Disney Fans Should Mark Their Calendars For August 20

There’s a new behind-the-scenes look with reveals about future Disney projects coming soon. Disney is getting ready to release a new documentary featuring the most important creatives from across the company. We sat down with the filmmaker behind the new documentary. She is our favorite documentarian capturing the behind-the-scenes moves at the company.

Check out all the details on the new documentary coming soon and thoughts from the filmmaker behind it below. We also dive into her Disney connection and thoughts on the upcoming Oswald the Lucky Rabbit project from Jon Favreau. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including details on a new Disney World restaurant and changes hitting Magic Kingdom.

READ MORE – Don’t Pack These Items For Your Disney Trip. They Can Cause Headaches and Some Are Banned.

New Disney Documentary Features Key Creatives From Across Studio

Leslie Iwerks, the creator behind The Imagineering Story, The Pixar Story, and Disneyland Handcrafted, is debuting a new documentary featuring Disney’s most influential storytellers as they “reflect on the memories, moments and creative breakthroughs that shaped their work, tracing how those stories come to life at Disney’s theme parks around the globe.”

Here are the key people featured in the documentary:

• Former Disney Bob Iger
• Avatar Creator James Cameron
• Iron Man and Mandalorian Director Jon Favreau
• Marvel President Kevin Feige
• Frozen Director and Former Head of Disney Animation Jennifer Lee
• Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter
• Star Wars Head Dave Filoni
• Disney Animation Head Jared Bush
• New Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro

The conversations dive into the backstory of the creators and how the connect with the theme parks. Together they reveal how stories like Avatar, Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pixar, and the worlds of Frozen and Zootopia, become real places you never want to leave.

The new documentary will debut on Disney Plus August 20. The documentary will have its world premiere at D23 —the ultimate Disney fan event — on Sunday, August 16, where attendees will be among the first to see the film in its entirety.

For Disney fans, Iwerks is a familiar name. Leslie’s grandfather, Ub Iwerks, was Walt Disney’s original animator and co-creator of Mickey Mouse; her father, Don Iwerks, was a camera technician and inventor at Walt Disney Studios. Both are Academy Award® winners and Disney Legends. I sat down with Leslie Iwerks for an interview about the new film which you can see below.

You can see the full trailer for the new film here.

Interview with Filmmaker Leslie Iwerks

Now, here’s the interview with the director of the new film, Leslie Iwerks. The interview includes her interesting perspective on the creators that are featured in the film as well as her family connection to the new Oswald project coming from Jon Favreau. Hearing her discuss that new project was particuarly interesting because Leslie’s grandfather Ub Iwerks animted and co-created that character with Walt Disney back in 1927.

To me Leslie Iwerks in singuluar in her ability to tell the behind-the-scenes story at Disney. I hope that Disney continues to use her to help tell their complex stories. She is the creator behind my top recommendation for any Disney fan, The Imagineering Story, and the recent Disneyland Handcrafted documentary. I always expect her work to be beautiful (she discusses the “filmic” nature of her work), insightful, and optimistic.

Let’s dive into the interview which is included below in full from a transcription of our conversation.

Gavin Doyle: Hi, Leslie!

Leslie Iwerks: Hi Gavin, how are you doing?

Doyle: Good, good to see you! It is exciting. You have had a world tour, I think, since we last talked and interviewed in January on the lot with Disneyland Handcrafted and everything. First of all, congrats on that film, which has been so exciting to see how it has been received.

Iwerks: Yeah, it has been a fun one. It was a fun one to make, and I am glad people liked it.

Doyle: And that piggybacks nicely into talking about this, because some of the, my understanding is some of the path of that led to this, and I recognized some moments, I think, in Disneyland Paris where we were both there, and I ran into some of your crew there as well. I know you did a screening out there for that sort of thing. So, you know, it made me want to start by asking where what the origins of this project were.

Iwerks: Well, I think it was just a conversation early on with Jason Farkas and Molly McClary about some other, some new ideas. And one of them was just this idea that the parks mean so much to so many fans, and all of us, right? But I started thinking about: what does it feel like for the next generation of creators? Having looked back onto Disneyland Handcrafted and Walt building Disneyland, and, you know, so many of those of the attractions and lands are based on Disney IP that he created, Disney brands that he created, characters, etc., films. And I just started thinking about: what does it feel like for the modern day creators to, to, you know, have their films in the, in the parks as experiences? And what does that, what is it like to come up with a concept that is from your own head or on the page or on a napkin, a character that you draw, and then that goes, becomes a movie, and then that movie or a walk around character? And so it was, it was looking at all the different brands that are within Disney that Bob Iger brought in and acquired, and then talking, wanted to talk to those creative filmmakers to see just what was their journey to getting to the points of these attractions in the parks. So that was, so it became more of a singular focus from their points of view of as fans themselves and as creators.

Doyle: What did you notice as a through line between all those different stories?

Iwerks: I think the through line was just this common love of, of the parks, you know? They all were pretty giddy talking about their earliest experiences at, at a Disney park or watching a Disney film and how it, how it helped to shape their own creative paths. And that was fascinating to me, whether it be through film or animation or the parks. There was a lot of Disney inspiration across pretty much everybody.

Doyle: Was there any particular moment that unlocked that for you, or that maybe the first time you were shooting with one of these creators and you kind of recognized that they were all starting to echo similar sentiment?

