Interview: Leslie Iwerks

Disneyland's opening seemed like an impossibility throughout the construction process. Holly interviews filmmaker Leslie Iwerks about her new film "Disneyland Handcrafted," which shares the journey from an empty dirt lot to the theme park we know today. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:06Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:17Holly Frey?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.

• 2:20Tracy V. Wilson?

  And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 2:22Holly Frey?

  Tracy, we have an interview today that I have been wanting to do for a very long time at this point.

• 2:29Tracy V. Wilson?

  You've been talking about it for a while.

• 2:32Holly Frey?

  I know. You're probably like, this is never gonna happen, but it did. Because several months back, Leslie Iwerks team reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in talking to Leslie on the show. And the answer was a resounding yes. I would have wanted to talk to her before that. I think she's amazing. Our schedules, though, just did not want to cooperate. It became comedic, where it was like, well, I'm getting back from California on this day. I could do any time after that in the following week. And it would be like, no, then Leslie starts her travel that night. And it would be like, okay, well, Leslie's gonna be back this day. And I'm like, I will be on a flight to Italy. Like, it just, nothing was working.

• 3:17Holly Frey?

  But we finally wrestled those schedules to the ground.

• 3:19Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, I like how it finally worked when I was on vacation. Perfect.

• 3:24Holly Frey?

  The timing actually was perfect. Yeah, it was during a week when we were not doing our regular record. We did some recording before you went on vacation. So I had like some freed up time in there and it just, everything came together as it should.

• 3:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hooray. If the name Iwerks sounds familiar, it's because it's come up on the show before, although it's been quite a while. Of Iwerks, Leslie's grandfather was an animator and cartoonist and director and special effects artist and many other things. And also famously Walt Disney's partner from his earliest years in Kansas City. Don Iwerks, Leslie's father, spent 30 years at the Disney company pushing the boundaries of films' more technical side, inventing, among other things, the first 360 degree camera.

• 4:15Holly Frey?

  So Leslie's pedigree is really quite impressive and Leslie herself is very impressive. She is a filmmaker. Her latest project is a documentary titled Disneyland Handcrafted, and it shares the story of Disneyland's construction, something we talked about in our Haunted Mansion episodes, which were quite a while back now, although we have rerun them as classics. I think when the pandemic first popped off and everyone was at home, we did a list of our favorite episodes that we republished, and that was on there because I love that place. But this is a really beautiful look, and also terrifying, as we'll discuss in the course of the interview, look at how Disneyland went from an empty massive lot

• 5:00Holly Frey?

  to the place, the amusement park that we all know today. And Leslie very graciously spent time talking to me about making this film. So here is our conversation. I am so beyond delighted to get to be here today with Leslie Iwerks, someone whose work I have admired a great deal, and we're going to jump right in. So Leslie, your grandfather's story was, of course, incredibly instrumental in your decision to become a documentary filmmaker rather than what you initially went to film school for, which was narrative film, I believe. Will you talk about that and how that resulted in your first film, The Hand Behind the Mouse?

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Sure. First of all, thanks for having me on the show. Nice to be here. Yeah, I, you know, I went to USC, had a great time. And when I graduated, you know, everyone's always trying to look for, what are they going to do next? What's their next project? And what's, what are they passionate about? And I think for me, it was to tell the story of my grandfather, who, who I never got to know because he died when I was just one. So I- Thought, you know what, I now armed with a film degree and I want to tell his story in a documentary. And so I got the support of Roy Disney, Roy E. Disney, to do it and the, and Michael Eisner. And, you know, I think they probably thought it was gonna be

• 6:28Speaker 04

  like a small little doc and, you know, no big deal. And then it ended up being a, they said, well, we'll fund you for 60 minutes. And I really wanted it to be a 90. And I just had a great time and made the best film I could. And when they saw the 60, they said, well, actually, it's so good. We'll fund you for an additional 30 to make it what you really wanted.

• 6:48Holly Frey?

