Subscriber Exclusive: Bonus Q&A with documentarian Leslie Iwerks
Documentarian Leslie Iwerks has had ties to Disney and Walt Disney Imagineering her entire life. Her grandfather, Ub Iwerks, co-created Mickey Mouse with Walt Disney. Her father, Don Iwerks, was a former Disney executive and camera technician on “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” before becoming the co-founder of Iwerks Entertainment.
Now, Leslie has directed a new, 6-part docuseries exploring the history and works of Walt Disney Imagineering, Walt’s very own ‘think tank’ behind the Disney parks, for Disney+ called “The Imagineering Story.”
We have a full Q&A with her in our Winter 2019 issue, but had more conversation than we could fit in print. Here are a few bonus questions, exclusively for our subscribers:
Thinking about how long you’ve been working on this with Imagineering, what do you think the future holds for Disney Parks fans?
Disney’s been innovating on the parks the whole time, since Walt Disney laid down the mantra that Disneyland will never stay the same, it’s always going to be changing and evolving. That’s the thing about Disneyland, is that it’s always going to be changing. As you’ll see in the series, technology changes, guests’ expectations change, culture changes, and so the parks have to adapt with that. Bob Iger acquired all these new brands, Pixar and Marvel and Star Wars, and now, that becomes this whole treasure trove for these Imagineers.
When [Iger] announced that Disney bought the Star Wars franchise, the Imagineers were so excited, because it was like “Wow, now we’ve got this fresh canvas to do some really cool things, but yet, no pressure.” They know how deep the fanbase is and that they cannot let anybody down. It’s fun to see how they take their work so seriously, and yet, are the biggest fans of the content they’re creating as well.
Now that you’ve worked with Pixar and Imagineering, do you have any desire to cover other parts of The Walt Disney Company, or could we see future additions to “The Imagineering Story” later on?
I think, yes and yes. We’ll see where things go. Given the parks are all evolving, I would imagine that there would be future stories to tell, if Disney wants to. I think with Disney+ now, it seems like the door is wide open for more stories on the Disney history. Being a Disney fan, I’d be very excited about more opportunities with the studio to do other projects on certain people, on certain subjects. It’s such a big company with such a rich history and there’s a lot to tell.
I’m sure there was no typical day during those four years of shooting, but what was your average day like?
When we were filming, it would just be the typical situation, “Okay, where are we filming? Let’s scout, let’s go scout Disneyland and decide where we’re going to do the interview.” Disney provided lots of great cast members and staff who would help us get access to inside various attractions before the park opened.
So we would go through, for example, Marty Sklar to scout – we had to scout Pirates of the Caribbean. So we went in there before it opened, walked around the sets and checked out where the best way to interview with him would be.
And that was a typical way in which we shoot, it was “go inside Haunted Mansion and figure out how we’re going to film [Imagineer] Kim Irvine inside there.” Then I’d bring my cameraman and our lighting team, and then I would be working simultaneously on questions to ask everybody [through] research around them and their history. That was one chunk of our filming, just setting up these shoots.
The production value was high and Disney really gave me the tools to do as quality of a job as I feasibly could.
What were some of the challenges of filming one of the most secretive parts of The Walt Disney Company?
There’s a lot of departments within the company and I think just the communication between departments can be tricky. One minute you’re getting approval to film somewhere, and the next minute you’re getting stopped because they didn’t know about it. But overall, the amazing team at Imagineering was one step or two steps ahead of me, really just trying to pave the way for me to go in and film.
There are certainly things that they do not want to give the secret away. They don’t want to take the magic off certain things, and I understand that. So we had to push and pull, so to speak, as to where we wanted to go, but it was a good collaboration. It was, you know, we ask, they say, “Oh, okay, let’s see,” and then we go film it and then they decide, “Well, maybe not,” or “Sure, as long as it’s shown after that attraction opens.”
I think seeing Walt’s original vision for creating a park, that it was different than just making animated films, which are, as he said, “they’re done.” They’re in the can and you can’t change them again. With a park, he was excited about the opportunities of constantly evolving them and improving them and changing them out. It was a whole new canvas for him that was live.
To have been a part of that, where I can read all the fans’ comments, for example, on Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, and then I can step inside and see actually what is going on in there and see for myself that this is going to be insane. And I’m sworn to secrecy with all that I just saw, and we have footage of this very locked-down land, and we can’t do anything with it until after the land opens. All that was fun and cool, we’ve got information that no one else knows. But then it’s on the filmmaker to tell the story of what the fans are expecting and then actually show it pay off. That was neat to kind of be in that world.
You can read our full interview with Iwerks now via the digital version or print version of our latest issue.
