177-479: The Walt Disney Studios , located in Burbank, California , United States, serves as the corporate headquarters for The Walt Disney Company media conglomerate. The 51-acre (20.6 ha) studio lot also contains several sound stages , a backlot , and other filmmaking production facilities for Walt Disney Studios 's motion picture production. The complex also houses the offices for the company's many divisions, with
354-524: A Radio Picture entitled The Runaround (1931). The new process not only improved the color but also removed specks (that looked like bugs) from the screen, which had previously blurred outlines and lowered visibility. This new improvement along with a reduction in cost (from 8.85 cents to 7 cents per foot) led to a new color revival. Warner Bros. took the lead once again by producing three features (out of an announced plan for six features): Manhattan Parade (1932), Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of
531-424: A beam splitter consisting of a partially reflecting surface inside a split-cube prism , color filters , and three separate rolls of black-and-white film (hence the "three-strip" designation). The beam splitter allowed one-third of the light coming through the camera lens to pass through the reflector and a green filter and form an image on one of the strips, which therefore recorded only the green-dominated third of
708-400: A cantaloupe , which was a crop that helped save the town's life when the land boom collapsed. In 1931, the original city seal was replaced and in 1978 the modern seal was adopted. The new seal shows City Hall beneath a banner. An airplane symbolizes the city's aircraft industry, the strip of film and stage light represent motion picture production. The bottom portion depicts the sun rising over
885-477: A mordant solution and then brought into contact with each of the three dye-loaded matrix films in turn, building up the complete color image. Each dye was absorbed, or imbibed, by the gelatin coating on the receiving strip rather than simply deposited onto its surface, hence the term "dye imbibition". Strictly speaking, this is a mechanical printing process most closely related to Woodburytype and very loosely comparable to offset printing or lithography , and not
1062-436: A "formal" corner office for signing contracts and meeting with important visitors, and a "working office" where he huddled with key staff to develop ideas for his films, television shows and theme parks. The latter had a kitchenette hidden behind wood paneling that retracted at the touch of a button, as Walt often ate lunch at his desk. Also in the suite was his secretary's office, featuring displays of his numerous awards, and
1239-404: A Technicolor cartoon sequence "Hot Choc-late Soldiers" produced by Walt Disney. On July 28 of that year, Warner Bros. released Service with a Smile , followed by Good Morning, Eve! on September 22, both being comedy short films starring Leon Errol and filmed in three-strip Technicolor. Pioneer Pictures , a movie company formed by Technicolor investors, produced the film usually credited as
1416-501: A U.S. Treasury prohibition officer. Through the decades, the department has grown and evolved, adapting to the changing needs of the city. Today, the Burbank Police Department is a well-respected agency, known for its professionalism and commitment to serving the community. The department has a diverse range of specialized units, including a SWAT team, K-9 unit, air support, and a detective bureau. In 1928, Burbank
1593-640: A bevy of nude or semi-nude women, surrounding a drunken single man bearing a certain resemblance to Moore himself. By the early 1960s the gym activities had ceased and it became a casual lounge for studio veterans. The Penthouse space has been shuttered for years and the Fred Moore mural removed to an unknown location. The basement housed the Test Camera Department, which shot test loops of animation drawings in progress. Animators and directors would view these loops on Moviola machines to check
1770-546: A black-and-white picture again." Although Disney's first 60 or so Technicolor cartoons used the three-strip camera, an improved "successive exposure" ("SE") process was adopted c. 1937 . This variation of the three-strip process was designed primarily for cartoon work: the camera would contain one strip of black-and-white negative film, and each animation cel would be photographed three times, on three sequential frames, behind alternating red, green, and blue filters (the so-called "Technicolor Color Wheel", then an option of
1947-519: A city was a crucial milestone in the area's progress, triggering a fresh phase of growth and advancement. This cityhood meant that Burbank gained the ability to govern itself, making decisions independently regarding its development and expansion. It also granted the city greater authority over its valuable resources, such as land, water, and other assets. With this newfound control, Burbank could shape its own future and manage its local affairs more effectively. The first city seal adopted by Burbank featured
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#17327803181202124-416: A city ... Everything done at Burbank has been done right. The citizens of Burbank had to put up a $ 48,000 subsidy to get the reluctant Pacific Electric Streetcar officials to agree to extend the line from Glendale to Burbank. The first Red Car rolled into Burbank on September 6, 1911, with a tremendous celebration. That was about two months after the town became a city. The "Burbank Review" newspaper ran
2301-605: A cost of $ 300,000, the Water Tower was one of the first structures to emerge at the new Disney studio. It stands 135.6 feet (41.3 meters) high and originally held 150,000 gallons of water. Towers such as these provided an emergency water supply in case of fire and were a standard feature of major Hollywood studios of the era, examples of which can still be seen at the Warner Bros. , Paramount and Sony Pictures Studios (formerly MGM ) lots. Roy Disney, however, insisted that
2478-531: A cost of $ 9,000. Burbank would not acquire full titles to both properties until after a court decision known as the "Great Partition" was made in 1871 dissolving the Rancho San Rafael. He eventually became known as one of the largest and most successful sheep raisers in southern California, and as a result, he closed his dentistry practice and invested heavily in real estate in Los Angeles. When
2655-529: A decommissioned National Guard base in Griffith Park . The government also set up trailer camps at Hollywood Way and Winona Avenue in Burbank and in nearby Sun Valley . But new homes were built, the economy improved, and the military presence in Burbank continued to expand. Lockheed employees numbered 66,500 and expanded from aircraft to include spacecraft, missiles, electronics and shipbuilding. Burbank
2832-518: A failure and focused on getting a Pacific Electric Streetcar line into Burbank. Laid out and surveyed with a modern business district surrounded by residential lots, wide boulevards were carved out as the "Los Angeles Express" printed: Burbank, the town, being built in the midst of the new farming community, has been laid out in such a manner as to make it by and by an unusually pretty town. The streets and avenues are wide and, all have been handsomely graded. All improvements being made would do credit to
3009-450: A green filter and one behind a red filter. The difference was that the two-component negative was now used to produce a subtractive color print. Because the colors were physically present in the print, no special projection equipment was required and the correct registration of the two images did not depend on the skill of the projectionist. The frames exposed behind the green filter were printed on one strip of black-and-white film, and
3186-487: A key role in attractions and entertainment in Burbank, with its theme park Universal Studios Hollywood and the NBCUniversal building. The broadcast network The CW is also headquartered in Burbank. "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" was stated often as a joke on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson , as both shows were taped at NBC's former studios . The Hollywood Burbank Airport
3363-504: A length of it is open to D23 tours. A popular point of interest for studio visitors is " Pluto 's Corner", outside the Animation Building's A-Wing at the southwestern end of the block. There one can see three paw prints embedded in the street, curbside beneath a fire hydrant. A hind paw print is missing, humorously suggesting that Pluto used the hydrant to mark his territory. Nearby is the often-photographed signpost indicating
3540-417: A lounge area where Walt would relax after 5:00 pm with a drink (Scotch Mist was his cocktail of choice) and a back massage from the studio nurse before going home. Walt's suite was closed after his death in 1966 and not reused until 1970, after his personal items had been carefully archived. Over the years these items were used in museum exhibits recreating his offices, primarily at Disney resorts. In 2015, under
3717-445: A photographic one, as the actual printing does not involve a chemical change caused by exposure to light. During the early years of the process, the receiver film was preprinted with a 50% black-and-white image derived from the green strip, the so-called Key, or K, record. This procedure was used largely to cover up fine edges in the picture where colors would mix unrealistically (also known as fringing ). This additional black increased
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#17327803181203894-601: A possible shot-in-the-arm for the ailing industry. In November 1933, Technicolor's Herbert Kalmus and RKO announced plans to produce three-strip Technicolor films in 1934, beginning with Ann Harding starring in a projected film The World Outside . Live-action use of three-strip Technicolor was first seen in a musical number of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature The Cat and the Fiddle , released February 16, 1934. On July 1, MGM released Hollywood Party with
