Fairy tales can begin in different ways, but they must end the same way - happily. The childhood of our today's hero did not fall into the category of "fairy tale", and, rather, resembled such genres as "detective", "crime drama" or "tragedy".

However Walt Disney ( Walt Disney) , the legendary American artist, producer and director, managed to change his fate and make his life, if not fabulous, then very, very successful.

The creator of the first musical and full-length cartoons in the history of cinema, has achieved a lot. Judge for yourselves creative life fruitful Disney released about 700 cartoons, was the owner of 29 Oscars and 4 Emmys, was awarded honorary degrees from Yale and Harvard Universities, was awarded the highest civilian government award in the United States - the Medal of Freedom. On the Hollywood Walk of Fame, two stars are dedicated to Disney, one for the development of television, the other for his contribution to the cinema.

Walt Disney founded The Walt Disney Company", which is now the most big company in entertainment and ranked 13th on Forbes' "Most Influential Brands" list.

But more than all the countable material awards, the people's recognition, which was awarded to Disney by enthusiastic viewers, is valued.

Walter Elias Disney is born (that's what it sounds like full name Legends of America) December 5, 1901 in Chicago in large family Disney had 3 more brothers and a sister.

The Disney couple barely made ends meet. But, as they say, the wealth of a family is determined not by capital at all, but by the warmth and support that family members provide to each other.

With this, little Walt was not too lucky either - the despotic father Elias often beat the child. Justifying himself by the fact that nothing educates better than physical punishment, Elias simply took out his anger from insolvency on his family - no matter what business he took on, be it the construction business, the cultivation of orange groves or the sale of newspapers, everywhere he failed.

Disney's father beat him so badly that poor Walt thought he couldn't possibly be his real dad! After his “lessons”, little Walt turned to Roy, his older brother, for comfort, who treated his wounds, physical and mental.

In this situation, the mother also tried to console her son - she read fairy tales to him. However, these fictional stories allowed Walt to hide for a while in an imaginary world and get away from the frightening reality. It was in such conditions that the fantasy of the future leader of the animation developed.

In 1906, Disney moved from troubled Chicago, where a policeman was murdered on the street next to their home, to a farm in Marceline, Kansas.

The new place turned out to be better than the old one - on the farm, five-year-old Walt meets domestic animals, and they respond to the boy's kindness with warm affection. In the future, Walt will transfer some images from his childhood to the big screen - the Porker boar, on which he loved to ride as a baby, will serve as the prototype of the Stupid from The Three Little Pigs. According to Disney, at the end of the sketch of Silly, he "practically sobbed with nostalgia."

However, the family continues to suffer on the farm. Disney, who loved to draw, does not buy either pencils or paper, and stick and resin become tools for drawing, and the resourceful Walt used walls, fences or toilet paper as canvases.

The father constantly punished his son for drawing, and perhaps Disney would not have taken his hobby seriously if not for a lucky break.

Walt had a cheerful disposition since childhood, which is why many of the neighbors in Marceline knew and loved him. One such neighbor, the elderly Dr. Sherwood, gave Disney 25 cents for having a child draw his horse. Profitable sale of a portrait of a mare and pushed Walt to the idea of ​​becoming an artist. Soon, with his drawings, Walt was already paying for a haircut with a local hairdresser.

In 1909, the family moves again, and eight-year-old Walt runs away from home. He is quickly found and returned to his family. For the next six years, he works for the benefit of "daddy" - he gets up at dawn and delivers advertising booklets and letters from his father's company.

Whatever the weather, even when the kind owner won't turn the dog out, Walt has to deliver the mail. All honestly earned money was taken away by the father for the development of a common cause, but the resilient Walt came up with a way out here too. He, in secret from the evil "boss", simply took twice as much work, gave it to his father, and set aside the remaining dollars for pocket expenses.

So, think about how the same circumstances can lead to different consequences. This reminds me of this parable:

“Once upon a time there were two twin brothers.

One brother became a very successful man, famous for his good deeds. The second brother became a murderer and was about to be tried. Before the trial began, journalists surrounded the second brother, and one asked:

How did it happen that you became a criminal?

– I had a difficult childhood. My father drank, beat my mother and me. Who else could I be? he replied.

At the same time, another group of journalists were interviewing the first brother who came to trial. One of the reporters asked him: - How did it happen that you became famous and successful?

– I had a difficult childhood. My father drank, beat my mother and me. What else could I be?"

Walt Disney is a worthy example of a man who can squeeze first-class lemonade out of a lemon! Sometimes it’s worth saying “thank you” to the troubles that come our way - they make us stronger.

