Disney on Mood

Chapter five of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation starts with a quote by Walt Disney that says: "In most instances, the driving force behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character--or else all three. Therefore the mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them" (93). I believe that this quote refers to the fact that Disney artists had to use their minds to decide how a character's mood, personality, and/or attitude would affect the actions of that character. The artists also had to treat the characters as humans and make it so that the characters seem to think before performing an action.

The quote at the beginning of the chapter seems to say that most actions also reflect the mood, personality, and attitude of the character. For example, a character playing baseball and about to be struck out by the pitcher may become angry about the situation depending on their personality, attitude, or mood. During their final swing (which either hits or misses) they may swing full force with an angry looking reddish tinted face, if they are easily angered under pressure. If they miss, they may walk away in shame or yell in an angry tone. However, if they hit a home run they may celebrate or be in shock at the situation. All of these possibilities depend on the character's mood, personality, and/or attitude.

In the Playful Pluto animation by Norman Ferguson on pages 100 and 101, Pluto sits on a sheet of flypaper and it gets stuck to him. He continuously tries to get it off of him and the situation seems to just get worse. The first part of Pluto's reaction is shock, which is shown by his body turning stiff and his ears standing up. After that, he looks pitiful and helpless and a tear even seems to show up on his face. This leads to anger and irritation, which is shown by him showing his teeth and then trying to tear off the fly paper. After a while of being irritated because of not being able to get the flypaper off, he manages to get the flypaper stuck to his face too. Pluto begins to spin in a circle to get the flypaper off and the last two shots show him as a whirlwind. In the whirlwind ones, the speed at which he is going to cause the whirlwind shows that he is desperate.

Mood, personality, and attitude affect the way that a character reacts to any given situation. In the Pluto example at the top, if Pluto were not so irritated and desperate to get the flypaper off, he may have just walked around without even minding the flypaper stuck to him. However, in his mind, he knew that he had to get it off because it may stay stuck to him forever. Disney artists worked hard on making characters with their own personalities to show actions in many ways. No one way exists to animate a character with their own personality, which means that many different results occur depending on different animators and characters.




Thomas, Frank and Ollie Johnston. 1995. The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. New York: Disney Editions.