Entrepreneurial LeadershipEntrepreneurial LeadershipCasey JacksonTeresa GreenwoodContemporary Business (Bus508)October 18, 2011Two of many famous entrepreneurs of all time are Walt Disney and Thomas Edison. These two became successful by believing in themselves and pushing forward in reaching their goals. Walt Disney is famous for creating the character Mickey Mouse. Thomas Edison is most known for the creation of the light bulb. Both entrepreneurs had a similar drive to pursue their dreams. Disney however, was more of a profit oriented entrepreneur where Edison was more of a social entrepreneur.
Walt Disney was born in the early 1900’s in Chicago and was a devoted artist at an early age. His young adult life was spent working at the Red Cross driving an ambulance that he had customized with his own cartoon drawings. After he was unable to enlist in World War 1 due to his young age he moved to Kansas City, Missouri advertising cartoons. This job did not last long.
Disney then moved to California and went into partnership with his brother Roy Disney. Within their business Roy Disney was more business and financial where Walt Disney was more geared toward the creative aspects of the business. The brothers borrowed money to start their business in their uncle’s garage. Soon after that they expanded their production operation to the rear of a Hollywood real estate office. It was Walt’s enthusiasm and faith in himself, and others that took him straight to the Hollywood society (Aldridge 1999).
Walt Disney started a series of black and white cartoons produced for Universal Studios. Through this process Walt still needed more funding but he stopped short, but it did not stop his drive. Walt went back to square one and produced a silent cartoon called Plane Crazy featuring a new character named Mickey Mouse. Soon after that he produced a second Mickey Mouse cartoon with sound. Mickey’s image was licensed to be used on tablet paper geared toward children.
Disney later started looking into long length films and released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Over 1.5 million dollars was used to which was odd during the Great Depression era. The growth within the company came from Walt recognizing his great technique in design and not so much in animation. Disney made it through the Great Depression and World War 2 by dedicating much of his new studio producing health, education and propaganda films for the U.S. government, also producing short comedies aimed to producing nation morale. To raise additional money Disney took this operation public in 1940 (Richads, n.d.). Disney did many films after this time and thought to make the films into live theatre to
p. A brief list of Disney films can be found on the following page. (All the links to that page are also available as eBook files in PDF format or PDF and ZIP file)
The main Walt Disney film production company is named Walt Disney Studios. In 1941-1942, Disney was in charge of a variety of Walt Disney movie productions. They were based on the Disney animation and Walt Disney animated cartoons. Walt Disney’s other films were produced by the California studio “Hooverpact Corporation”. In a story inspired by the Walt Disney Story, this company took over production of many of the Walt Disney films, such as: In an early draft of a short for the Walt Disney Company that was to be published in a newspaper, it was noted that this line of animation has been used in several movie and television movies, many of which have never made the film world tour. In an earlier film, in 1942, there was little to no mention of the same line of animation in the first line and no mention of the Walt Disney Company’s “Shutter Island” or “The Shrek Connection” characters. Disney began in 1942 working with directors such as J.J. Abrams, Robert Zemeckis and others on films such as “Poker Sonnets” and the original Walt Disney Movies. This production company was later absorbed by Hollywood Records. Its main directors were the brothers and nephews David and Eric Disney (d. 1949); the boys Fred and Nancy Disney (d. 1960); and John Lucas, George Lucas, George Lucas Animation of Los Angeles and Disney Pictures of Hollywood. Disney Productions had an annual turnover of $1,700,000 before Disney began to develop an international business.
In October of 1943, Disney moved its operations from Japan to the United States and it was on the line producing the hit film for the studio at the California company’s headquarters. At first this company’s main business was Walt Disney Distribution, which was the company’s main distribution company in California, California and the United States. Walt Disney’s original business consisted of Walt Disney films, live action cartoons, feature films and short films. One of the first Walt Disney films, “The Adventures of Amadeus Cho” was a short-lived theatrical release of the Walt Disney World-themed story series “The Adventures of Abe and Wulf from Disneyland”, based on the original version of the Walt Disney World-themed story series by Arthur J. Lee and Robert D. Lewis. The main movie series took place in Japan since 1948. For more information follow Disneyland on Disney’s Wikipedia page here. In 1939, there was a production company for Star Wars as a subsidiary of Star Wars and the movie The Clone Wars was a joint project of Lucasfilm and LucasArts. The Empire Strikes Back franchise was scheduled for a release