Walt Disney Biography

Walter Elias Disney was born on the 5th of December, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. His father Elias Disney was of Irish/Canadian descent and his mother Flora Call Disney was of German/American descent. Walt Disney had three brothers and one sister. The Disney family were raised on a farm in Missouri, USA where the young Walter developed an interest in drawing and trains. The Disney family moved back to Chicago where Walt attended the McKinley High School and took night classes at the Chicago Art Institute. At sixteen years of age Walt Disney dropped out of school to join the army but was knocked back because of his age. Instead, he joined the Red Cross and was shipped to France for one year, where he drove an ambulance. When Walt Disney returned from France he moved to Kansas City where his brother Roy Disney was working at a bank. He began his career as an advertising cartoonist at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he created commercial works for magazines, newspapers, and movie theaters. But he was keen to have his own business. Disney briefly started a company with the cartoonist Ub Iwerks, called â€Å"Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists†. The venture did not take off and the pair were forced to seek alternative paths to put food on the table. Disney and Iwwerks would later work together in creating some of the earliest popular Disney cartoon characters, including â€Å"Oswald the Lucky Rabbit† and â€Å"Mickey Mouse†. Walt became a pioneer of the animation industry, working his way through from silent cartoons, to sound, from black and white to Technicolor. He created the first full length animated musical and went on to combine cartoons with live action. A surprising switch of focus led to the creation of Disneyland in 1955, the first theme park the world had ever seen. It was a squeaky sounding mouse with big ears that would go on o be Walt Disney's biggest success. â€Å"Mickey Mouse† was born on the 18th of November, 1928. Mickey first appeared in a silent short called â€Å"Plane Crazy†, but it would be the â€Å"Steamboat Willie† cartoon with sound that made Mickey Mouse famous. Even though Walt Disney gets much of the credit and acknowledgment for creating the famous mouse, it is believed that his friend Ub Iwerks actually created Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney was the voice of Mickey Mouse up until 1946. Mickey Mouse would go on to become a symbol for the Walt Disney Company. The little mouse that started the company appeared in many cartoons, full feature films, comic strips, books, video games, toys, and was made into every piece of merchandise imaginable. Mickey Mouse became bigger than just the Walt Disney Company, and even came to symbolize the country of America. The mouse went on to become a cultural icon. Other popular cartoon characters that the Walt Disney Company went on to create include Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Butch the Bulldog, Scrooge McDuck, Clarabelle Cow, and many more. The company also animated other characters like Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Hercules, and more. The Walt Disney company received many Academy award nominations and was nominated for seven Emmys while Walt was alive. Disney's company had to overcome challenges like the workers strike in 1940, but the company mostly grew forward in leaps and bounds. The company went public in 1957 and continues to be a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange to this day. Disney was working on plans for a theme park when he died from lung cancer complications in 1966. His brother Roy would follow his plans through and the Walt Disney World theme park was opened to the public in 1971. The company continued to grow after the death of Walt Disney and is now one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates in the world. II. Problem During his working animated through from silent cartoons, to sound, from black and white to Technicolor and also created the animated musical and went on to combine cartoons with live action, there were some problem that he had faced it. †¢ When he started a company with the cartoonist Iwerks, the Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artist was failure. With all his high employee salaries unable to make up for studio profits, Walt was unable to successfully manage money. As a result, the studio became loaded with debt and wound up bankrupt. Disney then set his sights on establishing a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California. †¢ By 1927, the new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was an almost instant success, and the character, Oswald drawn and created by Iwerks became a popular figure. The Disney studio expanded, and Walt hired back Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng from Kansas City. In February 1928, Disney went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz who was the distributor animated to Universal Pictures. Disney was shocked when Mintz announced that not only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators (notably, except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney) under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney. Disney declined Mintz's offer and lost most of his animation staff. III. Analysis There are several things that made Walt became success. Along his journey to make his dream came true, he through up and down in the business. But Disney has a spirit and believes that he could make his dream come true. And there were some character he had that brought Disney become big today and it described as below. †¢ Personality of Leadership Walt Disney was a leader who exemplified many leadership capacities throughout his 43-year Hollywood career. He demonstrated a strong moral purpose and worked hard to make a difference in the lives of everyone who had interactions