Disney's parents return to Chicago, and with the new move, Disney in 1917 again finds himself in the city where he was born. There he studies at McKinley High School, and in the evenings he goes to the Academy of Fine Arts.

Walt receives money for his education and living by working part-time at his father's jelly factory. Disney is also graduating from a newspaper cartoonist course, where he learns that thinking outside the box is good and gains the skills to express his thoughts in a concise manner.

When did the first World War, Walt crosses the ocean and for a year in France works as an International Red Cross ambulance van driver. His car becomes a local landmark, since Disney did not give up his hobby here, decorating it with drawings.

After the war, Walt returns to Kansas City and gets a position as a cartoonist at the local newspaper.

But only a month passes, and he is fired due to "outstanding inability to draw"!

Employers would be surprised if someone told them that, years later, Walt Disney would become the most prominent cartoon creator in the history of the United States!

In 1919, Disney was hired by a film advertising studio as an artist, at which time he had the idea to experiment with animation. However, the animation studio that Disney opened in Kansas City is soon going bankrupt. But is this a reason to give up?

"If you can dream, then you can make your dreams come true" Walt thought so.

He teams up with Ub Iwerks, his former job mate, and begins work on "Mushrooms," Disney's first viable cartoon product.

The studio where Smeshinki was created was in a garage and had only primitive equipment. And again the garage. When studying the biographies of prominent personalities, I sometimes have the idea that creating your own business in a garage is an indispensable attribute of any successful business. It even seems to me that the Americans have their own signs on this subject. Like, “if you create a business NOT in a garage, then there will be no luck.”

Improving their skills in drawing, the companions worked day and night. However, their next creation - a cartoon version of "Little Red Riding Hood" - fails, and, fleeing from creditors, the debtors flee the city.

In 1923, Disney came to Los Angeles to visit his older brother Roy. He still dreams of making animated films and is not going to deviate from the path to his dream, because "it's kind of fun to do the impossible."

Roy believes in his brother's ideas and becomes his companion and co-founder of a small animation studio. So, with a rented garage, a couple of hundred dollars and handicrafts, history Walt Disney Company. The roles in the created company were distributed as follows - Walt was a creative genius, and Roy was in charge of the financial part.

In March 1924, Alice's Day at Sea premiered, becoming Disney's first commercial cartoon.

In 1925, Walt Disney married Lillian Bounds, who in their studio was engaged in “filling” - painting characters drawn by Walt. In 1933, after several failed attempts have children, the couple has a daughter, Diane Mary.

In 1937, the couple adopt a girl, Sharon May. Much to Disney's chagrin, the couple never had a chance to have their child again. By the way, in the life of Disney and his wife there was a period when they could not give birth to a child for 8 years. Walt's wife had two miscarriages and all this caused them both great suffering.

According to Diane's own daughter Mary, Walt was an exemplary family man and all his free time spent with my daughters.

In 1927, a series of cartoons with the lucky rabbit Oswald, invented by Disney, gained great fame. This character was created "to order", and brought fame to its creator.

However, he also taught Walt to carefully read business papers, because this story ended ugly. The people who paid for the creation of Oswald turned out to be unscrupulous businessmen who managed to draw up a contract in such a way that they, and not Walt at all, had the rights to the cartoon character.

Upon learning of this, Disney, in a rage, threw away all of Oswald's drawings and informed his "partners" that "where he came from, there are many more characters"!

And it was pure truth. Following Oswald, other beloved characters are born - Mickey Mouse, Pluto the dog, Goofy the dog, Donald Duck the duck.

In the year that Disney invents his famous mouse, all the newspapers were discussing Mr. Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, and the enterprising Disney decided to "seat" his new hero at the helm. The first silent cartoon with Mouse, Airplane Crazy (1928), was a success!

The mouse was drawn by the company's lead artist Ab Iwerks, the name "Mickey" was suggested by Disney's wife, and the voice was given by Walt himself, who personally voiced the mouse in the studio's first sound cartoon, "Steamboat Willie".

Once a little boy approached the great master and asked: “So you are drawing Mickey Mouse?” Disney said no. “So you come up with his jokes and fun?” the kid insisted, but even here Disney answered “no”. “Mr. Disney, what are you doing?” asked the young viewer in bewilderment.

Disney would then formulate his vision of his activities as follows: “I imagine myself like a bee that flies from place to place, collecting pollen. I walk around the studio and direct everyone's work. I guess that's what I'm doing!" Here is such a hardworking "bee-Disney"!

