I attended a pre-opening reception at the museum last Friday. It is fantastic. I spent nearly two hours in there, and didn’t see it all. Highly recommended.

The museum is spectacular and a great gift to everyone who wants to know more about Walt Disney and the works created during his lifetime. I recommend more than one visit. I have been there three times and I know I have not seen it all.

“348 storyboard pictures depict 1 minute of the cartoon Steamboat Willie.”

I doubt the famous Mickey playing musical sow teats or his joyous swinging the yowling cat by the tail made that selective cut. Those shots are part of the original film but it’s all about being PC and NSFW today.

Imagine enjoying this museum with guys like, John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter and Don Hahn.

The Tuesday evening preview was awesome.

Looking at the pictures, I am excited to make the trek. The museum did a great job of making all of that information into nice, “easy to see, and absorb” chunks. I really like the variety of stuff to look at. Models, multimedia, memory books, awards, replicas, all in one place as it should be. The Disney and Miller families should be proud to finally share the man, not just the legend, with the world. My only beef is that there are no cameras allowed inside the museum…wussupwifdat?

This is super exciting, I’m gonna try to rummage up some $$ up and go. It’s a holy pilgrimage that every animator needs to take at least once in their lives. - We need an animation museum in NYC!

Are the 348 drawings really identified as “storyboard” drawings? That’s almost 6 drawings for every second.

They don’t look like storyboard drawings at all. They look like frames from the finished film. Would they really stroyboard out every frame, with finished backgrounds, of Mickey lifting a pitchfork, for example? in 1928?

They don’t look anything like the storyboard drawings we’ve seen before from “Steamboat Willie” that are just functional sketches of a whole scene idea rather than a frame-by-frame analysis of the motion.

Such as this example:

http://www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/images/upload/archives-12-steamboat-web.jpg

I’m hoping it’s a case of a reporter not paying attention to what he was looking at.

Went to a sneak preview this past Friday night, part of a special “animation and industry professionals” sneak preview—open bars and Wolfgang Puck food afterwords—-it’s a stunning space, with beautiful, well chosen original art that makes this fellow glad I chose to be a cartoonist.
For the sneak preview I chose to concentrate on viewing as much art as possible, leaving the interactive displays and many video presentations for a later time.
I’m local, so a membership will certainly be in order.
The Spiritual Center of the Disney Universe.

While there, take a walk to the Letterman Digital Arts Center, and see the statue of another animation icon, Eadweard Muybridge. In the lobby of Lucasfilm/ILM, there is also a statue of King Kong animator Willis O’Brien. But I think that is not open to tourists. The Presidio is quite the animation history scene.

This museum is PURE JOY .
What a labor of love.
Many thanks to Diane, Ron and the rest of the Disney family for
making this happen.
Eveybody: You HAVE to go see it !!!

I’m really looking forward to visiting the museum when I visit SF in the winter.

Ok Andreas Deja and Floyd Norman.

If you say so. Now I just need plane tickets…

For those of you interested in more background and feedback about the museum, including links to several photos of its assets (media was allowed to take photos; the public is prohibited), please check out the FRIENDS of the Walt Disney Family Museum on Facebook.

Floyd Norman, who created the wonderful jointed puppet animations in Gallery 1, is among our many members.

And, do yourself a major favor when you make plans to visit: Get early tickets. There’s far more to explore than one might expect. I’ve been three times (media, member weekend preview and opening day — spending about 15 hours there so far — and I’ve only scratched the surface.)

Looks like an exciting experience.

Thanks to Mr. Fun’s post on Animation Nation, I became aware of what is sure to be a momentous addition to the San Francisco entertainment scene. Can’t wait to have my own experience to share here.

I was able to attend two preview events at the Museum in September. I wrote about some of my favorite artifacts and displays on my blog at the following link:

http://vintagedisneymemorabilia.blogspot.com/2009/09/walt-disney-family-museum.html