with Walt Disney Productions. His moral convictions were instilled in him by his parents at a young age. Walt was always striving to make people happy. His first priority was always to his family. Although he struggled to balance work and family at times, he was always there for his wife and daughters. Walt also had a strong commitment to his employees. He knew each person by name and insisted that everyone call him Walt. Throughout his life, and since his death, Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts and minds of millions of Americans than any other person in the past century. †¢ Knowledge of the Business After the failure of the Iwwerks-Disney Commercial Artists venture, Walt did not give up and went to Hollywood. Walt realized that creativity and enthusiasm were not enough in the business world and then he went into partnership with his brother Roy and started what would eventually become the Walt Disney Company. His friend and previous business partner Ub Iwerks also came to Los Angeles and played an important role in the success of the company. †¢ Self Concept Walt Disney developed a philosophy that anyone who wants more success would do well to adopt. He was growing through self-criticism and experiment. He admitted that this is not a genius or even remarkable. It is the way people build a sound business of any kind, through sweat, intelligence and the love of the job. Thing that made him success was his ability to come at a problem from different mental perspectives. He developed three distinct mental methods and gave them name that is the Dreamer, the Realist and the Spoiler. o The dreamer represents unrestrained creativity that exemplified what he loved to do. Walt Disney saw the creative dreamer as the starting point for his success. He could never stand still when the ideas come. He might explore and experiment and never satisfied with his work. Walt Disney was motivated by creative achievement and was comfortable in an uncertain business environment. o The realist represents how he made ideas as a concrete reality. And he could be as hard-deaded as any accountant when do something. Walt Disney was aware about technology changed and he was ready to evolve with it. He thought that his business will grow with technical advances. And should the technology advance come to a stop, prepare the funeral and they need new tools and refinements. He was aware of the human factors that drove his commercial success. His success was built by hard work and enthusiasm, clarity of purpose, a devotion to his art, confidence in the future and above all, by a steady, day-by-day growth. o And the last but not the least, is the spoiler. Walt Disney was a critical thinker and perfectionist person. He needed to be because he knew his audience would see the errors from the cartoon movies. He never spared feelings because his interest was in product. If a fellow went off on his own developing an idea that had not been approved, he was asking for trouble, and got it. The spoiler critically evaluated the work of the realist and the dreamer. †¢ Cognitive and practical intelligence Walt Disney understood and embraced the process of change. He knew that in order to continue to progress and find success, he needed to be one step ahead of change. This was evident through his willingness to take chances on innovative technologies as they developed in his field. When others expressed concern over perceived risks, Walt was always optimistic and had faith in his convictions. †¢ Drive Integrity Walt offered the chance for his employees to attend art school, at his expense. Many of his animators took advantage of Walt’s offer, and as a result, their work improved greatly. They were enthusiastic about this opportunity and were grateful to Walt for taking an interest in their futures. Walt always shared his ideas and concerns with his employees. He believed that the company would work best in an environment where a company worked together in all aspects of the business. †¢ Emotional Intelligence Walt had a good Emotional Intelligence. His Relationship Management’s personality could bring him managing other people emotion. Walt worked hard to build relationships, especially with his employees. He wanted his employees to be happy and he worked closely with everyone in his company. One of the best examples of his willingness to develop relationships is evidenced by his eagerness to help his employees learn more about animation. †¢ Leadership Motivation Walt had a profound effect on the people he worked with. His particular leadership skill lay in convincing people they could do thing far above what they thought they could do. Developing talent for the future was Walt’s passions. He himself held evening classes to train employees, teaching his team to embrace the future and strive for perfection. The culmination of his ideas was realized in the creation of the California Institute of Arts, a project he believed would ensure a whole new approach to arts training. IV. Conclusion Coherence making is possibly the strongest leadership capacity that Disney possessed. He was constantly able to bring things together to stimulate conversation. Walt knew how to prioritize and focus his work as a result of his moral purpose. He exemplified all of the capacities needed to be considered a true leader. Perhaps the best example of Walt’s leadership is the fact that over forty years after his death, his company has continued to be a pioneer in the field of animation. After Walt died at the age of 65, his brother Roy promised that all of the plans Walt had for the future would continue to move ahead. As stated by Thomas in 1966, Mickey Mouse will continue to endear himself to children everywhere with his lovable antics, Donald Duck will go on delighting them with his squawks and flurry of feathers; and millions of people the world over will, in Walt Disney’s own words, â€Å"know he has been alive. †