4071-456: A rate war between the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific brought people streaming into California . By 1886, a group of speculators had purchased much of Burbank's land holdings for $ 250,000, possibly due to a severe drought that had made it challenging to sustain his livestock, killing approximately 1,000 sheep due to the lack of water and grass that year. The group of speculators who bought
4248-583: A reminder of Kimball's sense of humor. If, however, the award was presented posthumously, an image of the Disney Legends statue is engraved instead of the traditional handprints and signature. The plaza formerly featured a small fountain to honor the Legends, but that was since removed due to water leakage. This building is dedicated to the former President of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 to 1994, Frank G. Wells . The building opened in 1998 and
4425-544: A replica statue of Roy O. Disney and Minnie Mouse which can also be found at the Magic Kingdom park. Located on the pillars in the plaza are bronze plaques featuring receivers of the Disney Legends award. The plaques feature the recipient's name, reason for gaining the award, and the person's handprints and signature if they were alive at the time they received the award. Most famously, Legendary Animator and Imagineer, Ward Kimball 's plaque features an extra finger,
4602-499: A secondary location at Grand Central Creative Campus , where Walt Disney Imagineering and some other units are located. Disney Imagineering manages the studio. Prior to the official opening of the Burbank lot in 1940, the Walt Disney Studios was situated at several different locations in Los Angeles. During summer 1923, Walt Disney created "The Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio" in his uncle Robert Disney's garage, which
4779-672: A small storage yard in its rear. This depot was destroyed by fire in 1942 and in 1947 a small passenger shelter was constructed. On May 26, 1942, the California State Railroad Commission proposed an extension of the Burbank Line to the Lockheed plant. The proposal called for a double-track line from Arden Junction along Glenoaks to San Fernando Boulevard and Empire Way, just northeast of Lockheed's main facility. But this extension never materialized and
4956-581: A special edition that day advising all local residents that: On Wednesday, the first electric car running on a regular passenger-carrying schedule left the Pacific Electric station at Sixth and Main streets, Los Angeles, for Burbank at 6:30 a.m. and the first car from Burbank to Los Angeles left at 6:20 a.m. the same day. Upon arrival of this car on its maiden trip, many citizens gave evidence of their great joy by ringing bells and discharging firearms. A big crowd of both men and women boarded
5133-428: A speculative frenzy that collapsed abruptly in 1889. Much of the newly created wealthy went broke. Many of the lots in Burbank ended up getting sold for taxes. Vast numbers of people would leave the region before it all ended. The effects of the downturn were felt for several years, as the economy struggled to recover and many businesses closed. However, the region eventually rebounded and continued to grow and develop in
5310-523: A standard camera loaded with single-strip "monopack" color negative film. Technicolor Laboratories were still able to produce Technicolor prints by creating three black-and-white matrices from the Eastmancolor negative (Process 5). Process 4 was the second major color process, after Britain's Kinemacolor (used between 1909 and 1915), and the most widely used color process in Hollywood during
5487-750: A synchronized score and sound effects. Redskin (1929), with a synchronized score, and The Mysterious Island (1929), a part-talkie, were photographed almost entirely in this process also but included some sequences in black and white. The following talkies were made entirely – or almost entirely – in Technicolor Process 3: On with the Show! (1929) (the first all-talking color feature), Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), The Show of Shows (1929), Sally (1929), The Vagabond King (1930), Follow Thru (1930), Golden Dawn (1930), Hold Everything (1930), The Rogue Song (1930), Song of
Walt Disney Studios (Burbank) - Misplaced Pages Continue
5664-506: A tour of the then-new studio. It was later frequently seen and toured on various Disney television programs. The attack on Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan on December 7, 1941, brought America into World War II . 500 United States Army soldiers of the 121st Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) Gun Battalion occupied Walt Disney Studios the day after the attack for eight months in the period of the West Coast invasion scare, earning Disney as
5841-540: A turning point for the San Fernando Valley , including what would become Burbank. A shrewd businessman, Dr. Burbank sold a 100-foot-wide (30 m), nearly three-mile-long (4.8 km) right-of-way to the railroad. This decision helped shape Burbank’s future, positioning it as a vital transportation and commerce hub within the Valley. The first train passed through Burbank on April 5, 1874. A boom created by
6018-521: A water system in 1887 allowed farmers to irrigate their orchards and provided a stronger base for agricultural development. The original plot of the new townsite of Burbank extended from what is now Burbank Boulevard on the north, to Grandview Avenue in Glendale, California on the south, and from the top of the Verdugo Hills on the east to what is now known as Clybourn Avenue on the west. At
6195-438: A week for experienced animators. A Disney employment brochure of the time stated: "Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men...The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with paint according to directions." Men and women at
6372-558: Is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California , United States. Located 7 miles (11 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles , Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank , who established a sheep ranch there in 1867. Burbank consists of two distinct areas: a downtown/foothill section, in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains , and
6549-402: Is a family of color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and-white films running through a special camera (3-strip Technicolor or Process 4) started in the early 1930s and continued through to the mid-1950s, when the 3-strip camera was replaced by
6726-564: Is the last remaining example of the " California Bungalow " type architecture that remains from the Hyperion studio facility. Its attractive style and utility, dating back to the early years of the company, give it a special place in the history of the Disney lot. The 419-seat Theater, another original building on the Burbank lot, shows first-run Disney films for studio employees and guests. It has plush stadium seating and has been upgraded over
6903-521: Is the main building located at the Walt Disney Studios. Completed in 1990 and designed by Michael Graves , the Team Disney Burbank building contains the office of CEO Robert A. Iger as well as the boardroom for the board of directors. It also houses offices for members of Senior Management, such as Alan Bergman, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Prior to the opening of the Team Disney Burbank building in 1990, Disney executives were located in
7080-504: Is the only major film studio out of the Big Five that does not currently offer regular tours of their studio lot to the general public. Since the mid-2000s, Adventures by Disney has offered tours of the studio, but only as an integral component of their Southern California tour package. The other way to tour the studio is to join the official Disney D23 fan club, which offers tours to members every few months. The studio used to open to
7257-678: The Golden Age of Hollywood . Technicolor's three-color process became known and celebrated for its highly saturated color, and was initially most commonly used for filming musicals such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Down Argentine Way (1940), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), costume pictures such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939), the film Blue Lagoon (1949), and animated films such as Snow White and
Walt Disney Studios (Burbank) - Misplaced Pages Continue
7434-601: The Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure . The current Walt Disney Studios, located at 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank , was made possible by the revenue from the 1937 release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . Walt Disney and his staff began the move from the old studio at Hyperion Avenue in Silver Lake from December 1939 to January 1940. Designed primarily by Kem Weber under
7611-596: The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star . Lockheed later created the U2 , SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 Nighthawk at its Burbank-based " Skunk Works ". The name came from a secret, ill-smelling backwoods distillery called "Skonk Works" in cartoonist Al Capp 's Li'l Abner comic strip. Dozens of hamburger stands, restaurants and shops appeared around Lockheed to accommodate the employees. Some of
7788-649: The State Legislature to incorporate as a city on July 8, 1911, with businessman Thomas Story as the mayor . Voters approved incorporation by a vote of 81 to 51. At the time, the Board of Trustees governed the community which numbered 500 residents. With the action of the Legislature, Burbank thus became the first independent city in the San Fernando Valley. The establishment of Burbank as
7965-617: The United Airport was the largest commercial airport in the Los Angeles area until it was eclipsed in 1946 by the Los Angeles Municipal Airport (now Los Angeles International Airport ) in Westchester when that facility (the former Mines Field ) commenced commercial operations. Amelia Earhart , Wiley Post and Howard Hughes were among the notable aviation pioneers to pilot aircraft in and out of
