Walt Disney Biography

Walter Elias Disney was born on the 5th of December, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. His father Elias Disney was of Irish/Canadian descent and his mother Flora Call Disney was of German/American descent. Walt Disney had three brothers and one sister. The Disney family were raised on a farm in Missouri, USA where the young Walter developed an interest in drawing and trains. The Disney family moved back to Chicago where Walt attended the McKinley High School and took night classes at the Chicago Art Institute. At sixteen years of age Walt Disney dropped out of school to join the army but was knocked back because of his age. Instead, he joined the Red Cross and was shipped to France for one year, where he drove an ambulance. When Walt Disney returned from France he moved to Kansas City where his brother Roy Disney was working at a bank. He began his career as an advertising cartoonist at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he created commercial works for magazines, newspapers, and movie theaters. But he was keen to have his own business. Disney briefly started a company with the cartoonist Ub Iwerks, called â€Å"Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists†. The venture did not take off and the pair were forced to seek alternative paths to put food on the table. Disney and Iwwerks would later work together in creating some of the earliest popular Disney cartoon characters, including â€Å"Oswald the Lucky Rabbit† and â€Å"Mickey Mouse†. Walt became a pioneer of the animation industry, working his way through from silent cartoons, to sound, from black and white to Technicolor. He created the first full length animated musical and went on to combine cartoons with live action. A surprising switch of focus led to the creation of Disneyland in 1955, the first theme park the world had ever seen. It was a squeaky sounding mouse with big ears that would go on o be Walt Disney's biggest success. â€Å"Mickey Mouse† was born on the 18th of November, 1928. Mickey first appeared in a silent short called â€Å"Plane Crazy†, but it would be the â€Å"Steamboat Willie† cartoon with sound that made Mickey Mouse famous. Even though Walt Disney gets much of the credit and acknowledgment for creating the famous mouse, it is believed that his friend Ub Iwerks actually created Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney was the voice of Mickey Mouse up until 1946. Mickey Mouse would go on to become a symbol for the Walt Disney Company. The little mouse that started the company appeared in many cartoons, full feature films, comic strips, books, video games, toys, and was made into every piece of merchandise imaginable. Mickey Mouse became bigger than just the Walt Disney Company, and even came to symbolize the country of America. The mouse went on to become a cultural icon. Other popular cartoon characters that the Walt Disney Company went on to create include Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Butch the Bulldog, Scrooge McDuck, Clarabelle Cow, and many more. The company also animated other characters like Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Hercules, and more. The Walt Disney company received many Academy award nominations and was nominated for seven Emmys while Walt was alive. Disney's company had to overcome challenges like the workers strike in 1940, but the company mostly grew forward in leaps and bounds. The company went public in 1957 and continues to be a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange to this day. Disney was working on plans for a theme park when he died from lung cancer complications in 1966. His brother Roy would follow his plans through and the Walt Disney World theme park was opened to the public in 1971. The company continued to grow after the death of Walt Disney and is now one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates in the world. II. Problem During his working animated through from silent cartoons, to sound, from black and white to Technicolor and also created the animated musical and went on to combine cartoons with live action, there were some problem that he had faced it. †¢ When he started a company with the cartoonist Iwerks, the Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artist was failure. With all his high employee salaries unable to make up for studio profits, Walt was unable to successfully manage money. As a result, the studio became loaded with debt and wound up bankrupt. Disney then set his sights on establishing a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California. †¢ By 1927, the new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was an almost instant success, and the character, Oswald drawn and created by Iwerks became a popular figure. The Disney studio expanded, and Walt hired back Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng from Kansas City. In February 1928, Disney went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz who was the distributor animated to Universal Pictures. Disney was shocked when Mintz announced that not only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators (notably, except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney) under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney. Disney declined Mintz's offer and lost most of his animation staff. III. Analysis There are several things that made Walt became success. Along his journey to make his dream came true, he through up and down in the business. But Disney has a spirit and believes that he could make his dream come true. And there were some character he had that brought Disney become big today and it described as below. †¢ Personality of Leadership Walt Disney was a leader who exemplified many leadership capacities throughout his 43-year Hollywood career. He demonstrated a strong moral purpose and worked hard to make a difference in the lives of everyone who had interactions