Wilfred Jackson
Animation - 1928
Born in Chicago in 1906, Wilfred Jackson ('28) one of cartoon's greatest directors,
worked in a formative period for the budding new medium. Working long hours through
the heydays of early animation, Jackson is widely judged to have set the standard
for subsequent cartoon directors. At Disney, he was integral to the creation of feature
classics like Snow White, and was also a technical innovator in terms of merging sound
to pictures. ...
“Jaxon,” as he was called by Walt Disney, attended Otis in 1925. Three years later,
after “hanging around the Studios,” he volunteered to wash cels and assist animators
at Disney until — in the same year that Mickey Mouse was born — he “found himself
holding a paycheck,” later joking that "I'm the only guy [at Disney] who was never
[actually] hired."
Jackson claims to have gotten into directing, too, by accident. After being asked
by Walt to work out a sound-picture synchronization problem for the early sound cartoons,
Jackson successfully devised a metronome to mark time that could be converted to a
music track (a method still used in contemporary animation). The innovation, featured
in Mickey Mouse's debut film "Steamboat Willie," revolutionized the entertainment
medium, and Walt quickly promoted him from animator to director. Jackson garnered
a reputation among Disney studio directors as “easily the most creative of the directors,
but also the most ‘picky.’”
Among his other feats, Jackson contributed to the "Silly Symphony" shorts, and went
on to direct 35 Academy Awards®-winning shorts: The Tortoise and The Hare, The Country
Cousin, and The Old Mill. Probably the greatest example of his skill in developing
action to music, however, was The Band Concert starring Mickey Mouse.
Jaxon also
applied his talent to other animated features, including Pinocchio, Dumbo, Saludos
Amigos, Melody Time, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Lady and the
Tramp. He directed such memorable sequences as "The Night on Bald Mountain" in Fantasia.
During the war years, he produced and directed government films for the U.S. Navy.
In 1954, as Walt entered the new television medium, he asked Jaxon to produce and
direct animated shows on the "Disneyland" series. His career at Disney spanned 35
years.
Read more