Intercultural Communication As A Trading of Cultural Stereotypes Essay

Intercultural Communication As A Trading of Cultural Stereotypes - Essay Example The mass media is especially responsible for repeatedly promoting negative and distorted images of different cultural groups until those images and stereotypes often become very difficult to overcome. A few isolated incidents of bad conduct from members of a group, and the entire group is often perceived as being the same, that is because when people stereotype, they don’t feel a need to consider the individuals that make up a group after placing that group in a determined category. Stereotyping serves the purpose of allowing people in one group to claim superior characteristics to those in another group. By attributing characteristics that bear a negative connotation, stereotyping becomes a way that people gain a sense of control about the unknown. This phenomenon not only exists between ethnic cultural groups, but among others as well, such as gender groups, economic groups, educational groups, and generational groups. This is particularly true when one considers the response a younger culture often receives from an older one. There are differences of opinion when it comes to language and culture. Some say that language defines a culture because it affects and molds what we believe and what we think, yet others say that language is only reflective of what goes on inside of a culture. When we talk about people, our intent is to make a specific point, and that point dictates the language and word choices that we make. If we want to portray someone in a positive light, we might refer to them as beautiful, trustworthy, enterprising or as a pillar of society. We would show respect by referring to them as Sir, Miss or Ma’am. On the other hand, if we want to portray someone in a less favorable light, we might call them by their last name only, use words such as shady or dubious.

The writing life of the arthur Stephen king Research Paper

The writing life of the arthur Stephen king - Research Paper Example While King was in college, he spent a lot of time doing odd jobs to pay for his tuition, but he continued to write. In 1967, King’s first professional story, â€Å"The Glass Floor,† was sold. After college, King was unable to find immediate employment, so he made money by selling many of his short stories to men’s magazines. Even after he obtained a job as an English teacher, King continued to write and sell his short stories to various publications. In 9171, he began to prepare notes for his first novels. From the mid-70s to the mid-80s, Stephen King saw some of his biggest successes. In 1974, his novel Carrie was published. He originally threw away the manuscript for the novel, but his wife convinced him to finish. To this day, Carrie remains to be one of his most acclaimed novels. The following year came the publishing and releasing of his second novel, Salem’s Lot. In 1977, after his mother’s death from cancer, King wrote and published The Shini ng, yet another one of his most-recognized novels and the most referenced in popular culture. The following year, The Stand, his forth novel, was written and published. In 1985, King had a taste of the comic book world, collaborating on an X-Men comic books with various other writers for a charity event. King took part in his own individual comic book adventure in 1986, writing the introduction to an anniversary addition of Batman (Collings 45). In the latter part of the 1970s, the conception of King’s first series, The Dark Tower series, led to further success for the writer. The first novel was featured in installments in various horror-based magazines. It was professionally published in 1982 and gained quick popularity amongst horror, fantasy, and science fiction fans. The seven-book series was written and published over a span of forty years, with the final one being released in 2004. In 2009, however, King also wrote and published a prequel to the series. On June 19, 199 9, Stephen King was involved in a car accident, during which he was struck by an unaware driver while King was walking along the road and reading a book (Brooks 428). The accident caused numerous injuries and great pain in King, prompting him to announce his retirement from writing in 2002. Due to the injuries sustained in his accident, he found it painful to sit for long periods of time, which took away a lot of his time for writing. However, King has since continued writing, pumping out almost a novel every year. His last published book, in 2009, was Ur. In March of 2011, King made it known that his next novel was set to be released November 8, 2011, and that he was planning on publishing an eighth Dark Tower novel in 2012. Stephen King is one of the most well-known horror writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Though he is writing at a slower pace due to the pains of his accident, King has made it clear that writing is not only his job, but his life, and he has no i ntentions of parting from his works until his dying day. Until then, he will continue to appease to his loyal fans. Works Cited Beahm, George W. The Stephen King Story. 2nd ed. Kansas City, MO: Andrews & McMeel, 2000. Print. Beahm divulges into the life of Stephen King. The majority of the book is centered on King's childhood. More specifically, the events and

