Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1952)

244 DISNEY'S 4TH FRED C. ELLS, FACL DON'T let the title Water Birds fool you. Forthright and uninspired though it may be, it is without doubt the only uninspired aspect of Walt Disney's newest and best film in his True Life Adventure series. For here is a nature story which will entrance every amateur photographer, delight all lovers of wildlife and entertain every sentient person with its symphony of color, motion and music. ... In fact, if there are any dissenters in the audience, they can stay home and look at TV — which is all they deserve anyway. I'm clapping my hands for Water Birds because of a keen appreciation of its excellence. For, some years ago. I spent a winter in Florida happily shooting pelicans in Kodachrome. Thought I had some good stuff, too. on these great, feathered crash-divers. Anyhow, it was good enough to be used professionally. But now I see that Fd only begun to learn about pelican picture making. And I hadn't even started to learn about pelicans. My approach was wrong. I should have studied ornithology first. Water Birds, it seems to me, is an outstanding proof of this theory. For example, some twelve years ago I spent a week or ten days with Bert Harwell down around the Salton Sea area. Bert was for years a National Park ranger in the Yosemite, and later a lecturer and tour conductor with the National Audubon Society. He knew birds — their names, how they lived, their favorite arias and where they usually dined. But at that time Bert didn't know a movie camera from a mocking bird. That was where I came in. And, between us, we managed to get a lot of pretty good footage for Bert's lecture work. Today, however, I find it was Bert Harwell who contributed the amazing gannet sequence in Water Birds, a sequence in which he pictures the nesting habits of the Gaspe gannets, as well as their spectacular diving for herrings. Perhaps, therefore, you will pardon me for feeling some pride that it was I who first showed Bert which end of a camera was which. And to clinch my point further, here is a list of the contributors to the Water Birds footage: Alfred M. Bailey, director of the Denver Museum. Alfred G. Milotte, Disney's contract cinematographer. Ed N. Harrison, Los Angeles wildlife photographer specializing on pelicans. James B. Simon, director of Jackson Hole Wildlife Park in Wyoming and a wildlife authority for the New York Zoological Society. Martin Bovey, professor of English at Harvard and a wildlife lecturer. Norman Wakeman, of Balboa Isle, Calif., whose specialty is water ousels. Olin Sewall Pettingill, jr.. professor of zoology at Carleton College, in Northfield, Minn. John H. Storer, past president of the Florida Audubon Society. Frances F. Boberts, a Los Angeles wildlife authority, specializing on pelicans. © Walt Disney Productions YOU NAME IT! Both our author and Mr. Disney's department of ornithological oddities neglected to identify this improbable creature. Bert Harwell, lecturer-cameraman with the National Audubon Society. Arthur A. Allen, ornithologist at Cornell University. Stephen F. Briggs, former board chairman of BriggsStratton and now devoting his full time to wildlife photography as a hobby. Briggs, it was, who filmed the courtship dance of the grebes in Water Birds, a truly unique sequence. Murl Deusing, director of visual education for the Milwaukee Museum and a naturalist-lecturer. S. Paul Landau, physical scientist and nature photographer. Please note that practically every one of these men is primarily a student of bird life who has attained eminence in his field. They knew their subject. That knowledge gave them a story to tell. They had been telling this story via the spoken or printed word to limited groups. Now they are dramatizing their message in another medium which, with color, motion and music, holds worldwide attention. Summing up, then, here are the lessons I learned from Water Birds: First, know your subject. For, if you do, you will have something intelligent and interesting to say about it. Second, believe in your subject, be devoted to it. Inescapably, then, this sincerity of interest will shine through in your movie-made message concerning it. These qualities, it seems to me, have been inherent in all of the great Disney documentaries. Also, I suspect, they have infused the footage of our own truly great amateur films — Maxim Award winners, for example, in ACL's selection of the Ten Best. It has not been my privilege to make the acquaintance of such movie makers as Al Morton, Joe Harley, Frank Gunnell and many others of equal stature. But one can sense, even without seeing them, that their award-winning pictures are illumined with the warm, inescapable glow of sincerity. These men not only knew their subjects; they also believed in them with that compelling devotion which is the hallmark of all high endeavor. Water Birds, although bearing the Disney signature, is essentially and in the finest sense an amateur production. It was made by men who knew and loved their subject. "Know your subject!" says our West Coast correspondent, is the major message for movie makers in "Water Birds"