8142-404: The spectrum . The other two-thirds was reflected sideways by the mirror and passed through a magenta filter, which absorbed green light and allowed only the red and blue thirds of the spectrum to pass. Behind this filter were the other two strips of film, their emulsions pressed into contact face to face. The front film was a red-blind orthochromatic type that recorded only the blue light. On
8319-704: The " Golden Mall ". In 1887, the Burbank Furniture Manufacturing Company was the town's first factory. In 1917, the arrival of the Moreland Motor Truck Company changed the town and resulted in growing a manufacturing and industrial workforce. Within a few years, Moreland trucks were seen bearing the label, "Made in Burbank." Watt Moreland, its owner, had relocated his plant to Burbank from Los Angeles. He selected 25 acres (100,000 m ) at San Fernando Blvd. and Alameda Avenue. Moreland invested $ 1 million in
8496-600: The "Fawkes’ Folly" aerial trolley. He and his wife Ellen C. Fawkes secured two patents for the nation's first monorail . The two formed the Aerial Trolley Car Company and set about building a prototype they believed would revolutionize transportation. Joseph Fawkes called the trolley his Aerial Swallow, a cigar-shaped, suspended monorail driven by a propeller that he promised would carry passengers from Burbank to downtown Los Angeles in 10 minutes. The first open car accommodated about 20 passengers and
8673-425: The 1960s as Disney pioneered the use of the sodium screen process . In the 1970s, stage 3 was equipped with the first computerized motion control system. The ACES (Animated Camera Effects System) was designed by Disney engineers and broke new ground with technology which has become one of the foundations of current special effects photography. Stage 4, which was completed in 1958, was first used for Darby O'Gill and
8850-465: The Acme, Producers Service and Photo-Sonics animation cameras). Three separate dye transfer printing matrices would be created from the red, green, and blue records in their respective complementary colors, cyan, magenta and yellow. Successive exposure was also employed in Disney's "True Life Adventure" live-action series, wherein the original 16mm low-contrast Kodachrome Commercial live action footage
9027-414: The Animation Building was its private rooftop annex, The Penthouse Club, a perk for male employees who could afford its membership fees. It had a gymnasium run by a full-time athletic instructor, a bar, a barber shop, steam baths, massage tables, pool and poker tables, and an outdoor patio which members tended to use for nude sunbathing. The entrance displayed a mural painted by animator Fred Moore depicting
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#17327803181209204-711: The Disney Publicity and Comic Strip Departments. It was constructed at the Disney Studios on Hyperion Avenue in Hollywood and moved to the Burbank location as part of the construction process in 1939–1940. At the Disney Burbank lot, the building housed many support services over the years. Payroll, Publicity Support, Traffic and finally the Post Office were located in the building. The structure
9381-555: The Disney Studio's water tower be built with six legs instead of the usual four, claiming it was more aesthetically pleasing. The tower is no longer used for water storage and stands as an identifying symbol of Disney's Burbank studio. In 1984 the top portion of the holding tank was painted white and, for the first time, emblazoned with the image of Mickey Mouse , the official mascot of the Walt Disney Company. It
9558-542: The Disney studio were not encouraged to fraternize, and the cloistered atmosphere of the Ink and Paint Building led wags on the lot to call it "The Nunnery". The basement of the Ink and Paint Building was the location of Disney's famous "Morgue", where artwork from the studio's films was stored for possible future use. In a 1957 episode of his Disneyland TV series, Walt took viewers into the Morgue and, after some ghoulish fun on
9735-759: The Flame (1930), Song of the West (1930), The Life of the Party (1930), Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930), Bride of the Regiment (1930), Mamba (1930), Whoopee! (1930), King of Jazz (1930), Under a Texas Moon (1930), Bright Lights (1930), Viennese Nights (1930), Woman Hungry (1931), Kiss Me Again (1931) and Fifty Million Frenchmen (1931). In addition, many feature films were released with Technicolor sequences. Numerous short subjects were also photographed in Technicolor Process 3, including
9912-603: The Little People . Upon completing 30 years of service in 1998, Stage 4 was divided into two new television studios, creating the new Stage 4 and Stage 5. Stage 4 is known as the " Home Improvement stage", as that series was filmed here from 1991 to 1999. Stages 6 and 7, built in 1997 are the newest soundstages at the Walt Disney Studios. These audience-rated stages provide comprehensive production support with computer-controlled access, high-volume air-conditioning, and adjoining production support building. They are built on
10089-465: The Lockheed company. The new owners staked their limited funds to develop an all-metal, twin-engine transport, the Model 10 Electra. It first flew in 1934 and quickly gained worldwide notice. A brochure celebrating Burbank's 50th anniversary as a city touted Lockheed payroll having "nearly 1,200" by the end of 1936. The aircraft company's hiring contributed to what was a favorable employment environment at
10266-459: The MWD. The town grew steadily, weathering the drought and depression that hit Los Angeles in the 1890s and in 20 years, the community had a bank , newspaper, high school and a thriving business district with a hardware store, livery stable, dry goods store, general store, and bicycle repair shop. The city's first newspaper, Burbank Review , was established in 1906. The populace petitioned
10443-553: The Rancho Providencia in 1867. Burbank built a ranch house and began to raise sheep and grow wheat on the ranch. By 1876, the San Fernando Valley became the largest wheat-raising area in Los Angeles County . But the droughts of the 1860s and 1870s underlined the need for steady water supplies. A professionally trained dentist, Burbank began his career in Waterville, Maine . He joined the great migration westward in
10620-484: The Riverside Building. The Riverside Building, located next to Feature Animation Building at 2300 Riverside Drive, opened in 2000 for ABC executives and employees. In April 2013, Marvel Studios moved its offices from Manhattan Beach Studios Media Campus to the studio's Frank G. Wells Building second floor. Formerly known as the Team Disney Burbank building, Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building
10797-1067: The Seven Dwarfs (1937), Gulliver's Travels (1939), Pinocchio (1940), and Fantasia (1940). As the technology matured, it was also used for less spectacular dramas and comedies. Occasionally, even a film noir – such as Leave Her to Heaven (1945) or Niagara (1953) – was filmed in Technicolor. The "Tech" in the company's name was inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where Herbert Kalmus and Daniel Frost Comstock received their undergraduate degrees in 1904 and were later instructors. The term "Technicolor" has been used historically for at least five concepts: Both Kalmus and Comstock went to Switzerland to earn PhD degrees; Kalmus at University of Zurich , and Comstock at Basel in 1906. In 1912, Kalmus, Comstock, and mechanic W. Burton Wescott formed Kalmus, Comstock, and Wescott, an industrial research and development firm. Most of
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#173278031812010974-622: The Seven Dwarfs , which provided Walt Disney with the revenue to purchase the Burbank lot. Each statue is 19 feet (5.8 meters) tall, with the exception of the 2/3-sized Dopey at top. The building is located opposite the Frank G. Wells building, named for Eisner's former colleague, and President of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 to 1994. In 1996, the building was featured in Hollywood Pictures film Spy Hard . On January 23, 2006, in honor of Michael Eisner 's 21-year leadership of
11151-550: The Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), The Rescuers (1977), and The Fox and the Hound (1981). The animation for The Black Cauldron (1985) was the last to be completed at the site. The Animation Building initially served as the creative and administrative nucleus for the entire studio. Walt's brother Roy O. Disney , who ran
11328-823: The Verdugo Mountains. In 1915, major sections of the Valley were annexed, helping Los Angeles to more than double its size that year. But Burbank was among a handful of towns with their own water wells and remained independent. By 1916, Burbank had 1,500 residents. In 1922, the Burbank Chamber of Commerce was organized. In 1923, the United States Postal Service reclassified the city from the rural village mail delivery to city postal delivery service . Burbank's population had grown significantly, from less than 500 people in 1908 to over 3,000 citizens. The city's business district grew on
11505-515: The Wasteland , was released in 1924. Process 2 was also used for color sequences in such major motion pictures as The Ten Commandments (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and Ben-Hur (1925). Douglas Fairbanks ' The Black Pirate (1926) was the third all-color Process 2 feature. Although successful commercially, Process 2 was plagued with technical problems. Because the images on
11682-487: The Wax Museum (1933). Radio Pictures followed by announcing plans to make four more features in the new process. Only one of these, Fanny Foley Herself (1931), was actually produced. Although Paramount Pictures announced plans to make eight features and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promised two color features, these never materialized. This may have been the result of the lukewarm reception to these new color pictures by