John Mclaughlin Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

John Mclaughlin - Essay Example f 8 years old, McLaughlin became inspired of learning to play musical instruments when one of his brothers listened to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony from a radio station (Stump, p. 12). A year later, McLaughlin had the privilege to learn how to play the violin and piano (Christian Pegand). After three years of playing the violin and piano, he started to dream of becoming a good guitarist. His dream of playing the guitar started on the day when his brothers started to play blues of Bill Broonzy (Christian Pegand; Stump, p. 12). This made McLaughlin became more exposed to the music of Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, and Sonny Terry among others (Stump, p. 12). aware of the music industry (Stump, p. 12). Inspired with religious and cultural music in India and other Western classical music, McLaughlin became a famous jazz and classical guitarist that plays a wide-range of music styles and genres (Cal Performances). Because of McLaughlin’s passion to make other people happy by listening to his music, he exerted a lot of effort in terms of improving his knowledge and skills in playing musical instruments (Stump, p. 10). Later on, he became proficient in playing the violin and guitar (Stump, p. 13). During the late 50s, McLaughlin played some musical instruments together with Peter Deuchar – the banjoist and his professors of Ragtime (Christian Pegand; Stump, p. 13). Before McLaughlin reached the age of 15 years old, he was very actively leading a band in school (Stump, p. 13). All this happened before he decided to go to London where he pursued his dream of being able to play in a rock and blues band. His decision to leave the school band was very much influenced by Miles Davis’ album â€Å"Milestones† which was released in the market back in 1957 (Stump, p. 13). McLaughin’s exposure on blues music started when he reached London during the early part of 1960s (Stump, p. 15). Since then, McLaughlin took every chance he gets to have a jamming or recording sessions with

Performance Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Performance Art - Essay Example This paper shall focus on performance artists and how they have been affected by various incidents and happenings. It shall highlight performance artists Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, and Stuart Brisley. This paper is being carried out in order to review the impact of performance art on art itself, and how these artists have impacted on the evolution and development of art in general. Each artist’s personal and professional history will first be presented, followed by a description of their significant work or performance art. Their more significant work/s shall then further be described or discussed in relation to significant incidents in their lives. Body Performance art refers to a performance which is exhibited to an audience; the performance may or may not be scripted, or it may also be carefully orchestrated or even spontaneous (Carlson, 1996, 3). In some cases, it may be performed live or taped with the performer being absent or present. It may include the situation which involves the four basic elements: time, space, performance’s body or presence in a media, and the relationship between the performer and the audience (Carlson, 1996, 4). It can happen anytime at any venue for any period. The performance of the artist exhibits the artist’s particular work of art. Three performance artists who have had a significant impact on art and on performance art shall be depicted in this essay. Marina Abramovic was born in Belgrade, and is based in New York as a Serbian performance artist (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 3). Her career first started in the 1970s and since then, she has been active in the arts for more than three decades. She has mostly been known for her performance art, exploring the relationship of the performer and the audience, the possibilities of the mind, as well as the limitations of the human body (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 5). She is considered to be the ‘grandmother of the performance art.’ In one of her earliest perfor mances, she sought to evaluate rituals and gestures, using knives and tape recorders, jabbing the knives between her fingers and each time she cut herself, she would use a different knife (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 4). In this performance, she was able to review the mistakes of the past and her previous attempts. In this performance, she sought to understand the state of consciousness of a performer and how it was actually possible to push him into actions which he could never normally do (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 6). In her next work, she considered how to create the energy caused by extreme body pain. In this performance, she cut off her nails, toenails, and hair and tossed it into a flaming star (Richards, 2009, 6). She considered these acts of purification as against the political traditions of her past; with the star representing the communism that dominated her home country for many years. To culminate her performance, she leapt across the flames into the centre of the burning star. She however passed out from lack of oxygen, but it took a while for her audience to realize such unfortunate circumstance (Richards, 2009, 7). This incident implied how physical limits can also limit performance; in this case, her passing out limited and curtailed her performance and what she wanted to convey in her art. For the years that followed, she also attempted to test the state of consciousness and whether it could also be made part of a performance (Westcott, 2010, 18). In her performance, she took a pill used by catatonic patients. This pill caused her to go into seizures and other uncontrollable movements (Westcott, 2010. 13). She recalls that while she did not have any control over her body, her mind was clear and lucid and she could observe what was actually