  Nice.

• 6:48Speaker 04

  So that's, that was great. And ultimately became this project of fulfillment in a way to get to know my grandfather that I never got to know. And I traveled all the way through and walked in the footsteps of Walton and my grandfather back in Kansas City. For those that don't know, he was, his name was Abi Works, and he was Walt's original business partner and collaborator for the majority of his life as an animator and also as an Academy Award winning visual effects and engineer. He developed all sorts of camera systems, projection systems, and all sorts of things for the park. So it was a multi-part story that I was able to tell and really get into all the facets of his life. And so that was a lot of fun for me.

• 7:34Holly Frey?

  And you have subsequently made a lot more documentaries, both in standalone form and as series, like Recycled Life, The Pixar Story, one of my very favorites, Industrial Light and Magic, Creating the Impossible, and on and on. If somebody just wants to spend like a great weekend on the couch where they learn a lot and have fun, your library is like where it's at.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you.

• 7:56Holly Frey?

  Oh, it's, listen, researching for this, like doing my reviews, I was very delighted to call it work.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 8:02Holly Frey?

  Not all of those films are about creative people and endeavors, but a lot of them are. And I have heard you speak before about growing up around the work of your father, Don Iwerks, who Was also groundbreaking in filmmaking and as an inventor and technology. How has being immersed in that world of filmmaking from the time you were very young, informed the way that you tell stories and particularly stories of creative people?

• 8:31Speaker 04

  It's a good question. I've often wondered that myself. I mean, basically, what I really think happened is that I was given the opportunity to go behind the scenes with my dad as a kid, whether that be the Disney studio backlot, when it was still a working set, you know, backlot with movies happening and in production, and also to the parks backstage, Disneyland and Walt Disney World and Epcot. And I got to see as a little kid, as a, you know, young adult, little kid, young adult, how things are done. And he would always be very generous in sharing with me how

• 9:11Speaker 04

  things are done. And it just, I think, created this inquisitiveness in me to want to know, you know, how do movies get made? How do, you know, how do these animatronic figures get made? And, and he would show me how cameras get built and how he comes up with optics and lenses and all sorts of things. So it was not only technologically, it was also movie making as well. And I think that early interest fueled my interest to go to film school. And ultimately, ironically or not, that the fact that I've told stories about how things are, do get made, whether it be Industrial Light and Magic and the visual effects, or whether it be, you know, Pixar and how they make their films, or whether

• 9:55Speaker 04

  it be Imagineering and how they make the parks and the rides and the attractions. It's all kind of interesting to me, but I think what really was interesting to me also at a young, young age was business, business and business opportunities and how people find something.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  And find a niche that needs to be, you know, a hole that needs to be filled out there in the world and, and they figure out a way to create it and build it and bring it into fruition and also innovation. And so innovation, business and creativity, I think are the three pillars of a lot of my work. And I really enjoy all those stories, even independently. But when they come together, it's really exciting.

• 10:36Holly Frey?

  Speaking of exciting ways they have come together, your most recent project, Handcrafted, delves into the creation of Disneyland, which hits all of those pillars. There is some amazing footage in this documentary because as you mentioned in it, Walt Disney hired photographers and cinematographers to basically have the construction documented throughout. And you ended up with a lot of footage that no one had ever seen before that you got to work with. How do you begin to sort through all of that when you realize you have to turn that into a film?