11859-504: The acreage formed the Providencia Land, Water, and Development Company and began developing the land, calling the new town Burbank after its founder, and began offering farm lots on May 1, 1887. The townsite had Burbank Boulevard/Walnut Avenue as the northern boundary, Grandview Avenue as the southern boundary, the edge of the Verdugo Mountains as the eastern boundary, and Clybourn Avenue as the western border. The establishment of
12036-544: The additive Kinemacolor and Chronochrome processes, Technicolor prints did not require any special projection equipment. Unlike the additive Dufaycolor process, the projected image was not dimmed by a light-absorbing and obtrusive mosaic color filter layer. Very importantly, compared to competing subtractive systems, Technicolor offered the best balance between high image quality and speed of printing. The Technicolor Process 4 camera, manufactured to Technicolor's detailed specifications by Mitchell Camera Corporation, contained
12213-604: The aircraft industry and a major airport in Burbank during the 1930s set the stage for major growth and development, which was to continue at an accelerated pace into World War II and well into the postwar era. Brothers Allan Loughead and Malcolm Loughead , founders of the Lockheed Aircraft Company , opened a Burbank manufacturing plant in 1928 and, a year later, aviation designer Jack Northrop built his Flying Wing airplane in his own plant nearby. Dedicated on Memorial Day Weekend (May 30 – June 1), 1930,
12390-661: The area that became Burbank was settled in the 1870s and 1880s, the streets were aligned along what is now Olive Avenue, the road to the Cahuenga Pass and downtown Los Angeles. These were largely the roads the Native Americans traveled and the early settlers took their produce down to Los Angeles to sell and to buy supplies along these routes. The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876, linking San Francisco and Los Angeles, marked
12567-422: The area, including the city's Magnolia Park development. Around this time, major employers began to cut payrolls and some plants closed their doors. The Burbank City Council responded by slashing 10% of the wages of city workers. Money was put into an Employee Relief Department to help the unemployed. Local civic and religious groups sprang into action and contributed with food as homeless camps began to form along
12744-460: The areas corresponding to the clearest, least-exposed areas of the negative. To make each final color print, the matrix films were soaked in dye baths of colors nominally complementary to those of the camera filters: the strip made from red-filtered frames was dyed cyan-green and the strip made from green-filtered frames was dyed orange-red. The thicker the gelatin in each area of a frame, the more dye it absorbed. Subtle scene-to-scene colour control
12921-480: The auspices of the Walt Disney Archives, Suite 3H was restored as closely as possible to the condition in which Walt left it, with many of the original furnishings and objects. Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger dedicated the restoration on December 7 of that year. In 2016 it was opened for viewing by studio employees, special guests, and gold members of the Disney fan club D23. A little-known feature of
13098-544: The building is dedicated. The building used to be the main administration building on the studio lot prior to the opening of the Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner building. Today, it is home to Disney's legal department. Stage 1 was completed between 1939 and 1940 and is the original Disney soundstage on the Burbank lot. The soundstage was designed to replace a smaller stage at the former Hyperion Avenue Studio. Although Walt Disney Studios predominantly made animated films,
13275-399: The building. On the second floor were office suites for the directors and studios for the background and layout artists. The story department was located on the third floor, along with offices and a rehearsal room for Disney's composers and arrangers. Suite 3H, on the third floor of the Animation Building's H-Wing, was Walt's headquarters. The five-room space included his two adjacent offices:
13452-485: The burgeoning entertainment industry drew more people to the area, and Burbank's population doubled between 1930 and 1940 to 34,337. Burbank saw its greatest growth during World War II due to Lockheed's presence, employing some 80,800 men and women producing aircraft such as the Lockheed Hudson , Lockheed P-38 Lightning , Lockheed PV-1 Ventura , Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress , and America's first jet fighter,
13629-410: The cels were painted. It was built with high ceilings and a sophisticated central ventilation system so that the staff members would not be overcome by toxic paint fumes. One section was used as a special paint-mixing laboratory to provide Disney cartoons with the widest possible spectrum of colors. Three interior courtyards provided northern light for the artists and also served as outdoor break areas. It
13806-541: The center of the campus, while adjacent outlying buildings were constructed for the ink-and-paint departments, the camera and editing departments, and the other various functions of the studio. Tunnels linked some of the buildings (to allow movement of animation materials without exposing them to the outside elements), and the lot also included a movie theatre, a sound stage , and a commissary. The 1941 Disney feature The Reluctant Dragon , which combined live action with animated sequences and starred Robert Benchley , served as
13983-462: The city limits after sunset. Following a San Fernando Valley land bust during the Depression, real estate began to bounce back in the mid-1930s. In Burbank, a 100-home construction project began in 1934. By 1936, property values in the city exceeded pre-Depression levels. By 1950, the population had reached 78,577. From 1967 to 1989, a six-block stretch of San Fernando Blvd. was pedestrianized as
14160-484: The city's Southern Pacific railroad tracks. Hundreds began to participate in self-help cooperatives, trading skills such as barbering, tailoring, plumbing or carpentry, for food and other services. By 1930, as First National Studios , Andrew Jergens Company , The Lockheed Company , McNeill and Libby Canning Company , the Moreland Company, and Northrop Aircraft Corporation opened facilities in Burbank and
14337-424: The commission moved on to other projects in the San Fernando Valley. The Red Car line in Burbank was abandoned and the tracks removed in 1956. In 1923, Burbank transitioned from a marshal’s office to a police department. The early department consisted of only a handful of officers who were responsible for maintaining law and order in a rapidly growing community. The first police chief was George Cole, who later became
14514-540: The company's financial operations, shared a wing with the accounting and legal departments on the first floor, which was where the animators, in-betweeners and clean-up artists worked. The D-Wing's ground floor was the longtime domain of Disney's Nine Old Men , and over the years other prominent animators and artists such as Bill Tytla , Fred Moore , Norm Ferguson , Preston Blair , Eyvind Earle , Tyrus Wong , Mary Blair , Andreas Deja , Floyd Norman , John Lasseter , Glen Keane , John Musker and Ron Clements worked in
14691-459: The company, and Technicolor Inc. was chartered in Delaware. Technicolor originally existed in a two-color (red and green) system . In Process 1 (1916), a prism beam-splitter behind the camera lens exposed two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white negative film simultaneously, one behind a red filter, the other behind a green filter. Because two frames were being exposed at
14868-600: The company, the Team Disney building was rededicated as Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building. Disney Legends Plaza, located between the Team Disney: The Michael D. Eisner building and the Frank G. Wells building, is the central hub for the Disney Legends award and pays homage to its recipients. Dedicated on October 18, 1998, the plaza features the Partners statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse , designed by Imagineer Blaine Gibson, along with
15045-535: The contrast of the final print and concealed any fringing. However, overall colorfulness was compromised as a result. In 1944, Technicolor had improved the process to make up for these shortcomings and the K record was eliminated. Kalmus convinced Walt Disney to shoot one of his Silly Symphony cartoons, Flowers and Trees (1932), in Process 4, the new "three-strip" process. Seeing the potential in full-color Technicolor, Disney negotiated an exclusive contract for
15222-413: The cupped ones could be shipped to their Boston laboratory for flattening, after which they could be put back into service, at least for a while. The presence of image layers on both surfaces made the prints especially vulnerable to scratching, and because the scratches were vividly colored they were very noticeable. Splicing a Process 2 print without special attention to its unusual laminated construction
15399-483: The decades that followed. Before the downturn, Burbank built a hotel in the town in 1887. Burbank also later owned the Burbank Theatre, which opened on November 27, 1893, at a cost of $ 200,000. Burbank, who came to California in his early thirties, died in 1895 at the age of 73. The theater continued to operate but struggled for many years and by August 1900 had its thirteenth manager. The new manager's name
15576-599: The division formerly had offices located on the third floor. The division has since moved to the Grand Central Creative Campus in nearby Glendale, California . It is distinctly recognizable through its giant movie reel and film strip on the building's exterior. The building is currently home to the Walt Disney Archives, studio mail center, Marvel Studios , the Disney Music Group , a screening room, various multipurpose rooms, and one of