Iwerks: I mean, I think it was, you know, certainly walking around the parks with, with Jared [Bush] and his enthusiasm, you know, for Fantasyland, and same with Jen Lee walking around Paris and Fantasyland there as well. Just that, that little kid excitement was shared by pretty much everybody. And it was just fun to be with them and and talk about it, and just have these shared experiences. As a kid growing up at Disneyland myself, in the park and behind the scenes of the park, it was fun to be able to share those stories with them, too. They now work with Imagineering, and they work with the different, you know, talents within Disney to build these theme parks and these attractions. And so, it was just fun to to share our joint passion for it. And so I wanted to bring their stories to the screen.

Doyle: I think I have complimented you before on striking a balance really nicely in telling these stories and bringing, using your own background. So, I am curious if you were in this documentary, which you easily could be as another great storyteller in the Disney kind of pantheon with the same background, what would be kind of your comments looking back on moments at the theme parks that inspired you or now coming full circle?

Iwerks: Well, that is a good, nice question. I mean, I am not in the film, but the filmmaker’s job is to bring other people’s stories to life, and I think if I were to have a place in it, it would certainly be my passion for going behind the scenes at the parks as a kid. And that fueled my inspiration to tell stories about the making of and the behind the scenes and the magic and the wonder behind how people do things. And then just sort of continuing today through my own film journeys of documenting a lot of the great work at Disney and and the creative parts of the Disney company.

Doyle: A couple of things stood out to me as I was watching it were the artistry. I think there were really interesting angles and shots that you found. So, to your crew and you I thought of, there was a moment when you had Pete Docter walking down and there were ducks kind of in the foreground, and then another where you pan up from, I think, Jennifer Lee reflection of the of the Paris castle in the water. How much time are you taking looking for shots like that? Is that second nature now or are you kind of staging it as you pull these kind of vignettes together?

Iwerks: I think it is sometimes it is a bit of luck when you got ducks walking through, but also I think it, it is looking for little details. Where we can start a shot off, you know, how we start a shot, how we end a shot, what unique angles we can get, and also just to, to make it feel very intimate. I think that was part of it, was just walking with everybody through the, the different areas, and just how do, how do they feel? And I think everybody really was looking forward to walking in their own lands, you know? Kevin Feige in Avengers Campus, and being with, with Jared in Zootopia and Jen in in World of Frozen. Everyone had a blast just saying, “How, how did we get here? How did, how did this happen?” You know, how lucky were they.

Doyle: You have shot a lot of creators sitting in a world that they were related to, thinking about this and Imagineering Story, I guess, being the main two. What is the secret to that, to positioning someone the right way? Because it is, your shots of a talking head become a lot more interesting when you have positioned them beautifully in these spaces.

Iwerks: You know, I think it is just trying to, always find a visual background that looks interesting. You are not always lucky, but we work really hard to try to, to try to find those locations and set, and settings that would, that feel filmic and feel, you know, cinematic. And so we were lucky to, you know, with Jared to be down at Disneyland, you know, with an animation table behind him. And  with Jon Favreau in his space with all his creatures behind him, and James Cameron with all his characters in the film world behind him. And so it was just always trying to put them in the right place, and, and it is also a lot of great support from the folks at Disney behind the scenes to help grant me access to places that wouldn’t normally be doable. So I think that I owe a lot of debt to the great teams at Disneyland and, and other parks that really help with that effort.

Doyle: One of the early opening shots of the documentary is outgoing Disney CEO Bob Iger walking down Main Street. There are a lot of Bob references in this. We are at the end of his long term as CEO. Was that intentional or how did that come to be a focal point of this?

Iwerks: Well, pretty much all the filmmakers had their stories greenlit by him or their brands were acquired by him. So, in a sense, he is a tie through everybody. But at the end of the day, it was really about the storytellers and this was a film about storytellers on storytelling. And my goal was to through them try to inspire the aspiring creators out there, to know that you can dream up something on a napkin and turn it into a world, and turn it into a ride, you know? And, and I just think through these first person accounts, my hope was that it would feel inspirational for a lot of people. And that, that was my goal. Simple. A simple goal.

Doyle: There are some interesting reveals in the film, even just ways that artists are thinking about things and looking at kind of future projects. Was there anything in there that stands out to you in particular?

Iwerks: Well, I think the reveal with, you know, with Jon Favreau talking about Oswald, and bringing Oswald back into a new TV series, but also filming Oswald in the park was a special, you know, conversation to have with him, and to reveal that.

Doyle: How did you feel about, yeah, I was going to say, with your family connection in particular?

Iwerks: Yeah, I mean, he and I spoke about Ub’s animation of Oswald and, and he was really trying to make it authentic and make it he movement in the character as real as it was back in the day. He is such an amazing craftsman and director. I mean, he really puts a lot of effort into the technology and pushing the boundaries and what not, but also staying true to the authenticity of Oswald. And I appreciated that he appreciates that character. You know, it is not a character that we all remember or watch too much in the animated way. We love the character in the merch and stuff that we buy at the parks, but to bring him back as a character is fun for me.

Generally I just enjoyed hearing stories from the different creators. Like Pete Docter speaking about how he was an intern on an Epcot film, Cranium Command, that takes place inside the, the head of a child, and yet how that was a spark, unbeknownst to him really much later, for Inside Out. And it is just these moments of inspiration that the parks had on these filmmakers or that the Disney characters, like Oswald, had on these filmmakers, in case of Jon Favreau.

And then also what is cool is that in Jon’s case, his characters in his films are now in the parks, and then he brings the droids into the next film. So it is this kind of circular creative flywheel in a way that the parks are inspiring, or films are inspiring the parks, but the parks also inspire the films in some ways.

Doyle: Thank you for the time. I look forward to seeing you at D23 next week. Congratulations on the new film.

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