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Well, it, how do I even begin? I think what happened was we found these binders that were in the film archives and we borrowed them and looked through them and they were from like the 50s, right, 60s. And they were the, the list of film reels that were, that were taken, captured during the making of the Disneyland Park. And, and film reels post Disneyland, you know, opening over the next decade, right? So we started going through all this for the Imagineering Story. And we used quite a bit of it in the Imagineering Stories, episode one. But my editor, Mo Stobie, had said, you know, one day he's like, you know, what if we tried to do something that's just using this footage by itself,

• 11:55Speaker 04

  all verite? And I said, well, that's a great idea. I said, you know, we need to find a structure for it and figure out, you know, how much is there and, and find the audio bytes to support that, right? I didn't want to do talking heads, typical talking heads. I didn't want to do still photos. I think what really intrigued me and intrigued us as a team was the fact that this footage was shot by the photographers who were some of the true life adventure photographers that Disney hired to go shoot animals in Africa and, you know, groundhogs on the prairie and things like that. And so these guys were so used to documenting real life as it happens for hours. So

• 12:40Speaker 04

  That was intriguing to me that they shot these scenes as scenes. But when you look at the reels and the way we received them, they were all over the map. They were all disorganized and we'd have to basically find the one shot that was on reel thirty-two and then another shot, part of that scene that was on sixty-five. And we finally had to organize what became probably sixty to seventy hours of material just for the pre-opening. And so, taking all that information, all that and figuring out like an archaeological dig, what was this mound of dirt? And what direction was it facing? What direction is the camera facing? And what is that going to be down the road? Is that Tomorrowland? Is that Adventureland?

• 13:24Speaker 04

  So, all that stuff became a major feat for my editor, Mo, and my producer, Mark Kettleen, and myself to really go through it all and figure out, okay, well, what is what? But then now, it was about how do we tell the story? Because construction footage by itself can be a bit boring. So, we need a story. So, then we started going through all these transcripts of people figuring out who was there at the time through photographs that we've seen and research that we found through the Disney archives. Who was there and who were the key people involved in the making of the park? I mean, there's a lot of people, but there were some, obviously, people that were kind of right front and center in the major parts of it. The finance, the engineering, the story, the construction, the leadership of all that.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  So, we started going through all these transcripts of people and then realizing that so much that was there that was interesting was about the drama happening behind the scenes. Right. And it was the fact that Walt was crazy and Walt was insane. And, you know, how's he ever gonna do this? And he's gonna run the company into the ground. And, you know, there was so much doubt and fear in some cases of just can this get done? And then ultimately, the Disneyland TV show with ABC promised to have this park done in a year. So, he set himself up for what should have been total failure to make that park. In today's world...

• 14:50Speaker 04

  That would never happen. And the fact that he did, I think, is the ultimate feat of this film. And I think was also unique in this film is that it's never been told in this way before. Just straightforward footage that allows you to sit in it and immerse yourself in it. And that's really what we wanted to do is take you back in time into this time capsule of that plot of dirt that that would become the happiest place on earth and see how they did it.

• 15:15Holly Frey?

  I imagine there are a number of times when you are going through all of those hours of archival footage and notes and information where you get some surprises along the way. Did any of those happen in this project and what were they?

• 15:28Speaker 04

  Well, I think, you know, to me, what stood out was so much of the detail in building the like the brick and the, you know, just crafting things by hand. You know, you, you kind of take it for granted now when you walk through the park that this park was all, you always think it's, it was always here, you know, and, and, but this was the very origin story of it. And how they, the level of detail that they went with to create it. It could have been any other amusement park that's kind of just off the shelf stuff. But they, they literally crafted so much of this by hand and so much artistry to it that you really gain a whole new appreciation for it.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  And I think the fact that the, they only had about 10% of the plans built when they started the making of Disneyland, that's incredible to me. And I, I had never known that. And so I think those were little surprises along the way as we started to read the transcripts.

• 16:27Holly Frey?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that if a person at a leadership position did today, like I only have 10% of this planned out, but we're going to go ahead and get guys on the ground. They'd get fired. There's, it's not, it's not anything that's really tenable in most people's eyes.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think also what's interesting is to see those guys walking on those beams, smoking.

• 16:49Holly Frey?

  Yes.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  You know, and going up and down the, sliding, sliding down this beam. And, and it's just like the sheer fearlessness at that time of just getting this done and not caring about. I mean, OSHA was not even a thing then. So it was just like, let's just do it. And I think that that's so refreshing for so many people to just have that ability to just, you know, just go do it. There weren't a lot of rules and stuff, you know?

