Hello all....this is my first post in this site so I thought I'd start with my Disney Story. Just a warning though it will be a long one.
First movie memory for me was “Sword in the Stone" at the age of 5 in the wonderful city of Sydney Australia. For some reason the memory is of waiting on George street to catch a bus with my brother who is 13 years older than I, but I did enjoy the movie from what I was told.
From there on I didn't see much except for the "Wonderful World of Disney" shows on TV.
When I turned sixteen I started working in a record shop with my older brother and I would stay at his place at times. He said that I should listen to some CD’s because afterwards we would watch a movie together. The CD's were the soundtracks for Fantasia. He specifically told me to think about the images that I thought about when I heard the music which I thought was a kinda weird thing to say but humored him.
Well I listened one day and thought the music interesting but it didn't grab me that much. Then we watched Fantasia for the first time, lights out, room totally dark, sound right up. BOOM...I was gone. My brother said that every image, every colour, the style, everything on screen was inspired by what the artists pictured in thier heads when they listened to the music just as I had done. I was gone!
I'd loved my cartoons from a really early age. I grew up with specific memories of watching the Looney Tunes with Bugs, Elmer, Daffy and co. Saturday mornings was the Hanna Barbera gang of Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss , Ali gator and Oggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy. Add to that Scooby Doo, Josie and the Pussycats, the Jetsons & Flintstones, Super Friends. SO I had this love of animation but couldn't articulate it into anything other than me liking lots and lots of cartoons.
SO I had my first real taste of Disney through Fantasia and was hooked. My brother bought me a book called "The DĂŻsney Studio Story" by Richard Holliss and Brian Sibley which was kinda a biography of Walt's life with a Filmography of every short, Feature lenght and Live action film created by Disney up to 1987. I was astounded at the things that Walt and his committed crew of people were able to pull off. First Animated film with synchronised sound, first animated film with colour, the debacle of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit films and creation of Mickey Mouse that came from it. The creation of the Multiplane camera. The Idea for DisneyLand and the fact that his brother, Roy, had by now become quite conservative and didn't think it worthwhile. The subsequent forays into TV which he did just to bankrole the Disneyland dream. The man quite honestly seemed a visionary!
I got really interested when my brother got me a book for my 17th birthday by some guys called Fank Thomas and Ollie Johnstone. Now I can't draw to save my life...I can't even draw stick figures but this book drew me right in. If there are any budding animators out there, whether your thinking about traditional hand drawn techniques or you want to go down the CGI path this book will enable you to learn how to imbue emotion, capture story and character and show how these masters made the simple line come to life. Here it was the wonder and the magic of a pencil and a line and how it comes from the thoughts in someone’s head somewhere to the drawingboad, paper, ink & cel and finally to the theatre or Television screen.
A few years later I got to meet Frank and Ollie in Australia when Bambi was released. They signed my copy of "Illusion of Life" and some lithographs that came out with the Jungle book and Fantasia Video box sets. Funnily the Jungle Book lithographs had thier names on them already and there's one with Kaa wrapped around Mowglie neck. Frank said to me "I already signed that one already". I pointed out to him that it was a copy of his signature and with a smile and a laugh he signed it five times across the bottom for me
I finished school after the “Little Mermaid” had such an impact and was working in a bank when a friend called me and said he'd seen an add for a shop looking for staff. It was called "That's Entertainment" and they had the licences to create clothes and other things of Disney, Warner Bros and Hanna Barbera characters. They were opening a new shop near me in a place called Penrith and so applied for a fulltime position. They couldn't give me one but could offer part time work. SO I left the bank in a flash, fulltime job and all and was determined to show them what they had. Before the shop had even opened they had me as a fulltime employee and so for me this was heaven. We had a huge projector screen where we'd show mainly Disney movies in the store. A favorite was Aladdin which we'd show when you couldn't get it on video yet. I had regular Uni students that I got to know that would ditch class and come to the shop and watch this or that...it was great environment. Seeing the kids faces as they came into the shops was amazing. I met so many great people that loved the Disney things as I did. In fact I met my wife while I was working in the Circular Quay store so I must have enjoyed it
The ownership changed after a while and it wasn't the same again and I soon went back to another bank but managed to get work in the same shopping complex once again for a new shop that was selling animation art. I had sericels and now I was selling Disney, and Warners and HB as well as Simpsons animation art when I wasn't working at the bank. I could tell you what cartoon this or that scene was from. People would come in not understanding how cartoons were done and we'd show them and original Simpson’s or Disney cel and go through the process of rough animation, cleanup, ink and paint and photograph spooled through a projector at 24 frames a second. Got myself a nice limited Edition Cel from Sleeping Beauty of Maleficent which is Hand Inked, Hand painted and is number 246 of 350 world wide.
Anyway that's my Disney story. Now I work for a large Telecommunications company as a business Analyst living in Sydney's Southern beach suburbs with my wife and 3 kids. The Disney DVD collection is going strong at around 70 animated ones not to mention live action ones. All up I'm up to around 400 DVD's total so I'm never short of something to watch.
As for other interests I love music The Beatles, Elvis, Chris Issacc and all the Motown stuff especially Marvin Gaye. I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and very shortly, 5 minutes in fact, I'm going to watch my beloved soccer team Manchester United crush Liverpool so I'm going to finish up now.
As you can see Disney has been a big part of my life, hence the long post. Hope I didn’t bore any of you to tears and I hope to speak to many of you, especially those fellow Aussies very soon
Glen Jamieson
. So having this bit of music on my computer is rather comforting.
(I've always wanted to use that smiley!!)
And I've always wanted to use this one 
if you shook his hand, don't wash it any more.