Life Lesson: If you ever get work at an animation studio, SAVE EVERYTHING!!

[brendala]

I have a distant relative named Ruth who used to work as an "Ink and Paint Girl" at Disney. Her first professional art job was painting the cels for Snow White! Needless to say, I love talking to her at family reunions and our last conversation went something like this...

-Me: "I take it you didn't save any of those cels?"
-Ruth: "Oh God no! We were so relieved to finally be done with that production that we threw the damn things on the floor and slid around on them!"
-Me: "Bet you regret that now, huh?"
-Ruth: *sigh* "I wish I had known that people would actually be interested in collecting them someday. If I had just saved one I'd be set for life!"
-Me: "If I ever get work at an animation studio, I'm taking everything that isn't nailed down!"
-Ruth: *giggle* "That's right! Learn from my mistake, bubbeleh!"

Comments

[dqbunny.livejournal.com]

*laugh* This sounds like the fate of my mom's Barbies. She had original Barbie, original Skipper, all the clothes and playsets, etc. She preserved them carefully ... then passed them down to her small daughter who had no concept of "this might be worth something in the future."

Yeah, I'm still kicking myself over that!

[brendala.livejournal.com]

LOL. My carefully preserved Barbies & accessories met the same fate when I passed them down to my youngest sister (she had a bizarre habit of chewing on her toys like a rabid puppy when she was a toddler). None of my dolls were valuable, but it still sucked to see them get mauled.

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

Considering many expected the movie to fail horribly, who could have ever suspected such things would be so treasured later?

The same thing happened with my mom and her Beatles records. She collected them all back in the day, love and adored them, but then when she wasn't so fanatical about the group and getting ready to move off to college, she gifted them all to a friend. She's kicking herself a great deal nowadays, but so it goes. (And with stories like this, she wonders why I hang onto things for so long!)

[brendala.livejournal.com]

According to Ruth, back then animation was seen as disposable entertainment. And the idea of anyone collecting things like cels (and paying an arm and a leg for them!!) never occurred to anyone working there.
Also, the cels are rare mainly because very few Ink&Paint people felt sentimental enough to keep them. The production process for Snow White was pretty stressful and cel painting was monotonous and boring (especially for women like Ruth who were used to doing more elaborate, fine art paintings). Most of the Ink&Paint girls entertained themselves and vented their frustrations by finding creative ways to destroy the cels!


Next time my parents tell me I have too much old junk, I'll tell them about your mother's Beatles records! ^_^

[dj-rocca.livejournal.com]

Sounds like me and certain toys I had growing up...

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

I don't think the aspect of collecting wasn't quite so present in people's minds back in the day. Even nowadays, people just think about collecting for selfish reasons (It's not conserving the past of feeding archives, it's about Money!)