• 17:14Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 05

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

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• 20:51Holly Frey?

  It's so easy for people today to think of Disney as this very money-flush juggernaut of a company. But your documentary really shows how tight money was in those early days and how stressful this project was for everyone involved, but of course, for Walt Disney in particular.

• 21:10Holly Frey?

  How much of that heavier side of this project were you aware of before you started making the film?

• 21:17Speaker 04

  Well, I certainly knew about it because I've done a lot of research on Disneyland and read a ton of the books and whatnot. And so, and also having told Imaginerearing's story, episode one, I was aware of a lot of those stories. And I think for me, I just, I didn't want to tell that story the same way again. There was a, there's a book called Disneyland's Land that I, I've, I really appreciated. And I think that that book was very inspirational, too, in that it really does get into the, kind of the hardship of behind the scenes and what it took to make the park, to build it, you know, to put it together. And so I took that, I took that very seriously and really wanted you to feel it. And I think

• 21:58Speaker 04

  with the choice of music that we, we used, and it's, it's not your typical happy Disney, you know, cues. It's, it's actually a little more grounded and making you feel

• 22:09Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  The, the more of the weight, I think, of what they were all going through.

• 22:14Holly Frey?

  We have talked on this show before about the timeline of Disneyland's construction. And so even being aware of it, seeing just how much, like getting the visual of how much was still undone, even a few months before opening, is a very different thing.

• 22:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:33Holly Frey?

  Did seeing that footage give you as much anxiety as it did me? Like, I know it's going to turn out. I know we're going to land the, the ship, but it still was like, this is very stressful.

• 22:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:45Speaker 04

  It is. And it, so many people have said to me, I'm, my heart was racing towards the end there. It's like, are they gonna, you know, how are they gonna do it? And I think that's, I think when you finally get to the rehearsals a few days before, and everyone's all over themselves, all over the place, on top of each other in the park, trying to rehearse for the TV show that's live across the country, and also finish the park at the same time. I mean, that's conflict. And I think that once we started seeing all that come together and knowing that that you still got wet cement and you still have tomorrow land that's not built, finished yet. And you, you start to feel the pressure and we also, the editing style, I think also started to get

• 23:27Speaker 04

  a little bit quicker and you start to really feel the tension as we go, we start to edit a little bit faster is in pacing. And so that's a subliminal way to kind of know, okay, well, they were acting faster and we need to edit faster. You know, to create that frenetic energy.

• 23:45Holly Frey?

  Yeah, there were two quotes that really stood out to me in it. One was from Harper Goff, where he says, I didn't understand what worry was. Until he was talking to Walt about, you know, just Walt's day to day concerns. And then the other one being Art Linkletter saying, it was a great big panic all the time.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:06Holly Frey?

  And when you think about those two things in conjunction, it sounds like it's a marvel. Everyone didn't have a heart attack.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  It's true, especially Walt.

• 24:18Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 04

  You know, I agree. It seemed like maybe at the beginning when they were making, you know, doing gag shots and gag scenes and having fun in the, in the field.

• 24:29Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  You didn't see so much of that as it got closer to the finish.

• 24:35Holly Frey?

  Did you have any difficulty reconciling all of this information about just how stressed Walt actually was every single day? With that very cool, smooth, assured persona that he was always showing the public on television and in interview appearances?

• 24:52Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's funny because he had to put on that persona, obviously. He's Uncle Walt to so many people around the country and he had to show that, that sort of real confidence and sureness, but.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  What I thought was actually pretty brilliant was in the TV show, they made fun of themselves. You know, they they acknowledged that they're in the final race and it's, you know, all hands on deck. And it's the final push. And, you know, even when the guy was falling over in the tractor and jumps out, that scene, they said, oh, nobody got hurt, you know, and, you know, we continue to, we continue to have a good time. I mean, it's they kind of make light of a lot of it. But then they're also acknowledging that they're they're in that final stretch and it's in its harried. Right. And so I think by by just being open about it, not denying that and sharing that with the audience. I think that was really smart. They brought the audience in to the whole process and shared it with them.