with Walt Disney Productions. His moral convictions were instilled in him by his parents at a young age. Walt was always striving to make people happy. His first priority was always to his family. Although he struggled to balance work and family at times, he was always there for his wife and daughters. Walt also had a strong commitment to his employees. He knew each person by name and insisted that everyone call him Walt. Throughout his life, and since his death, Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts and minds of millions of Americans than any other person in the past century. †¢ Knowledge of the Business After the failure of the Iwwerks-Disney Commercial Artists venture, Walt did not give up and went to Hollywood. Walt realized that creativity and enthusiasm were not enough in the business world and then he went into partnership with his brother Roy and started what would eventually become the Walt Disney Company. His friend and previous business partner Ub Iwerks also came to Los Angeles and played an important role in the success of the company. †¢ Self Concept Walt Disney developed a philosophy that anyone who wants more success would do well to adopt. He was growing through self-criticism and experiment. He admitted that this is not a genius or even remarkable. It is the way people build a sound business of any kind, through sweat, intelligence and the love of the job. Thing that made him success was his ability to come at a problem from different mental perspectives. He developed three distinct mental methods and gave them name that is the Dreamer, the Realist and the Spoiler. o The dreamer represents unrestrained creativity that exemplified what he loved to do. Walt Disney saw the creative dreamer as the starting point for his success. He could never stand still when the ideas come. He might explore and experiment and never satisfied with his work. Walt Disney was motivated by creative achievement and was comfortable in an uncertain business environment. o The realist represents how he made ideas as a concrete reality. And he could be as hard-deaded as any accountant when do something. Walt Disney was aware about technology changed and he was ready to evolve with it. He thought that his business will grow with technical advances. And should the technology advance come to a stop, prepare the funeral and they need new tools and refinements. He was aware of the human factors that drove his commercial success. His success was built by hard work and enthusiasm, clarity of purpose, a devotion to his art, confidence in the future and above all, by a steady, day-by-day growth. o And the last but not the least, is the spoiler. Walt Disney was a critical thinker and perfectionist person. He needed to be because he knew his audience would see the errors from the cartoon movies. He never spared feelings because his interest was in product. If a fellow went off on his own developing an idea that had not been approved, he was asking for trouble, and got it. The spoiler critically evaluated the work of the realist and the dreamer. †¢ Cognitive and practical intelligence Walt Disney understood and embraced the process of change. He knew that in order to continue to progress and find success, he needed to be one step ahead of change. This was evident through his willingness to take chances on innovative technologies as they developed in his field. When others expressed concern over perceived risks, Walt was always optimistic and had faith in his convictions. †¢ Drive Integrity Walt offered the chance for his employees to attend art school, at his expense. Many of his animators took advantage of Walt’s offer, and as a result, their work improved greatly. They were enthusiastic about this opportunity and were grateful to Walt for taking an interest in their futures. Walt always shared his ideas and concerns with his employees. He believed that the company would work best in an environment where a company worked together in all aspects of the business. †¢ Emotional Intelligence Walt had a good Emotional Intelligence. His Relationship Management’s personality could bring him managing other people emotion. Walt worked hard to build relationships, especially with his employees. He wanted his employees to be happy and he worked closely with everyone in his company. One of the best examples of his willingness to develop relationships is evidenced by his eagerness to help his employees learn more about animation. †¢ Leadership Motivation Walt had a profound effect on the people he worked with. His particular leadership skill lay in convincing people they could do thing far above what they thought they could do. Developing talent for the future was Walt’s passions. He himself held evening classes to train employees, teaching his team to embrace the future and strive for perfection. The culmination of his ideas was realized in the creation of the California Institute of Arts, a project he believed would ensure a whole new approach to arts training. IV. Conclusion Coherence making is possibly the strongest leadership capacity that Disney possessed. He was constantly able to bring things together to stimulate conversation. Walt knew how to prioritize and focus his work as a result of his moral purpose. He exemplified all of the capacities needed to be considered a true leader. Perhaps the best example of Walt’s leadership is the fact that over forty years after his death, his company has continued to be a pioneer in the field of animation. After Walt died at the age of 65, his brother Roy promised that all of the plans Walt had for the future would continue to move ahead. As stated by Thomas in 1966, Mickey Mouse will continue to endear himself to children everywhere with his lovable antics, Donald Duck will go on delighting them with his squawks and flurry of feathers; and millions of people the world over will, in Walt Disney’s own words, â€Å"know he has been alive. †