Snow White (Disney) - Development

Development

Animators' initial sketches for Snow White's character, some of which bore a resemblance to Betty Boop, did not meet Walt Disney's expectations, as they were too cartoonish.

Hamilton Luske, whom Walt Disney had selected as the supervising animator for Snow White's character, was tasked with the challenge of making Snow White more believably human and realistic than any of the Disney studio's previous animated characters. This was a challenge Luske and co-animator Les Clark had previously been asked to explore while developing the character of Persephone for the Silly Symphonies animated short The Goddess of Spring. Of that project, Les Clark later remarked, "I'm sure Walt was thinking ahead to Snow White." Though the Persephone character ended up appearing somewhat lifeless and devoid of personality, that experiment in imitating realistic human movement and anatomy was continued and its lessons were applied in the development of Snow White's animation techniques.

The relatively new technique of using live-action footage as a reference for character movements was used extensively to bring Snow White's character to life. A young dancer named Marjorie Celeste Belcher (nicknamed Margie Bell) served as the live-action model for Snow White. (Margie Bell, daughter of animator Ernest Belcher, also later modeled for the Blue Fairy character in Disney's 1940 film Pinocchio.) Hamilton Luske directed her through the filming of numerous movement sequences, and then the animators studied and copied the footage to enhance the realism of Snow White's animated movements. Animator Ollie Johnston later recalled, "Ham's careful planning and shooting of the live-action footage, always with the idea in mind of how it would be used in animation, resulted in a very convincing character."