• 25:53Holly Frey?

  Yeah. Oh, the gasp by gasp when that big tractor goes over. I was like, oh, he's fine. Okay.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  I know.

• 26:01Holly Frey?

  You talked a little bit about this already and and approaching this with a very verite style in mind, but to be clear to any of our listeners or viewers who haven't seen it. This film includes voice recordings of people who were working on the Disneyland project, but you never cut away to those interviews, like to show the person speaking. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you enhanced some of the sound of the original footage so that those those kind of immersive sounds of like hammers hitting things and, you know, trowels scraping against stone, etc., are there. And

• 26:42Holly Frey?

  the footage is always the building and the construction, and it becomes really, really powerful. Were there any was that always? Did you already always have this vision that we're never cutting away from this construction? Or did that kind of congeal in the process of of laying out what you had?

• 27:00Speaker 04

  No, we, early on, it was like, we're staying all in, in this footage. We're not going to cut away to somewhere else, right? Or a flashback to something. It was always about staying in the moment, as if you were there, and living in it. And that was, and then the sound effects were really something that I, that was important to me, because I knew that all this footage was MOS. It was, there was no sound to this raw footage that we got, right? And they didn't record sound when they were in the field, so it was all silent. And so, when it came together, we had to do a temp audio track to build in all these sound effects. And that's when it really started to come alive, as a proof of concept that we did. And then we added some voiceovers to it, and just to kind of see, get a feel for it.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  And that's when Disney Plus said, okay, this is great. And then the project kind of went on hold for a bit, and then kind of sat on a shelf for a number of reasons, not due to the project itself, it was just, you know, what, what have you? And then Jason Recker, with Disney Experiences, saw it, showed him a copy. I'm like, by the way, your 70th anniversary of Disneyland's coming up, and, you know, I've got this project, if you're interested, is sitting on a shelf. And, and he was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. So, they, they funded the completion of it. And, and I think what was great was that, once we got the real, the finishing funds to do that, it was like, all hands on deck.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  We got to get all the sound bites, we got to get all the audio clips, all the audio effects, sound effects to go with it. And I said, it has to be authentic. Every single thing you see has to feel authentic, and it has to be from that era. So, tractors have to be from the 54, you know, the hammers or whatever, you know, whatever saws they used at that time. Obviously, you can't, they didn't have electric, I don't think, to that. So, you, it had to be really authentic to the time of what they were doing. And so, we did that to the best of our ability in the offline edit. But then, once we got to Skywalker, Bonnie Wild and I had a conversation, and I told her that, I said, look, let's just, let's make this as authentic as it can be, go the

• 29:05Speaker 04

  extra mile to get the period effects, and then work with Disney to get the sounds from the park at that time as well. Because Disney has a library of sounds. And it was harder than we thought to try to get some of those authentic Disneyland sounds from that, from that first year, but we were able to get some. So it was fun. And then, and then like the Mark Twain and that scene and, you know, you got, you got water and you got the sound of the engine and the paddle wheeler and you've got, you know, voices of people in the distance. And we didn't want to ever fabricate what somebody might be saying. So it's really just more muffly, general ambiance. Because we could have, we could

• 29:47Speaker 04

  have made some stuff up and no way we would ever do that. Like, I was so protective of this footage and wanted to make sure that it lived up to what it could have, what it was, must have been like at that time.

• 30:01Holly Frey?

  Right. It sounds incredible. I know I've seen footage of you in the stag theater at Skywalker Sound, which is an incredible place and I have been lucky enough to visit once. I can only imagine what this sounded like in that setting because for our listeners, this is like a theater that is optimized to sound incredible and deliver the best possible audio. I feel like the hammers alone would be like oddly joyous in that theater.

