News Brief: Disney Dreamer Sets LA Premiere

Published May 9, 2005

By C. W. Oberleitner

The little documentary film "that could" about the lives, fortunes, and misfortunes of the men and women who created some the Walt Disney Company's most endearing and enduring animated films, during what's become known as the second coming of Disney feature animation, is about to have its long awaited Los Angeles premier.

BURBANK, CA—Tony West and Dan Lund's WestLund Productions, Inc. has announced the time and place for the Los Angeles premier of their documentary featurette, Dream On Silly Dreamer, about the high times and tragic fate of Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA).

The short documentary film Dream On Silly Dreamer will premiere at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California on the evening of May 23 at 8:00 PM.

Tickets for the premiere are $7.00 and will be available at the door, or may be purchased in advance from the Alex Theatre's website.

The Alex Theatre will open its gates at 6:30 on the evening of May 23, for a pre-show party where guests and fans will be able to sip beverages and "catch up with legends and old friends of animation."

The Alex Theatre, at 216 North Brand Boulevard in downtown Glendale, is located just a few miles from the city's Flower Street industrial district. It was here that Walt Disney Feature Animation created classic animated films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin in a series of trailers and warehouses, after being kicked off the historic Disney lot in Burbank in the mid 80s by recently arrived CEO Michael Eisner.

The event is being billed as "An emotional evening where displaced Disney animators will come together with family, friends, animators from the past and those of the future to see, for the first time, their story told through the film Dream On Silly Dreamer."

Dreamer is told from the viewpoint of an artist's sketchbook that becomes the viewer's window into the documentary's realm. There are original, animated vignettes that help to tell a side of the story that the world has not yet heard.

Dream On Silly Dreamer features recollections by the creative forces behind the classic hand-drawn animated films of Walt Disney Feature Animation's modern era, the animators themselves. The documentary was written, directed, and edited by Dan Lund and produced by Tony West, both former Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA) animators.

Former board member and Vice Chairman of the Walt Disney Company Roy E. Disney had this to say about Dream On Silly Dreamer,

I have to say how very human a face it puts on an institutional tragedy. Thanks to Tony and Dan for bringing a tear or three to this eye - it should be seen by all those who still believe in the magic of Disney.

This film will touch anyone who has ever dreamed, believed in fairy tales, wished upon a star, or shared in a special Disney moment.

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Dan Lund, Roy E. Disney and Tony West at Minnapolis screening of Dream On Silly Dreamer.