Because of "Steamboat Willie", the company is on the verge of bankruptcy, because the cost of a sound cartoon far exceeded the creation of a silent one. In the future, Disney will often have to balance on the brink of ruin, because the priority for him was creativity, not earnings: “I don't make films just to make money. I make money to make films." Walt emphasized.

The Disney quote echoes many famous people such as ("There's only one way to do great work, and that's to love it"), ("Enjoy what you do and you'll never work in your life") and others. This love of outstanding people for their work largely determines the success of their undertakings.

This is followed by cartoons from the cycle "Naive Symphonies" (1929), one of the series of which brings the studio the first "Oscar"

The cartoon The Three Little Pigs (1933) becomes an international sensation. In 1935, at the Soviet Film Festival in Moscow (now called the Moscow International Film Festival), Disney's films ("The Three Little Pigs", "Mickey the Conductor" and "Unusual Penguins") receive the 3rd prize for "animated feature films that are a high standard of craftsmanship". ".

And the song of stupid pigs, familiar to us from childhood ( "We are not afraid grey Wolf, gray wolf, gray wolf. Where do you roam, stupid old wolf dire wolf) is actually a translation of a song from Disney's The Three Little Pigs!

In 1934, Walt Disney began making the first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. At that time, viewers were used to watching cartoons 7 times shorter, and by releasing a "long format" tape, Disney took a big risk.

This cartoon practically ruined the studio. “I spent almost two million dollars on this film. Isn't this a fairy tale for you?" - so ironically about his tape Disney.

But Snow White turned out to be a profitable investment - it was accepted by everyone with a bang and brought its creator one real Oscar and seven small Oscars - for each dwarf.

The studio creates new masterpieces. " We strive forward, open up new paths, take on new things, because we are curious ... Only forward ”, is another quote from Disney.

In 1940, Disney released Pinocchio and Fantasy, the next year a story about Dumbo appeared on the screens, and in 1942, Bambi was released. In 1945, a film about a naive and touching deer also hits the Soviet screens - Disney gives this film to the allies; 4 years later, on the eve of the Cold War, American cartoons are banned in the USSR.

But Disney didn't just make cartoons. In the second half of the 40s, Walt Disney was captivated by the idea of ​​​​creating an amusement park. Walking with his daughters gave him the idea, when he was forced to spend hours in boredom watching Diane and Sharon having fun at the zoo or on the children's rides. “We believed in our idea of ​​a family park where parents and children can have fun together,” he says.

In 1955, the first Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California.

The man, whose talents seemed to know no bounds, did not limit his new project either: "Disneyland will never be completed, it will continue to grow as long as the imagination of the world."

Disney, who did not have a single normal toy as a child, managed to create a real fairy-tale land, not only on the screen, but in reality! (click on picture to enlarge)

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE - DIS) is the world leader in the entertainment industry.

Disney is one of the ten most valuable brands in the world, is active in 172 countries and has 1,300 radio and television channels in 53 languages, including the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

Disney is one of the world's largest licensors and also the largest publisher of children's literature in the world. Tops the list of video distributors in Europe and Latin America.

The company's headquarters and main production facilities are concentrated in the Walt Disney Studios division (Walt Disney Studios) in Burbank, California, USA.

Company origins

The company was founded on October 16, 1923 by brothers Walter and Roy Disney as a small animation studio. The first work took place in the uncle's garage. Soon the brothers received their first order from New York for a series of short cartoons and began their production activities.

(Walt Disney (1901-1966) - American animator, film director, actor, screenwriter and producer. He became the creator of the first sound cartoon in history, the first musical and the first full-length. During his unusually busy life, Walt Disney as a director made 111 films and He produced 576 other films, and Disney's filmmaking credentials have been recognized with 26 Oscars and many other awards and accolades.

On March 1, 1924, Disney presented its first stunt film, Alice's Day at Sea, inspired by the characters in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The director also named his series of films, drawn in 1926-1927, in honor of the heroine of this book - "Alice in the Land of Animation" (in total, Disney made 56 films about Alice's adventures).

Since its founding, Disney and the structures that make up it have remained true to their main principle - to create exceptionally high-quality products in the field of entertainment, using the richest experience gained over many years of successful work.

Disney currently consists of four divisions:

Studios (The Walt Disney studios)

The Walt Disney Studios is the foundation on which the Disney building is built. It is based on world-famous animation and feature films.

Walt Disney Studiosis engaged distribution paintings studiosWalt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Touchstone PicturesandHollywood pictures.Disney Theatrical Productions is one of the largest production centers on Broadway. AT her compositionDisney Live Family Entertainmentanddisney ice,engaged in ice show. The Disney Music Group division produces music of various genres and soundtracks.