• 30:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was incredible. That's the theater and I sat in George Lucas's seat.

• 30:30Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  In the center, the optimal seat for sound and we, we, we mixed it in Atmos and it was really fun because, you know, the idea was, was that if you're in there in the park in 1954 during construction, then you are hearing stuff all around you. You're hearing hammers back there, you're hearing trucks over here, you're doing, you know, so you're hearing voices here and there, you're seeing, you're hearing a helicopter fly over. And so to me, it was exciting to build that, that 360 audioscape, soundscape, you know, and that was, we put a lot of effort into that and it was fun to do that. And I hope there's more opportunities to show this film theatrically

• 31:14Speaker 04

  so we can, that, that Atmos, the work we did in Atmos pays, you know, people can experience more.

• 31:21Holly Frey?

  So good. This is a good example of something that you've done a few times in your career as a director, where you are immersing yourself so deeply in these projects that are about people doing incredibly creative and impressive things, but they're often perceived by others as being completely impossible before they are accomplished. What lessons have you learned or taken away from researching and studying all of these people?

• 31:47Speaker 04

  Well, I think, you know, I'm constantly inspired and of course, just like, well, what have I done?

• 31:54Speaker 04

  You know, it's like, you know, these people are like amazing, brilliant minds and I'm always inspired and always like, okay, I gotta do my next thing bigger and better and greater and, you know, be continue to be an entrepreneur. And I think what I, what I find that's a thread through all of it is this, this fearlessness and this ability to just take a leap and that in Walt especially saying, I've been broke five times. One more is not going to matter. You know, that, that sort of ultimate fearlessness. And I guess the fact that he doesn't fear financial collapse, even with the studio, I'm sure he did. Of course he did. But to say

• 32:38Speaker 04

  that and somebody to repeat it, that he, he wouldn't have said it if he didn't mean it. Right? And so I think that that is, is amazing. And I think when people, what inspires me, I suppose is that the stories I've told are about people that had a vision and they trusted their instincts to follow that vision and they also got amazing support around them to, to make that vision happen. And that vision now, whether it be, you know, Pixar, or whether it be, you know, the theme parks or creating a restaurant, these things are, that I've told, have lasted. And I'm always wondering why something lasts 100 years or 125 years. What is the DNA in that?

• 33:23Speaker 04

  And I did the Hearst documentary and that's 125 years of Hearst. And, you know, and it's, um, it's just amazing to me what, because there's so many businesses that don't, don't survive.

• 33:36Speaker 04

  Across the world, some last one year, some last 10 years, some last longer, but very few last 100 or longer. And when you really distill it down. And so what is it? What is, what is the baton pass from leadership to leadership that keeps it going? And what is that? How does that creative DNA, that origin story continue to, to grow and shape and perpetuate basically, you know, years, years beyond the founders death, you know? So I find these stories very interesting.

• 34:13Speaker 04

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• 35:36Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Auto autoimmune condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions. Each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 36:21Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 36:32Holly Frey?

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• 37:08Holly Frey?

  I'm glad you mentioned things that have incredible longevity, because I wanted to ask you about something like this project. Like Handcrafted is very much a historical documentary versus others that you've done that are a little more contemporary. Do you take a different approach when you're looking at historical things? Or is it all just about the truth at the end of the day for you?