15753-638: The early 1850s and, by 1853 was living in San Francisco . At the time the American Civil War broke out, he was again well established in his profession as a dentist in Pueblo de Los Angeles . In 1867, he purchased Rancho La Providencia from David W. Alexander and Francis Mellus , and he purchased the western portion of the Rancho San Rafael (4,603 acres) from Jonathan R. Scott. Burbank's property reached nearly 9,200 acres (37 km ) at
15930-560: The early patents were taken out by Comstock and Wescott, while Kalmus served primarily as the company's president and chief executive officer. When the firm was hired to analyze an inventor's flicker-free motion picture system, they became intrigued with the art and science of filmmaking, particularly color motion picture processes, leading to the founding of Technicolor in Boston in 1914 and incorporation in Maine in 1915. In 1921, Wescott left
16107-664: The edge of the airport. Throughout the 1950s and into the late 1960s, Weber Aircraft became a leading supplier of seats for a variety of aircraft, including the Boeing 707 , the Douglas DC-8 , and the Lockheed L-1011 . In 1988, Weber closed its Burbank manufacturing plant, which then employed 1,000 people. Weber produced seats, galleys, lavatories and other equipment for commercial and military aircraft. Weber had been in Burbank for 36 years. Technicolor Technicolor
16284-474: The entrance says simply "Theatre". The name "Main Theater" is used to distinguish the venue from several smaller screening rooms situated throughout the studio. In Walt's era, these were called "sweatboxes", where animation test reels and the daily rushes of his live-action features were shown for his approval. The 1940 Ink and Paint Building was where animators' drawings were inked onto transparent cels and then
16461-460: The exception of Pixar Animation Studios (in Emeryville ), Lucasfilm (in San Francisco ), and 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox), which remains on its namesake lot in nearby Century City as tenants of Fox Corporation . Walt Disney used the earnings from the successful release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to finance the construction of the Burbank studio. Disney
16638-467: The factory and machinery and employed 500 people. It was the largest truck maker west of the Mississippi. Within the next several decades, factories would dot the area landscape. What had mainly been an agricultural and ranching area would get replaced with a variety of manufacturing industries. Moreland operated from 1917 to 1937. Aerospace supplier Menasco Manufacturing Company would later purchase
16815-495: The feature film industry would soon be turning out color films exclusively. By 1931, however, the Great Depression had taken its toll on the film industry, which began to cut back on expenses. The production of color films had decreased dramatically by 1932, when Burton Wescott and Joseph A. Ball completed work on a new three-color movie camera. Technicolor could now promise studios a full range of colors, as opposed to
16992-464: The film had an extremely slow speed of ASA 5. That, and the bulk of the cameras and a lack of experience with three-color cinematography made for skepticism in the studio boardrooms. An October 1934 article in Fortune magazine stressed that Technicolor, as a corporation, was rather remarkable in that it kept its investors quite happy despite the fact that it had only been in profit twice in all of
17169-462: The filming of multiple attractions for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts . During the filming of Armageddon the filmmakers discovered the 40 feet high tall stage was not tall enough to hold one of the "asteroid" seen in the film. The floor was removed and an additional 20 feet was dug down to accommodate the 360-degree set for the scene. In 2001, soundstage 2 was dedicated to English actress Julie Andrews , because parts of Mary Poppins and parts of
17346-466: The first animated cartoon using Disney's multiplane camera , The Old Mill , were created. In 1937, the Hyperion studio produced Disney's first full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . Disney's staff began to grow to a substantial size at the Hyperion Studio, and Disney Legends such as Disney's Nine Old Men began their careers there. The Hyperion studio site
17523-426: The first car and rode to Glendale and there changed to a second car coming from Los Angeles and rode home again. Every face was an expression of happiness and satisfaction. The Burbank Line was completed through to Cypress Avenue in Burbank, and by mid-1925 this line was extended about a mile further along Glenoaks Boulevard to Eton Drive. A small wooden station was erected in Burbank in 1911 at Orange Grove Avenue with
17700-412: The first color sound cartoons by producers such as Ub Iwerks and Walter Lantz . Song of the Flame became the first color movie to use a widescreen process (using a system known as Vitascope , which used 65mm film). In 1931, an improvement of Technicolor Process 3 was developed that removed grain from the Technicolor film, resulting in more vivid and vibrant colors. This process was first used on
17877-481: The first day, the bank collected $ 30,000 worth of deposits, and at the time the town had a population of 300 residents. In 1911, the bank was dissolved; it would then become the Burbank branch of the Security Trust & Savings Bank. In 1911, wealthy farmer Joseph Fawkes grew apricots and owned a house on West Olive Avenue. He was also fascinated with machinery, and soon began developing what became known as
18054-712: The first in the San Fernando Valley . Within five years, several other telephone exchanges were established in the Valley, and a company known as the San Fernando Valley Home Telephone Company was formed, based in Glendale. This company provided telephone service to the entire Valley, connecting communities and facilitating growth. Home Telephone competed with Tropico, and in 1918 both were taken over by Pacific Telephone Company. At this time, there were an estimated 300 hand-cranked telephones in Burbank. The telephone network helped to connect
18231-406: The first live-action short film shot in the three-strip process, La Cucaracha released August 31, 1934. La Cucaracha is a two-reel musical comedy that cost $ 65,000, approximately four times what an equivalent black-and-white two-reeler would cost. Released by RKO , the short was a success in introducing the new Technicolor as a viable medium for live-action films. The three-strip process also
18408-633: The flatland section. Numerous media and entertainment companies are headquartered or have significant production facilities in Burbank—often called the "Media Capital of the World" and only a few miles northeast of Hollywood —including Warner Bros. Entertainment , The Walt Disney Company , Nickelodeon Animation Studio , The Burbank Studios , Cartoon Network Studios with the West Coast branch of Cartoon Network , and Insomniac Games . Universal plays
18585-463: The former back-lot and are located behind the Frank G. Wells Building. Both stages are 15,000 square feet (1,400 m) each and are in frequent use at the studios. Popular productions here have included, My Wife and Kids , The Muppets , 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter , The Geena Davis Show , and Brothers and Sisters . The Bungalow was built in 1935 as the original home of
18762-422: The frames exposed behind the red filter were printed on another strip. After development, each print was toned to a color nearly complementary to that of the filter: orange-red for the green-filtered images, cyan-green for the red-filtered ones. Unlike tinting, which adds a uniform veil of color to the entire image, toning chemically replaces the black-and-white silver image with transparent coloring matter, so that
18939-442: The gate, it cooled and the bulge subsided, but not quite completely. It was found that the cemented prints were not only very prone to cupping, but that the direction of cupping would suddenly and randomly change from back to front or vice versa, so that even the most attentive projectionist could not prevent the image from temporarily popping out of focus whenever the cupping direction changed. Technicolor had to supply new prints so
19116-523: The highlights remain clear (or nearly so), dark areas are strongly colored, and intermediate tones are colored proportionally. The two prints, made on film stock half the thickness of regular film, were then cemented together back to back to create a projection print. The Toll of the Sea , which debuted on November 26, 1922, used Process 2 and was the first general-release film in Technicolor. The second all-color feature in Process 2 Technicolor, Wanderer of
19293-447: The introduction of color did not increase the number of moviegoers to the point where it was economical. This and the Great Depression severely strained the finances of the movie studios and spelled the end of Technicolor's first financial successes. Technicolor envisioned a full-color process as early as 1924, and was actively developing such a process by 1929. Hollywood made so much use of Technicolor in 1929 and 1930 that many believed
19470-510: The late 18th century and the early 19th century, Spanish explorers and mission priests arrived in the Los Angeles area. The city of Burbank occupies land that was previously part of two Spanish and Mexican-era colonial land grants: the 36,400-acre (147 km ) Rancho San Rafael , granted to Jose Maria Verdugo by the Spanish Bourbon government in 1784, and the 4,063-acre (16.44 km ) Rancho Providencia created in 1821. This area
19647-418: The limited red–green spectrum of previous films. The new camera simultaneously exposed three strips of black-and-white film, each of which recorded a different color of the spectrum. The new process would last until the last Technicolor feature film was produced in 1955. Technicolor's advantage over most early natural-color processes was that it was a subtractive synthesis rather than an additive one: unlike
