You could see the resemblance of Roy Disney to his famous uncle Walt, particularly in the beginning of the decade when he took an active role in the promotion of the family business.

There was a time, around the early 1980s or so, when Disney (the company) was seriously considering phasing out its animation department. It was Roy who was the department’s champion, who made sure it got the staff and equipment it needed to produce such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and many more. Because of his efforts, Disney’s animation department helped drive the company to achieve new heights in the entertainment world.

The clip above, Destino, could be said to be a personal project of Roy’s, along with Fantasia 2000. As a producer, he got an Oscar nomination for the short, based on some storyboards of the surrealist Salvatore Dali. Neither film could be said to be a major hit, but Roy believed they were necessary for the Disney studio to make, as a way to stretch the abilities of the animators and their moviemaking technology.

Roy Disney passed away today, at the age of 79, but his understanding of animation continues in the person of John Lassiter, who headed the computer animation giant Pixar. When he came on board, one of his conditions was to keep and develop traditional hand-drawn animation — exactly the attitude that Roy championed.

(NOTE: Destino is not out on commercial DVD release yet, so pirate clips like this are pretty much the only way (apart from the occasional film festival) that people can see the film in its entirety. Once the film does get a commercial release, I’ll take the coding out.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 15:40 and is filed under Animation, R.I.P.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.