• 37:29Speaker 04

  Um, I think I'm trying with archival stuff. It's hard. They're both, they're all hard, obviously documentaries, but. Because you're crafting a story, sometimes people already know that story. So the key is if people know a story already, how do you tell it differently? And how do you bring in fresh information and tell it from a fresh perspective? And so that's the challenge. That's what I always try to do. But if it's a subject like Verite, like my film Selling Lies or Recycled Life back in the day, those are stories that have some story to them already. They've been in the newspaper or stories have been done around them or whatever, a little bit. But now I want to get in there and tell my own version of that.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  I want to get in and really understand what is going on and how is it affecting? And I would say that Recycled Life, which was my first short film that, and it was also Oscar nominated back in 1997, was it? It was a while ago, or 2007, sorry. The thing about Recycled Life was that it was unfolding before my eyes. And this is about people living in the largest landfill in Central America and who had families born, raised in the garbage dump for 60 years, right? And so to me, this was a very, very hard and difficult film to produce and direct and shoot myself.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  But it was happening, things were happening around you and you just had to find the story. And it takes a while to find your characters and follow them and, you know, get to know them. And then what is, what are their goals and what are their troubles? And then who's meeting who? And so that was, that was a really great lesson for me to, to take an unfolding story, film it in every way I could think of, and then have probably, I don't know how many hours, to edit that together, you know?

• 39:30Holly Frey?

  Right.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  I think what happens in the making of documentaries as well is that you start to get, after a certain point, very comfortable with the footage and very comfortable with the subject. And sometimes that's not good, meaning you kind of take for granted that you're looking at something that's so weird and so amazing or so compelling, you just kind of go, yeah, I'm in a garbage dump again and I'm just shooting stuff. But when, when I come back and I edit something together and people watch it who've never experienced that, they're blown away, right? And so, and I think that's, that's in a way, a good thing and a bad thing, meaning you can get too comfortable with your own stuff for after a while when you're in it.

• 40:10Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 40:10Speaker 04

  But then it's also good to, to also remind yourself that this is actually really special and trust that, trust that, that people will enjoy watching it in one way or another, hopefully.

• 40:25Holly Frey?

  Yes. Um, knowing that your audience for a film like Handcrafted is going to be a mix of people who are those hardcore folks that already know a lot about Disney history and people who are learning it for the first time. I wonder when you're making this film or even just when you're thinking about it after it's completed, what is the one thing that you hope that people take away from watching it?

• 40:49Speaker 04

  Well, I think to me, it's a renewed appreciation for Walt Disney and for, for Disneyland in that it was not inevitable. Like it was just, this was something, this was something that was willed into existence by sheer determination and sheer diehard, just giving everything he had to, to this, his financial resources, his physical ability to get it done and marshal hundreds of people to rally behind this incredible dream that a lot of people were like, this is nuts. And so I think, I think that sheer leadership and, and drive is what I, I hope will inspire people.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  You know, the most and say, you know what, if he could do that, I can do this. Like, what am I doing? You know, and I think that's, that's kind of the takeaway. I was joking about it before. It's like, well, what am, what are we all doing? When, are we living up to our full potential? When you see something like that being achieved, you know? And, and what's inspiring to me is that that was the DNA that has inspired all these parks around the world. And when I travel to these parks and I see people in China, people in Paris and, you know, people in Hong Kong. And in, you know, at some points in the future, Abu Dhabi, like there's people all over the world that have a, have a great time at these parks and they pilgrimage to these parks, generation after generation.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  And that's very rare.

• 42:22Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  You know, I mean, maybe, maybe in religious shrines and things like that, you have pilgrimages. But this is like an entertainment pilgrimage. And the fact that people do this and have this excitement to bring their young kid at a certain point to experience Disneyland for the first time, that's a gift that Walt gave to humanity. And that to me is very, very inspiring. And so I just hope that people come away with that, that renewed appreciation of that anything is possible.

• 42:52Holly Frey?

  Uh, it did make me feel that way. It made me want to delete all of the apps off my phone that are not doing anything but killing my time.

• 43:01Holly Frey?

  Leslie, thank you so much for this. I so appreciate you spending this time with me today.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  Well, thank you.

• 43:08Holly Frey?

  I cannot wait to see what you do next because I will be watching it as soon as I possibly can because I've loved your work for a long time.

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 43:15Holly Frey?

  Is there anything else you would want people to know before I free you from this conversation?