Why did the Cold War not escalate into full-scale war between the USA Essay

Why did the Cold War not escalate into full-scale war between the USA and the USSR - Essay Example Even though there was no face to face conflicts these two blocks engaged in secret and indirect conflicts between each other. This was known to be the cold war. It continued till 1990’s when the Soviet Union broke up under the influence of perestroika and glasnost. To be precise, the cold war started in 1917 immediately after the Bolshevik revolution and ended in 1989 after the break up of USSR. It was a conflict between Bolshevism and democracy. The cold war is regarded as the most important political and diplomatical issue of the twentieth century. It got its name because both parties were afraid of fighting each other directly. Instead they fought the war indirectly. They played havoc in different parts of the world as well as fought with words on issues. Threatening and denouncement were common. Moreover they raced to make each other look foolish. The term cold war was used first by Mr. Bernard Baruch who was a senior advisor for the 33rd president of the US, Mr. Harry Tru man. He used this term because of the frequently occurring crisis between the two sides even though they fought side by side against Nazi Germany. The actual cause of the cold war was the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. ... This prompted Russia to behave negatively against west. Russians though that the west was interested in toppling their communist regime and used all its strength to defend and shun them. Even though the US recognized USSR in 1933, suspicion between the two countries continued on a high note. This continued in the Second World War where both the countries were allies. The cold war is considered as decade’s long struggle for world supremacy. It began escalating during 1945 when relations between Washington and Moscow started deteriorating. The deterioration ignited the cold war as well as set a stage for the dynamic struggle between the east and the west. Even though political leaders changed in both sides, the cold war continued. In another sense, the cold war was more political rather than military (Cold war. 2011). One of the main reasons why the cold war did not escalate into a full fledged war was because both sides knew that if the war was started, it could easily be a nuc lear war causing destruction to the whole world (Why the cold war did never escalated. 2011). During the cold war, many times there was concern that this would escalate into a full war with nuclear arsenal used by both sides and killing millions. However both the sides developed a deterrence policy that further prevented problems from escalating beyond localities. Often periods of escalations and crisis appeared during the cold war days. That was in 1953, when Josef Stalin’s sudden death caused a leadership gap in Moscow. During this time in US there was American presidential election. This crisis continued till the most famous Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Other critical events during the cold war include the Hungarian

European Tourism Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

European Tourism Marketing - Essay Example When the fear had somewhat waned, there was an influx of travel demand which has been slowly been dissipating leading tourism experts to dampen their expectations for year 2007. The United Kingdom is experiencing a demographic shift from married life to being single as shown by the rise in number of independent singles. According to the World Tourism Market Report single person households accounted for almost 30% of all households in the UK for the year 2005. Over the past 25 years, the average age of first marriage has increased significantly rising to 28 years for women and 30 years for men in 2005 as compared to the age of 22 for women and 24 for men in the 1980s. Without doubt, singles now represent a major consumer group in the UK. What is important to recognize in singles is that their lifestyle is now characterized by a focus on career and a busy social life. When it comes to holidays, therefore, many singles are looking for a wide variety of leisure services and activities that offer relaxation or help to alleviate stress created by day-to-day living. Furthermore, career-minded singles are more inclined to spend their higher-than-average disposable income on treating themselves, rather than on family life. This presents high return on investment potential for those targeting their travel products and services at this growing consumer group. According to the Euromonitor World Tourism Market Report 2006 report, tourism operators need to bear in mind that in order to appeal to a wide consumer base of single holidaymakers, they need to respond to the financial, social and emotional needs and interests of those who holiday alone. It is recommended that due to the prevailing social stigma associated with being unattached travel operators should focus their offering on safety, socializing and providing a unique experience to those who travel solo. As singles continue to dominate UK society, the phenomenon of holidaying alone is becoming popular. The singles market, therefore, represents one of the most potentially profitable and as yet undeveloped areas of the UK tourism industry. Singles, for example, are more inclined in adventurous holidays and extreme sports so hobbies, such as trekking, surfing, bird watching, horse riding or yoga, as well as spa retreats and exotic city breaks, are all niche markets which would do well to cater to the needs of single travelers. The consumer base of single travelers can be split into two different groups. On the one hand are independent travelers seeking thrills, and new, liberating experiences to contrast with their high-stress workload. On the other hand, however, there are those looking to potentially find a partner, using holiday operators as a form of dating agency. A specialist 'singles' travel operator can easily cater to both target markets. With the success of new concepts like speed dating and online dating agencies, such as www.datingdirect.com, www.match.com and www.streetcupid.com, holiday activities marketed as spin-offs from these dating