A Look at Waking Sleeping Beauty
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Waking Sleeping Beauty is not an animated film but rather a film largely about animation. Don Hahn said �The original working title of the film was �Persistence of Vision� which referred both to the grueling process of animation and also the physiological affect of viewing a series of stills and perceiving them as motion.  But there is a great Jeffrey Katzenberg quote in the film where he says we�ve got to wake up Sleeping Beauty.  Peter drew my attention to it and the phrase immediately resonated with us all as the title.� 

This documentary of the years at the Walt Disney Company between 1984 and 1994 shows that in the early 1980�s the company was in major decline with animation largely ignored. Roy E. Disney, being the lone voice of dissent on the Board, resigned in the midst of a corporate takeover battle and gathered forces around him to take back the company in 1984. Roy said �The real heartbeat of this company was, is and always will be the film business.� He was the champion of animation. As he often said, the company was started by a mouse. Many people remember the most recent time Roy left the Board in an attempt to oust Michael Eisner but not too many remember or know of this first coup.

Peter Schneider, Roy Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg

First Roy chose Frank Wells, a former classmate from Pomona College, and Frank recommended Michel Eisner. Roy later said that since Michael was a little crazy and Frank was a diplomatic grounding stone that they were like Walt and Roy O., which made for a good combination. And then Michael brought in Jeffrey Katzenberg. All of these men were strong, brilliant forces to be reckoned with and they competed against each other for control and credit. Frank Wells was the calming influence, who kept everything in check and things running smoothly during those years of the Renaissance. Though Frank was a stable influence in his business role, in his private life he was adventurous, resulting in his untimely death in 1994 in a helicopter crash. During those ten years such wonderful films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and more were created, producing box office hits and restoring the Disney magic. It makes the viewer wonder if Wells had lived, would there have been need for Roy�s leaving the Board a second time?

Don Hahn and Peter Schneider

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a collaborative effort by Director Don Hahn and producer Peter Schneider, showing the true story of those years, which they personally lived through and experienced first hand. At that time Don Hahn was one of the young rising stars at Disney, who produced some of the biggest hits, while Peter Schneider led the animation group. �As with most good films, the idea for this one started in a coffee shop,� said Hahn. They both had mixed emotions of euphoria and horror, recalling those years. �Initially Hahn was concerned that the story covered too many movies, too many characters and too much time to be told succinctly.� Peter Schneider convinced him that they were in a unique position of being insiders, who lived the complex riveting story. Hahn said �We thought that if we could tell that story in as honest a way as possible, it would be an amazing tale: Shakespearean characters and palace intrigue mixed with cartoons. Who wouldn�t love that?�

They chose Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios to come on board first. Then they contacted Michael Eisner, Roy Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg to tell their viewpoint of those years. Schneider said �For a long time, it was too raw for them to be able to speak about. The biggest surprise for me was how frank everyone was. There was a consensus that the story needed to be told.� �.In fact �Roy Disney was eager to talk. And Jeffrey Katzenberg couldn�t have been more cooperative. Michael was apprehensive at first, but when he saw our approach to the material, we gradually won him over.