As a big fan of Disney’s theme parks, a significant use of my Disney+ subscription is watching content about the parks when I’m not inside them. There are several walkthrough videos of Disneyland rides and lands that give me a vicarious feeling of still being there. But the truly special shows on the service are those that look back at the history of Disney Parks.
One of the best things to be found on Disney+ today has been there since day one. It’s The Imagineering Story, a documentary series from Leslie Iwerks, granddaughter of Disney Legend Ub Iwerks, which traces the history of Disney Parks through Walt Disney Imagineering, the group responsible for creating the attractions. Her newest endeavor, the film Disneyland Handcrafted, is equally special.
I was invited by Disney Experiences to attend a recent screening of Disneyland Handcrafted at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. While I loved watching the movie at home, it was even better in a real theater environment, surrounded by like-minded fans. It’s a beautiful film made up entirely of footage captured while Disneyland was under construction, using largely footage that had never been seen before. It’s so good I couldn’t believe how hard it was to make the film. During a post-screening Q&A, director Leslie Iwerks explained that while everybody who saw her rough cut loved the movie, apparently nobody wanted to pay to finish it. She explained…
We cut together basically a 60-minute cut, and it needed more work, but it was enough for them to say, ‘We love it.’ But the problem was they couldn’t raise the funds internally. And then they had restructuring. So the project basically sat on hold for like three years, four years, something like that. So I just kept mentioning it here, mentioning it there to various people, but nobody really bit.
It’s wild that a documentary film about the building of Disneyland couldn’t generate enough interest at Disney to get finished. The final cut of Disneyland Handcrafted is only about 74 minutes, so the 60-minute cut was most of the way there. Whatever Leslie Iwerks needed to finish it wouldn’t have been much, at least not when it comes to the normal cost of making movies.
Of course, all the different corners of the Disney machine have other things they want to spend their money on. As much money as the company makes, budgets are not unlimited and spending money to finish the movie would have meant not having the money to do some other thing.
Somewhat ironically, while Disney has a side to its company that's entire job is making movies, it was the other side that eventually came to the rescue. Iwerks revealed that it was Jason Recher, a Vice President at Disney Experiences, who became the movie's champion, putting himself in charge of fundraising. Iwerks continued…
So finally I met with Jason Recher at Disney Experiences, and we were having dinner or coffee or something, I can’t remember. I said ‘You know, I’ve got this project, your 70th anniversary for Disneyland is coming up. This is almost done. It just needs some finishing funds. It’s just sitting on a hard drive. He said, ‘Send it to me.’ So I sent it to him, and he goes, ’Oh my god, this is amazing.’ So he goes ‘What is it going to take.’ [I] gave him a budget. He went around to every division basically with a cup. ‘Who wants to help fund this?’
Disneyland Handcrafted ultimately became the first movie by Disney Experiences. It’s available with a Disney+ subscription but is also available entirely for free on YouTube, where it has currently amassed 1.6 million views. Clearly, there was an audience for this film.
