This was in 1954-55, Disney said, "and we mostly drove up Parleys Canyon, out through Evanston, and south through Evanston back through Utah. And we found the most beautiful big meadow up a side road. It was a four-hour drive.

"One day when we were up there about to break camp, a herd of, I don't know how many, sheep came through, and we had never known all summer they were up there. They came through our camp for the next day and a half."

The "True-Life Adventures" series was developed for wide audiences at a time when such films were not getting general distribution outside of schools and libraries. "I absolutely do believe this was groundbreaking work.

"There were a lot of folks out there shooting film for their own account, and using it as kind of lecture reels, to travel around to local Kiwanis clubs or whatever. But what we did was take that kind of film and re-edit it and reformulate it into something with more entertainment value. We added music and sound effects, we blew 16 mm film up to 35 mm quality, and those films at that moment in time, in the early '50s, really were unique, I think."

Although each documentary was gleaned from an enormous amount of film, there was always an idea or theme that started things rolling. "You would sort of shoot what you could find, but also, we got people who were naturalists and who knew where to go and what to expect and certain places and so on, and then what behaviors to look for on the various animals' part. So in a sense we knew kind of what we were going to get, but a lot of it was made in the editing room. The best part, though, was that the animals were better writers than we were."

At the time, critics occasionally snorted at the films for using humor to lighten things up or because the narration would anthropomorphize the creatures' behavior. But Disney feels that without those elements, the appeal would have been reduced. "We had a pretty sober attitude (while making the films), but we wanted you to enjoy yourself, too. If they weren't enjoyable, then not as many people would have seen them.

"In the years since, many, many times people have come up to me who wound up having a career in conservation or were in some way connected with the world of nature, who would say, 'Those are the films that got me started."'

As for the cleaning up process for these half-century-old films, Disney said it was a challenge since the existing prints and negatives had scratches and were dirty — and worse, the contrast values were poor. "That old Kodachrome film we used for so many years didn't have the latitude when you were, say, shooting a beaver. The sun part would be fine, but then the shadow part would just go black.

"I'm amazed to realize that the detail really was there in the film, and these new digital processes can reach in there and bring it out.

"It looks better than it did even when it was brand-new. It's astonishing to me."

---

E-mail: hicks@desnews.com