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Films

This footage is one of several "documentaries" filmed and edited by Disney strikers during June and July, 1941. 

In it you can see Art Babbitt, Dave Hilberman, Herb Sorrell, and other notable figures of the Disney Strike.

 

Members of the Screen Actors Guild appear, including Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz).

March 3, 1937

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is racing to complete production on time for its premiere. Key animator Art Babbitt  was assigned some additional scenes of Dopey.  His Dopey animation tests ignored the directors' timing, adding more footage, which was Babbitt's usual approach on the short cartoons.

Director Dave Hand and supervisors, including Perce Pearce, confront Babbitt about sabotaging the production schedule.

This reenactment was dramatized from an actual transcript.

Produced and directed by Cameron Bossert.

March 12, 1941

Art Babbitt has grown resentful of the Disney studio's response to union efforts, and he became a leader of the independent union, the Screen Cartoonists Guild.

The director of Disney personnel, Hal Adelquist (who was once Babbitt's friend) confronts Babbitt about union talk on company time and property, particularly when war-torn Europe has cut off the foreign market.

This reenactment was dramatized from an actual transcript.

Produced and directed by Cameron Bossert.

October 12, 1942

Art Babbitt and the National Labor Relations Board has sued Walt Disney Productions for firing him in November, 1941 over union activities.

The company's defense, headed by Gunther Lessing (one-time Babbitt's unofficial consultant), argues that Babbitt is of lesser skill than the non-strikers, and names using Live Action Reference as proof of this.

This reenactment was taken from actual transcripts.

Produced and directed by Cameron Bossert.

An original 1937 newsreel of the making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs released to promote the general release after its December premiere.

Look for animator Jack Kinney, director Dave Hand, composer Frank Churchill, and animators Fred Moore, Norm  Ferguson and Les Clark, as well as Walt himself.

Notice the narrator point out that the artists "work in shifts, night and day" to complete the project.

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