{"id":1626,"date":"2026-06-11T15:37:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1626"},"modified":"2026-06-11T15:37:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:37:56","slug":"how-leslie-iwerks-turned-200-hours-of-silent-footage-into-disneyland-handcrafted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1626","title":{"rendered":"How Leslie Iwerks Turned 200 Hours of Silent Footage Into \u2018Disneyland Handcrafted\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\tWhen director Leslie Iwerks decided to make <em>Disneyland Handcrafted<\/em> using archival footage to depict the eponymous theme park being built in 1954 and \u201955, she had one lingering doubt: Are people interested in a movie about construction?<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1624\">Ronan Farrow Plays Investigator and the Investigated in Two New HBO Series<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tBased on the awestruck comments on YouTube, where the film can be viewed in full, the answer is yes. \u201cI think new generations are like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s always been there,\u2019 \u201d says Iwerks. \u201cBut they\u2019re actually seeing the origin of it before they were ever born and seeing Disneyland in a whole new way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tTo make the 79-minute film, also available on Disney+, Iwerks and her small team combed through roughly 200 hours of 16mm footage they\u2019d obtained from Disney\u2019s archives. Most of the imagery was in good condition, but whittling it all down became a massive undertaking: It wasn\u2019t in chronological order, and all of it was silent.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tFortunately, Iwerks knows a thing or two about Disney history. Her grandfather, Ub Iwerks, helped to design Mickey Mouse, and her father, Don Iwerks, spent 35 years as a camera technician at the company. She\u2019d initially delved into Disney\u2019s theme-park legacy when she directed 2019\u2019s <em>The Imagineering Story<\/em>. The first episode of that miniseries details the advent of Disneyland, but without an emphasis on how deadline-driven its inception was.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tFor this project, Iwerks wanted to immerse audiences in the park\u2019s real-time development, so she structured the film as a (fairly calm) race against the clock to meet the company\u2019s targeted opening in July 1955. The 10-month timeline follows the methodical technical work that went into the process. Iwerks worked with Bonnie Wild, a sound mixer whose credits include multiple Marvel and <em>Star Wars<\/em> projects, to piece together all of the sound from scratch \u2014 every creak of metal, every footstep and hammer, and every tractor driving across concrete. Some of it they sourced from archival sound libraries, and some of it they generated via Foley.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIn lieu of talking heads, <em>Disneyland Handcrafted<\/em> uses interview audio from a variety of sources. Iwerks had nearly 100 hours\u2019 worth to choose from. Many of the voices were recorded by Dave Smith, the founder of the Walt Disney Archives, with additional commentary stemming from panel discussions and other documentaries.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1622\">\u2018The View\u2019 Books JD Vance Amid FCC Fight<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cWe really started to see a common theme, which was: It was so challenging,\u201d Iwerks says of the park\u2019s fast-paced progress. \u201cThe conflict really rose to the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe goal, Iwerks says, was to make a film that anyone \u2014 not just Disney obsessives \u2014 could enjoy. She has since heard of park\u00adgoers who are pulling up <em>Disneyland Handcrafted<\/em> on iPads to compare the present-day facades to the old footage.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cI wanted you to really live in it,\u201d says Iwerks of the finished product, \u201cminimal cutaways, all v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n<em>This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1620\">India\u2019s Microdrama Market Explodes as Disney-Backed Service Hits 100 Million Users<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THR explores how Leslie Iwerks transformed 200 hours of silent footage into the film &#8216;Disneyland Handcrafted.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[245,1435,38,225,1436,826,827],"class_list":["post-1626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-awards","tag-disneyland-handcrafted","tag-documentaries","tag-documentary","tag-documentary-spotlight","tag-emmy-awards","tag-emmys-2026"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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