19824-629: The materials. Original Technicolor prints that survived into the 1950s were often used to make black-and-white prints for television and simply discarded thereafter. This explains why so many early color films exist today solely in black and white. Warner Bros., which had vaulted from a minor exhibitor to a major studio with its introduction of the talkies , incorporated Technicolor's printing to enhance its films. Other producers followed Warner Bros.' example by making features in color, with either Technicolor, or one of its competitors, such as Brewster Color and Multicolor (later Cinecolor ). Consequently,
20001-533: The money. Though their first films were shot in England, the necessity to build live-action facilities still arose. Lacking the capital to do it themselves, Jack Webb offered to put up some of the money to build live-action soundstages in exchange for the right to use them (Webb used them to shoot much of the Dragnet TV series). During this time, backlots for exterior shots were also built and remained standing at
20178-429: The new Alice Comedies starring Virginia Davis . It was also at this site where on January 14, 1924, Walt Disney met his future wife Lillian Bounds , an "ink and paint" girl whom he personally hired. In February 1924, the studio moved next door to an office of its own at 4649 Kingswell Avenue. The late Robert Disney's residence and the small office building that is home to 4649 and 4651 Kingswell Avenue have survived to
20355-450: The old Animation building and the Roy O. Disney Building; the animators had been forced to relocate in 1985 into a series of warehouses, trailers, and hangars in nearby Glendale. The Team Disney structure is sometimes called the "Seven Dwarfs Building". It has large sculpted caryatids of the Seven Dwarfs holding up the roof of the eastern façade, an homage to the animated film Snow White and
20532-456: The only Hollywood studio to come under military occupation in history. During the war, Disney regularly produced propaganda and training films for the U.S. government including its armed forces to increase morale among Americans that the fight against the Axis powers was waged for a just cause. In the years after the war, the studio began regular work on live-action features, as they needed
20709-464: The only movie made in Process 1, The Gulf Between , which had a limited tour of Eastern cities, beginning with Boston and New York on September 13, 1917, primarily to interest motion picture producers and exhibitors in color. The near-constant need for a technician to adjust the projection alignment doomed this additive color process. Only a few frames of The Gulf Between , showing star Grace Darmond , are known to exist today. Convinced that there
20886-410: The original Union Air Terminal. By 1935, Union Air Terminal in Burbank ranked as the third-largest air terminal in the nation, with 46 airliners flying out of it daily. The airport served 9,895 passengers in 1931 and 98,485 passengers in 1936. In 1931, Lockheed was then part of Detroit Aircraft Corp., which went into bankruptcy with its Lockheed unit. A year later, a group of investors acquired assets of
21063-498: The photography. In 1941 it housed two multiplane cameras , each standing 12 feet (3.7 meters) high and occupying its own room, and two conventional camera set-ups. A third multiplane camera was subsequently constructed. Since 1990 the Camera Building has been occupied by what is now Buena Vista Imaging, which provides photo-optical and digital imaging services for films and television. Burbank, California Burbank
21240-505: The pioneering residents to participate in foreign trade. Eventually, he constructed a sizable ranch house and barn near the present-day intersection of Victory Boulevard and Buena Vista Street. Subsequently, the barn was relocated and reconstructed at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California . The town's first bank was formed in 1908 when Burbank State Bank opened its doors near the corner of Olive Avenue and San Fernando Blvd. On
21417-487: The population jumped to 16,662. In the 1930s, Burbank and Glendale prevented the Civilian Conservation Corps from stationing African American workers in a local park, citing sundown town ordinances that both cities had adopted. Sundown towns were municipalities or neighborhoods that practiced racial segregation by excluding non-white individuals, especially African Americans, from living within
21594-536: The present and are still in use. In 1925, Walt Disney placed a deposit on a new, considerably larger lot at 2719 Hyperion Avenue, and the studio moved there in January 1926. It was here where, after a train journey with his wife Lillian, Walt created the character of Mickey Mouse in 1928. Here, too, the first three-strip Technicolor animated film, the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees , and
21771-555: The production of The Great Mouse Detective (released in 1986), Disney's Animation Department was moved off the Burbank lot into a cluster of old hangars, warehouses, and trailers located about two miles east (3.2 km) in Glendale, at the former site of the Grand Central Airport . Prior to the opening of the Team Disney Burbank building in 1990, Disney executives used the Animation Building as corporate offices. In 1995, animation production moved back to Burbank across
21948-432: The projection print made of double-cemented prints in favor of a print created by dye imbibition . The Technicolor camera for Process 3 was identical to that for Process 2, simultaneously photographing two consecutive frames of a black-and-white film behind red and green filters. In the lab, skip-frame printing was used to sort the alternating color-record frames on the camera negative into two series of contiguous frames,
22125-586: The property. Menasco's Burbank landing gear factory closed in 1994 due to slow commercial and military orders, affecting 310 people. Within months of Moreland's arrival, Community Manufacturing Company, a $ 3 million tractor company, arrived in Burbank. In 1920, the Andrew Jergens Company factory opened at Verdugo Avenue near the railroad tracks in Burbank. Andrew Jergens Jr.—aided by his father, Cincinnati businessman Andrew Jergens Sr. and business partners Frank Adams and Morris Spazier—had purchased
22302-685: The public once a year in November on the Saturday before Thanksgiving for its annual Magical Holiday Faire craft sale, but stopped hosting the Faire around 2003. As an aid to visitors, many buildings on the Disney lot are currently marked with identifying signs that include historical information and trivia about each site. The Studio's production services are managed by Walt Disney Studios 's Disney Studio Services unit – along with Golden Oak Ranch , The Prospect Studios , and KABC -7 Studio B. Disney has
22479-510: The public. Two independently produced features were also made with this improved Technicolor process: Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1934) and Kliou the Tiger (1935). Very few of the original camera negatives of movies made in Technicolor Process 2 or 3 survive. In the late 1940s, most were discarded from storage at Technicolor in a space-clearing move, after the studios declined to reclaim
22656-441: The red-filtered frames being printed onto one strip of specially prepared "matrix" film and the green-filtered frames onto another. After processing, the gelatin of the matrix film's emulsion was left proportionally hardened, being hardest and least soluble where it had been most strongly exposed to light. The unhardened fraction was then washed away. The result was two strips of relief images consisting of hardened gelatin, thickest in
22833-418: The restaurants operated 24 hours a day. At one time, Lockheed paid utility rates representing 25% of the city's total utilities revenue, making Lockheed the city's cash cow. When Lockheed left, the economic loss was huge. At its height during World War II , the Lockheed facility employed up to 98,000 people. Between the Lockheed and Vega plants, some 7,700,000 square feet (720,000 m ) of manufacturing space
23010-564: The room's name, explained its real function. In 1989, this archival material was moved to its current location at the Disney Animation Research Library in Glendale, California. Technological advances in animation, such as the advent of Xerography in the early 1960s and the development of CAPS in the late 1980s, ultimately made traditional ink and paint techniques obsolete at the Disney studio. The last Disney animated feature to fully employ inked and painted cels
23187-408: The same time, the arrival of the railroad provided immediate access for the farmers to bring crops to market. Packing houses and warehouses were built along the railroad corridors. The railroads also provided access to the county for tourists and immigrants alike. A Southern Pacific Railroad depot in Burbank was completed in 1887. The boom lifting real estate values in the Los Angeles area proved to be
23364-573: The same time, the film had to be photographed and projected at twice the normal speed. Exhibition required a special projector with two apertures (one with a red filter and the other with a green filter), two lenses, and an adjustable prism that aligned the two images on the screen. The results were first demonstrated to members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in New York on February 21, 1917. Technicolor itself produced
23541-635: The site and built a single-story building. They began with a single product, coconut oil soap, but would later make face creams, lotions, liquid soaps, and deodorants. In 1931, despite the Depression, the Jergens company expanded, building new offices and shipping department facilities. In 1939, the Burbank corporation merged with the Cincinnati company of Andrew Jergens Sr. becoming known as the Andrew Jergens Company of Ohio. The Burbank plant closed in 1992, affecting nearly 90 employees. The establishment of