• 43:23Speaker 04

  I mean, I, you know, I don't think so. I appreciate so much your, um, your interest in the subject and just having watched the other projects and understanding the, the thread of my filmmaking, uh, interest in style. And, uh, it's just, it's just a blast to be able to tell stories like this. And to work with Disney is obviously a, a gift to me as well, um, with my family history. So it's, it's fun. I liked, I like the variation between Disney and real life and all sorts of different subjects. So it's fun.

• 43:57Holly Frey?

  I love it. Thank you again so much.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  Thank you. Appreciate it.

• 44:03Holly Frey?

  Again, I want to absolutely share my deepest thanks to Leslie for sharing her thoughts on filmmaking and history and the intersection of the two. I also want to make sure I shout out her entire team who worked really, really hard to get this schedule nailed down.

• 44:18Tracy V. Wilson?

  Disneyland Handcrafted is available now on YouTube and Disney+

• 44:23Holly Frey?

  I also have a bit of listener mail for this one.

• 44:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  Okay.

• 44:26Holly Frey?

  This is from our listener Pamela, and I love it for a number of reasons, which will become immediately apparent. Pamela writes, Dear Holly and Tracy, first, thank you for the work you both do to share educational and entertaining podcasts. Yours is the show I have listened to the longest, as I'm sure is the case for many listeners. I often find a connection between your podcast and something in my daily life. It's always a great reminder that we are a small part of a larger picture that existed before we were born and will continue after we are gone. Second, my husband and I recently tried a new to us restaurant, and the drinks menu made me chuckle and think of you both when I saw Orange Cat Behavior.

• 45:11Holly Frey?

  This is the name of a drink and it's spectacular. I may try it next time. I went with Moon Song for the rosemary in it, since the smash burger I ordered featured a seasoning blend with rosemary. Attached for pet tax is a picture of Dixie, our three-year-old border collie pity mix rescue, and the sidewalk chalk portrait made by my eight-year-old son. Okay, Dixie is so cute, and Dixie is curled up with a bunch of Bluey toys, so this is like a multi-hit dopamine situation for me.

• 45:39Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 45:42Holly Frey?

  And I had a dog named Dixie growing up, so this is the sweetest, sweetest. Don't think that I don't notice that there is one Bluey and two Bingos in that picture, which is correct, because Bingo is my, my preferred character. This cocktail sounds amazing. Orange Cat Behavior is red wine, orange juice, ginger beer, and then delish. I know this sounds wild, but I bet it's really yummy. Again, it's like Cali Mochi, right?

• 46:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  I went through a process as you read off the ingredients. I was like, red wine, cool. And then, oh, intriguing. And then, OK, that sounds like it might be really good.

• 46:21Holly Frey?

  Yeah, I think, I think that could actually work. Because I, I did the same process when I first read this email. And I was like, I don't, oh, no, it's probably a lot like Cali Mochi or Tintin de Verano, which we talked about before, those being drinks that we had in Spain that mix wine and a soda of some sort or a lemonade. Very delicious. Sounds good. This entire cocktail menu is so fascinating to me and so creative that I'm like, do I need to go to this? Do I need to literally book a flight to go visit this thing? And then the chalk drawing is so cute because it is a picture of Dixie in chalk by their little, and it's so sweet.

• 47:06Holly Frey?

  I love it so much. Pamela, thank you for sharing this with me. I do love the idea that an orange cat behavior is a drink that seems like a variety of disparate ingredients that makes something pretty terrific. Because that does sum up the way orange cats behave pretty, pretty beautifully. If you would like to write to us and share any interesting cocktails you find on menus, any pet pictures, any thoughts on episodes, any, anything, you can do that at [email protected]. If you would like to see the show notes to today's episode and any of our episodes, you can find them on our website, missedinhistory.com. If you have not yet subscribed to the show and you would like to, that's the easiest

• 47:51Holly Frey?

  thing in the world to do. It's easier than sipping a delicious cocktail. You can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.

• 48:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 48:19Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 48:52Speaker 06

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• 49:53Speaker 00

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