Marge Champion, Andreas Deja and J.B. Kaufman on Snow White

Posted by Dominic von Riedemann Sep 29, 2009

On October 6th, Disney will release its first animated feature film, 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, on Blu-Ray. The first – and some would argue the greatest – animated feature of all time,

To celebrate the Blu-Ray reissue of this classic film, Suite 101 chatted with 3 people who are either associated with the film, or who were touched by it in some way.

Disney historian J.B. Kaufman discusses Snow White's importance in the history of animated film, some of its technical achievements and offers insight into how the movie came together.

Senior animator Andreas Deja offers his professional perspective on Snow White, his favourite sequences, the many different animation styles and Maurice Noble, the artist who painted the beautiful watercolour backgrounds featured in the film. Oh yeah, and I snuck in a question or two about Deja's current project, The Princess and the Frog.

Finally, we talked with Marge Champion, the live-action reference for Snow White. What's a live-action reference, you might ask? A live-action reference mimes a performance for the animators, who film her actions and refer to it when animating the character, so that they get the body, hair and clothing movements right on film.

Marge must have done pretty good: she continued to do the same job for Disney, providing the movements for the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio, and the ballet-dancing hippo in Fantasia, among others. We get her perspective on working for Disney back in the 1930's, her relationships with some of the animators, and her thoughts on Snow White.

Look for these interviews, coming soon to Suite 101.