23718-511: The site's location at the corner of Mickey Avenue and Dopey Drive, with directions to various studio departments as they existed in Walt's era. (Today only the street names remain the same). According to longtime Disney archivist Dave Smith , the street sign – the only one of its kind on the Disney lot – was installed as a temporary prop for the "Studio Tour" segment of the Disney feature The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and never removed. In 1985, during
23895-442: The soundstage was built in order to film Leopold Stokowski's segments in the 1940 film Fantasia . During World War II , the stage was used for repairing army vehicles. The soundstage was formerly dedicated to Fantasia , for it being the first motion picture that was filmed in the building. The stage is the smallest on the lot at 11,000 sq ft. It features a 2400 sq ft underwater tank and is still in active use. On June 24, 2013, it
24072-505: The sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles and its surrounding areas such as Burbank, making it easier for people to move around and do business. By 1904, Burbank gained worldwide recognition when the renowned heavyweight boxing champion James J. Jeffries became a significant landowner in the town. Jeffries acquired 107 acres (0.43 km ) of land along Victory Boulevard to establish his ranch. He ventured into cattle farming and exported his livestock to Mexico and South America, becoming one of
24249-506: The stage for the filming of the television series Dragnet . In October 1955, Stage 2 began production on the first series of The Mickey Mouse Club . From 1954 to 1955 and prior to the opening of the facilities at Glendale California, WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering ) occupied soundstage 2 to build multiple attractions for Disneyland , including the Mark Twain Riverboat. Since then, Stage 2 has been used for
24426-533: The street from the main studios with the opening of the Walt Disney Feature Animation Building. Today, the original Animation Building is used primarily to house offices for various film and television producers who have distribution deals with Disney. Its exterior was a primary location for the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks , though the interiors (including Walt's offices) were recreated at an outside studio. Completed in 1939 at
24603-413: The studios until after a major change in management in 1984. In 1986, after the corporate restructuring of Walt Disney Productions into The Walt Disney Company, the studio lot was remodeled to accommodate more live-action production space and administrative offices. The studio lot is now home to multiple offices and administration buildings and seven soundstages. It is bounded by South Buena Vista Street on
24780-703: The supervision of Walt Disney and his brother Roy, the Burbank Disney Studio buildings are the only studios that have been owned by The Walt Disney Company to survive from the Golden Age of filming. A bungalow, the Shorts building and other small buildings that were located at the Hyperion Avenue location were moved to Burbank. Disney purposely planned his new Burbank studio around the animation process. The large Animation Building stood in
24957-480: The surface of its emulsion was a red-orange coating that prevented blue light from continuing on to the red-sensitive panchromatic emulsion of the film behind it, which therefore recorded only the red-dominated third of the spectrum. Each of the three resulting negatives was printed onto a special matrix film. After processing, each matrix was a nearly invisible representation of the series of film frames as gelatin reliefs, thickest (and most absorbent) where each image
25134-403: The then-current filming of The Princess Diaries took place inside this particular soundstage. Stage 3 was completed in 1953 and designed especially for the film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . The stage is 19,000 sq ft and contains an operational 3600 sq ft water tank that is divided into two parts for underwater and special effects filming. The tank area was also used heavily beginning in
25311-488: The three extant multiplane cameras (which is on display in the lobby). It was formerly home to Walt Disney Television , various management offices, and the human resources department. The Archives are located on the ground floor and are open to all cast members; they also have additional storage and restricted areas on other floors. The Studio's Starbucks Coffee shop is also located on the ground floor. The three-story former main building for Walt Disney Animation Studios
25488-494: The three-strip process. One Silly Symphony , Three Little Pigs (1933), engendered such a positive audience response that it overshadowed the feature films with which it was shown. Hollywood was buzzing about color film again. According to Fortune magazine, " Merian C. Cooper , producer for RKO Radio Pictures and director of King Kong (1933), saw one of the Silly Symphonies and said he never wanted to make
25665-472: The time. Moreland's truck plant was later used by Lockheed's Vega Aircraft Corporation, which made what was widely known as "the explorer's aircraft." Amelia Earhart flew one across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1936, Lockheed officially took over Vega Aircraft in Burbank. During World War II, the entire area of Lockheed's Vega factory was camouflaged to fool an enemy reconnaissance effort. The factory
25842-475: The two sides of the print were not in the same plane, both could not be perfectly in focus at the same time. The significance of this depended on the depth of focus of the projection optics. Much more serious was a problem with cupping. Films in general tended to become somewhat cupped after repeated use: every time a film was projected, each frame in turn was heated by the intense light in the projection gate, causing it to bulge slightly; after it had passed through
26019-608: The use of the process in animated films that extended to September 1935. Other animation producers, such as the Fleischer Studios and the Ub Iwerks studio, were shut out – they had to settle for either the two-color Technicolor systems or use a competing process such as Cinecolor . Flowers and Trees was a success with audiences and critics alike, and won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film . All subsequent Silly Symphonies from 1933 on were shot with
26196-403: The various levels appropriate for a movie theater. The acoustics are designed to simulate a theater that is three-quarters full. Although the theater is empty during the mixing session, extra padding in the seats and specially designed walls absorb and reflect the sound. This helps the sound mixers to know what the final product will sound like when it is released to the public." The signage above
26373-433: The west side of San Fernando Blvd. and stretched from Verdugo to Cypress avenues, and on the east side to Palm Avenue. In 1927, five miles (8 km) of paved streets had increased to 125 miles (201 km). The Wall Street Crash of 1929 set off a period of hardship for Burbank where business and residential growth paused. The effects of the Depression also caused tight credit conditions and halted home building throughout
26550-495: The west, West Alameda Street on the north, South Keystone Street on the east, and West Riverside Drive on the south. It sits in an area of Burbank where the street grid is offset at a diagonal, but most of the original buildings and roads within the campus itself were laid out in alignment with the cardinal directions . Disney chairman Michael Eisner had the Team Disney building constructed in 1990. In 1992, Disney had gained city approval for its expansion master plan, which included
26727-468: The work before submitting it to Ink and Paint. A utility tunnel linked the Animation Building with the neighboring Ink and Paint Building and the Camera and Cutting departments. It was built to ensure that the original animation drawings and painted cels could be safely transported from one location to another without being exposed to bad weather or other outside elements. The tunnel is still maintained and
26904-405: The years of its existence, during the early boom at the turn of the decade. A well-managed company, half of whose stock was controlled by a clique loyal to Kalmus, Technicolor never had to cede any control to its bankers or unfriendly stockholders. In the mid-'30s, all the major studios except MGM were in the financial doldrums, and a color process that truly reproduced the visual spectrum was seen as
27081-470: The years to keep pace with new technology in the exhibition of films. Food and drink are not allowed inside. Throughout its history, the theater has also been used for post-production sound mixing. According to the Disney production services website, "The Main Theater is a state-of-the-art digital sound dubbing and screening facility that was first used to mix the sound for Fantasia [in 1940]. Sound mixers blend dialogue, music, and sound effects tracks to
27258-548: Was The Little Mermaid (1989). Today the Ink and Paint Building is primarily used for office space, though its original paint-mixing lab has been preserved and is used for the creation of limited edition Disney artwork created on-site. The Camera Building, built in 1940, was where animation backgrounds and cels were traditionally photographed onto film. Unique original features were the "de-dusting chambers" that personnel, painted cels and other materials had to pass through before entering, so no trace of dust or lint would show up in
27435-469: Was Oliver Morosco , who was already known as a successful theatrical impresario. He put the theater on the path to prosperity for many years. Though the theater was intended to be an opera house, instead it staged plays and became known nationally. The theatre featured leading actors of the day, such as Fay Bainter and Marjorie Rambeau , until it deteriorated into a burlesque house. In August 1900, Burbank established its first telephone exchange, making it
