An Interview with the Director of Walt Disney Art Classics - Lee Zoppa,

An Interview with the Director of Walt Disney Art Classics - Lee Zoppa
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LP: Who are your artists? Staff artists or independents?

LZ: Art Director Dave Pacheco has been with Disney for more than 20 years and was an animator on The Little Mermaid. He also worked in publishing at Disney. He helped launch the Walt Disney Classics Collection. He will often do concept drawings and give direction to make sure every piece perfectly conveys the character, the scene and the moment. We also use independent freelance sculptors. Kent Melton is one of our sculptors and he has been sculpting with us for years and years. He also does many of the maquettes for Walt Disney Feature Animation. Patrick Romandy-Simmons, who has sculpted for Walt Disney Imagineering, is another freelance sculptor we use, along with Bruce Lau who has done many pieces for the collection. Another freelance sculptor we are using, and who recently sculpted our magnificent new piece entitled "Off to the Ball," is Dusty Horner, a great and up-and-coming talent. Chris Peterson, Blaise Gauba, Gwen Dutcher, among others, are also part of the team - we have approximately 10 altogether. The prototypes are painted at the original Ink and Paint Department on the Disney Studio lot. Then we send them overseas for color matching and the final step - when they are created in porcelain.

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"Off to the Ball"
(c) Disney

LP: Do you plan on doing more theme park pieces?

LZ: Most of our Disney Theme Park pieces have been done in conjunction with either the Official Disneyana Convention or one of our Walt Disney Art Classics Conventions. However, we did do a series based on the Main Street Electrical Parade and it has been as successful and as well received as the parade. We have a musical accessory that plays the famous "Baroque Hoedown" music as well. We did actually retire that scene last year, and it will stay retired.

LP: Will you be doing limited edition stuff only?

LZ: I would say half of the pieces that we bring out are open edition pieces. We may honor them with a special backstamp because of an anniversary or particular timing and then possibly retire them. The rest of the pieces that we bring out are either available for a specific time frame, or numbered limited editions. For example, we say in advance we will only produce "Diana," our beautiful new sculpture from the original Fantasia, in an edition of 1,940 pieces world wide in honor of the year the film premiered.

LP:: Is there anything about Disneyana that you can talk about?

LZ: We have an amazing piece sculpted by Dusty Horner entitled "Monstro’s Revenge." The sculpture features Monstro the Whale crashing through a wave as Geppetto and Pinocchio desperately try to get out of his way. The sculpture has vitality, suspense and action! It is an exclusive to the Official Disneyana Convention (this year at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim) brought to you by the Walt Disney Classic Collection. It’s a numbered limited edition of only 750 pieces, and the suggested retail price is $795.00. It will only be available to people who attend Disneyana at Disneyland. It’s a beautiful and incredible sculpture.

LP: Are you going to focus on older films or newer films?

LZ: That’s a good question. We’re going to be doing some research, and we’re going to be asking our collectors what they desire. The last time we did research was about four years ago and we found that Disney collector preferences run the gamut. With the Walt Disney Classics Collection, it was originally said that the only films that were going to be brought out in three dimensional form were the films that Walt himself touched - that is, films through 1967. But then we started getting new collectors and younger collectors who said they wanted to see something from The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast. Sometimes these modern masterpieces become instant classics in peoples’ minds. We work with some of the collector groups, and they send us ideas.

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(c) Disney

We also look at what Disney anniversaries are coming up to see if there’s an appropriate piece that we can bring out to celebrate a particular milestone. While I can’t reveal specifics, we will have some unique pieces this fall.

LP: How do people send their requests?

LZ: All different methods. We do get a lot of letters, phone calls and e-mails or even messages from chat board participants. Sometimes, different collectors will put polls on the Internet; we will have face-to-face focus groups or we will do written and oral surveys at our conventions and collectibles shows. As a matter of fact, we are going to have a telephone survey to select collectors this summer. Retailers will also pass on suggestions from the collectors. Many retailers are collectors themselves and have a good feel for what people want to see.