Written by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub

Even though I get to speak with a lot of interesting people in the movie industry, I’ve reached the point that I rarely get nervous. Since I’ve been doing this for a pretty long time, even if I stumble for a second, I know a few generic questions that can get me out of any bad situation. Therefore, I rarely get anxious or too excited before doing any interview.

So it was a bit weird to be walking into John Lasseter’s office at Disney Studios this week and realizing that I was a bit nervous. But can you blame me? John is as close to the reincarnation of Walt Disney as anyone on this planet and he’s now the Chief Animation Officer of Walt Disney Studios. What that means is…not only can he green light any movie…but he can make an online reporter for Collider.com feel a bit intimidated.

Thankfully, John couldn’t have been nicer.

And when I had a spur of the moment idea and asked him if he’d mind showing me around his office on camera, he immediately said yes and we jumped right in. So as you watch the video below, realize we literally decided to do this one second before the camera was switched on.

All I can say is…if you’re a fan of John Lasseter you’re going to love this video. Not only do you get to see all the cool things that he keeps in his office, you get to hear him talk passionately about the history of Walt Disney Animation and you can clearly see what it means for him to be the Chief Animation Officer.

Trust me, after watching this tour and hearing him speak about the history of Walt Disney Studios, I think you’ll agree there is no one better suited for being the head of Disney Animation than him.

Finally, I have to mention why I even got to speak with John in the first place. Tomorrow marks a new dawn for Walt Disney Animation as they’re releasing “Bolt” and it’s the first movie made after Pixar and Disney became one company. I managed to see the movie last week and really liked it a lot. It’s absolutely the best animated movie to come from Disney in a long time and it’s pretty clear why…. John Lasseter. As you can hear him explain in the second video below, I asked John what he did on the project and how he got involved.

And with that…here are two great videos. I really hope you enjoy them. And for some movie clips from “Bolt”, click here.

John Lasseter Part 1 The Tour of His Office

• He shows off all of his reproductions from the Walt Disney animated library
• Dumbo, Suzie the Little Blue Coupe, models of Disneyland, variations of Mickey Mouse, Tinkerbell and a few other things
• Talks about what changes were made when he came onboard
• Show off the new letterhead and explains where it came from – on the back of every piece of stationary there are reproductions from the Walt Disney Studios library. You really need to see this letterhead
• He then shows off a new book that Disney is putting out – The Walt Disney Animation Studios: The Archive Series. The first book is called Story
• He explains how he felt when he found out the animation library was a part of the animation department
• John says the next book in the series will be on animation which will be out next year and their will be a background and layout book

 

John Lasseter Part 2 – Bolt

• He talks about what he did when he came on board Bolt. This was his first project after becoming the head of Disney animation