27612-459: Was a self-contained structure with its own cafeteria, lounge, and rooftop sundeck. The sequestered layout reflected workplace attitudes of the era. As was common in the American animation industry of Disney's day, the Ink and Paint departments were staffed exclusively by women. In the early 1940s, Disney employed over 100 "ink and paint girls" at a starting salary of $ 18 a week, as opposed to $ 300
27789-583: Was also where the prototypes for the JetStar corporate transport and Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo carrier first took flight, and where the concepts for the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar jetliner and Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter were developed. Lockheed's presence in Burbank attracted dozens of firms making aircraft parts. One of them was Weber Aircraft Corporation , an aircraft interior manufacturer situated adjacent to Lockheed at
27966-412: Was apt to result in a weak splice that would fail as it passed through the projector. Even before these problems became apparent, Technicolor regarded this cemented print approach as a stopgap and was already at work developing an improved process. Based on the same dye-transfer technique first applied to motion pictures in 1916 by Max Handschiegl, Technicolor Process 3 (1928) was developed to eliminate
28143-611: Was completed in 1940, based on a Streamline Moderne design by industrial designer and architect Kem Weber. It is considered the jewel of the original studio buildings. Walt Disney personally supervised the eight-wing "double H" design, ensuring as many rooms as possible had windows, which allowed natural light into the building to help the animators while working. Many Disney animated features were drawn here, including Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and
28320-412: Was darkest and thinnest where it was lightest. Each matrix was soaked in a dye complementary to the color of light recorded by the negative printed on it: cyan for red, magenta for green, and yellow for blue (see also: CMYK color model for a technical discussion of color printing). A single clear strip of black-and-white film with the soundtrack and frame lines printed in advance was first treated with
28497-534: Was dedicated by Wells's widow Luanne Wells, and company CEO Michael Eisner . The five-story building has a usable area of 240,518 square feet (22,344.9 m) with three underground parking levels, accommodating 600 parking spaces. The construction was completed in two phases: phase I in August 1997 and phase II in July 1998. The Frank G. Wells building was specifically designed for Walt Disney Television Animation , and
28674-467: Was dedicated to Mousketeer Annette Funicello as it was the original shooting stage for The Mickey Mouse Club . Constructed from 1947 and opening in April 1949, Stage 2 is the second oldest soundstage on the Walt Disney Studios lot, and at 31,000 feet (9,400 m), one of the largest in Los Angeles. It was built and financed by a joint agreement between Walt Disney and director Jack Webb , who used
28851-641: Was first duplicated onto a 35mm fine-grain SE negative element in one pass of the 16mm element, thereby reducing wear of the 16mm original, and also eliminating registration errors between colors. The live-action SE negative thereafter entered other Technicolor processes and were incorporated with SE animation and three-strip studio live-action, as required, thereby producing the combined result. The studios were willing to adopt three-color Technicolor for live-action feature production, if it could be proved viable. Shooting three-strip Technicolor required very bright lighting, as
29028-532: Was hidden beneath a rural neighborhood scenes painted on canvas. Hundreds of fake trees and shrubs were positioned to give the entire area a three-dimensional appearance. The fake trees and shrubs were created to provide a leafy texture. Air ducts disguised as fire hydrants made it possible for the Lockheed-Vega employees to continue working underneath the huge camouflage umbrella designed to conceal their factory. The growth of companies such as Lockheed, and
29205-732: Was located at 4406 Kingswell Avenue, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles (just east of Hollywood). This garage has been on display at the Stanley Ranch Museum in Garden Grove since the 1980s, several blocks away from Disneyland. His brother Roy O. Disney was also in Los Angeles at the time. In October 1923, the brothers leased office space on the rear side of a real estate agency's office at 4651 Kingswell Avenue. On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney accepted an offer from Margaret Winkler of Universal Studios to distribute
29382-582: Was located in Burbank at the peak in 1943. Burbank's growth did not slow as war production ceased, and over 7,000 new residents created a postwar real estate boom. Real estate values soared as housing tracts appeared in the Magnolia Park area of Burbank between 1945 and 1950. More than 62% of the city's housing stock was built before 1970. Following World War II , homeless veterans lived in tent camps in Burbank, in Big Tujunga Canyon and at
29559-399: Was managed by partial wash-back of the dyes from each matrix. Each matrix in turn was pressed into contact with a plain gelatin-coated strip of film known as the "blank" and the gelatin "imbibed" the dye from the matrix. A mordant made from deacetylated chitin was applied to the blank before printing, to prevent the dyes from migrating or "bleeding" after they were absorbed. Dye imbibition
29736-433: Was no future in additive color processes, Comstock, Wescott, and Kalmus focused their attention on subtractive color processes. This culminated in what would eventually be known as Process 2 (1922) (often referred to today by the misnomer "two-strip Technicolor"). As before, the special Technicolor camera used a beam-splitter that simultaneously exposed two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white film, one behind
29913-423: Was not suitable for printing optical soundtracks, which required very high resolution, so when making prints for sound-on-film systems the "blank" film was a conventional black-and-white film stock on which the soundtrack, as well as frame lines, had been printed in the ordinary way prior to the dye transfer operation. The first feature made entirely in the Technicolor Process 3 was The Viking (1928), which had
30090-499: Was one of the first 13 cities to join the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California , one of the largest suppliers of water in the world. This contrasted with other San Fernando Valley communities that obtained water through political annexation to Los Angeles. By 1937, the first power from Hoover Dam was distributed over Burbank's own electricity lines. The city purchases about 55% of its water from
30267-530: Was only used indoors. In 1936, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine became the first color production to have outdoor sequences, with impressive results. The spectacular success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which was released in December 1937 and became the top-grossing film of 1938, attracted the attention of the studios. Film critic Manny Farber on the 1943 Technicolor film For Whom
30444-446: Was sold in 1940 and divided between two different industrial manufacturers, and in 1966 a subsequent owner demolished what was left of the studio complex and replaced it with the supermarket and shopping center that stand there today. To honor the company's former headquarters from 1926 to 1940, the name 'Hyperion' has been reused over the years by the Walt Disney Company for multiple divisions and attractions, including Hyperion Books and
30621-434: Was suspended from an overhead track and supported by wooden beams. In 1911, the monorail car made its first and only run through his Burbank ranch, with a line between Lake and Flower Streets. The monorail was considered a failure after gliding just a foot or so and falling to pieces. Nobody was injured but Joseph Fawkes' pride was badly hurt as Aerial Swallow became known as "Fawkes' Folly." City officials viewed his test run as
30798-504: Was the location of Lockheed's Skunk Works , which produced some of the most secret and technologically advanced airplanes, including the U-2 spy planes . The city contains the largest IKEA in the U.S. The history of the Burbank area can be traced back to the Tongva people, the indigenous people of the area, who lived in the region for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. In
30975-546: Was the model for the Earffel Tower which stood at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park near Orlando, Florida from 1989 to 2016, and the replica at Walt Disney Studios Park in Disneyland Paris (2002 to the present), though the original has never been decorated with Mickey Mouse ears on top. The Roy O. Disney building is located next to the animation building and held the office of Roy O. Disney to whom
31152-625: Was the scene of a military skirmish which resulted in the unseating of the Spanish Governor of California, and his replacement by the Mexican leader Pio Pico . New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and from 1824, Rancho San Rafael existed within the new Mexican Republic. David Burbank purchased over 4,600 acres (19 km ) of the former Verdugo holding and another 4,600 acres (19 km ) of
31329-432: Was used in some short sequences filmed for several movies made during 1934, including the final sequences of The House of Rothschild ( Twentieth Century Pictures / United Artists ) with George Arliss and Kid Millions ( Samuel Goldwyn Studios ) with Eddie Cantor . Pioneer/RKO's Becky Sharp (1935) became the first feature film photographed entirely in three-strip Technicolor. Initially, three-strip Technicolor
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