely new for him and he likes doing new things as it pushes him into uncomfortable places. He thinks that one learns and grows is by doing uncomfortable things.

As he says, �Part of branching out and trying new things, painting and writing so forth has been to try to give back to the industry. Part of giving back to the industry has been writing and sharing the knowledge that other people and I have. After every movie when I talk to students, they always want to know how animated movies are made. So I decided to put this down in a book which would be accessible for the lay reader and not just experts, for a fan or high school kid who may want to work in animation or an adult who just loves animation and want to know how the movies are put together.

The Alchemy of Animation is really that book. It is a browsers book that can be started from the back and work forward or go in and read about stop motion puppet animation or 3D or 2D hand drawn animation. You can read every page and learn a lot about animation or just browse.

�I am very gratified that students have come up and told me that my books (another was published in 1996) are the reason that they have gone into animation or are going into animation.� Don continued, �I got so much from Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, Joe Grant, Ken Anderson, Woolie Reitherman, just buckets full of information without holding back one word. They told me everything so I feel that now where I am in my career; it�s my chance to do the same thing. Hopefully it�s like a message in a bottle and that there are some kids out there who will read it and we�ll be able to see their movies in a few years.�

�Right now there is a real resurgence in the arts and it�s not necessarily coming from our schools as there are a lot of cut backs in the schools. One of the reasons I wrote the book is that there is a huge generation of kids, who grew up on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mermaid and Lion King and are putting on Broadway shows like High School Musical,� explains Don �This would never have happened ten years ago. Our schools are packed with students wanting to get into arts, not just animation but fine arts, dance, music, all those things, which I see as part of how our society is judged and measured. I see a great renaissance in the next few years as they start to go out and express themselves and create.�

Please note that Don�s book, The Alchemy of Animation, is as interesting as his quotes and is available at most book stores and on Amazon.com. His next book, Drawn to Life, will be a two volume book containing the works of legendary animator and instructor Walt Stanchfield. It will be released in the Spring of �09.

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-- Posted January 20, 2009