Business Standards and Ethics

During its development, Disney has developed best-in-class business standards that today are one of the most essential elements business practices.

Business Standards for Employees and Ethics Training

Professional training is required to perform the production activities of company employees and the work of actors. In addition to it, each employee must know the standards business conduct and ethics known as the Disney Development Connection. Compliance with these standards ensures that all employees and actors of the company have the knowledge and are trained to act ethically and legally.

recruitment methods

The company's employment policy provides equal opportunity to all employees and job applicants regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital status, including applicants whose activities are prohibited by state or federal laws for certain reasons.

What do Desperate Housewives, Wes Anderson's The Tenenbaums, and ESPN have in common? Surprisingly, they are all owned by The Walt Disney Company, the largest media conglomerate in the world. There are only six such media giants in the world - more Comcast, Time Warner, News Corp, Sony and Viacom - and the structure of their business is largely similar. Each of them has its own film studios, television channels, recording studios, publishing houses, shops and theme parks. The degree of concentration of media resources is further enhanced by the fact that all companies belonging to the Big Six also constantly interact with each other. Disney may make a film that will be distributed by Comcast, with the rights to some of the characters in the film owned by Time Warner.

It would be a mistake to think that conglomerates are buying up their mini-competitors solely to make clones of them. Quite the contrary, modern mergers and acquisitions in the entertainment industry often do not lead to fundamental changes in the internal policies of the "eaten" companies. Usually they continue to do what they were doing, only with more resources on hand. In this way, the illusion of a wide choice is maintained in the market, and conglomerates benefit from the diversity of their holdings.

Bob Iger era

The most aggressive buyer in the industry in last years considered to be the Disney Company. Since 2006, the conglomerate has bought several companies that are famous for their unique individual style - Pixar, Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm. Millions of fans watched in horror, expecting that Disney would ruin everything it bought, take away the humor, violence and true romance from their favorite works. In reality, everything turned out not so bad.

Disney's total profit in 2014 was $7.5 billion. The current success of the company is largely due to the fact that in 2005, the then little-known Bob Iger took over as CEO. The managerial genius began his career as a weather anchor for ABC, then became the head of the channel, and after the takeover of ABC, he received the post of vice president of Disney. The company at that moment was experiencing the second crisis in its history (the first happened after the death of Walt Disney). Under the direction of Michael Eisner, she released one disastrous film after another - Pearl Harbor, Hercules, Atlantis: The Lost World. Even the successful Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy came out against Eisner's wishes. As a result, the board of directors decided to replace the head of the company. Iger, who replaced him, explained his strategy this way: if Disney has a problem with creativity and the creation of new profitable characters, then you need to buy them from other companies.

Walt Disney
Bob Iger

Despite the setbacks in cartoon production, the company entrusted to him was still very wealthy - it profited from its TV channels, shops and theme parks, which hosted more than 120 million guests annually. The foundation of this structure, tirelessly supporting the company in difficult times, was laid by Walt Disney. It is believed that Walt was the first Hollywood producer who realized that television was the future. The production of feature-length cartoons required very large funds. Even a successful release in theaters did not allow his studio to really get on its feet. Disney was looking for other sources of income - and in 1937 he came up with Disneyland. To raise money to build a huge park, Disney made an ingenious deal with the ABC channel. They were supposed to invest in the construction of the park, and he was supposed to host a weekly program on the channel, showing his cartoons to children. The program loved by children was called Disneyland, it naturally advertised the park under construction and made the Disney company synonymous with American animation.

Even now, amusement parks bring the company 20% of the profits. The problem is that when kids come to the park, they want to see not only Disney princesses and Mickey Mouse, but also Nemo the fish and Iron Man. Disney's creative monopoly on beloved characters ended in the age of computer animation. But with the money, Bob Iger quickly turned that downside into a giant upside.

How Disney tamed Pixar

It's funny, but future Pixar founder Ed Catmull showed his first 3D animation program to Disney employees back in 1973, where he did an internship. He was then told that there was nothing in common between computers and animation, and until his program could draw believable bubbles, they were absolutely not interested in it. With these words, they expressed the opinion of the entire film industry, which remained so until May 25, 1977. On this day, the first " Star Wars". Unlike the others, George Lucas was very particular about new visual and sound effects tools, and as a result, he opened a computer division in his company and hired Catmull to manage it. After some time they were joined by animator John Lasseter, who was fired from Disney for being too bold in his views on the future of animation. Lucasfilm's computer staff didn't get along well with Lucas.

Someone might think that Disney lost by paying whole
7.5 billion for Pixar, but the numbers they say otherwise

They wanted to create cartoons, and their designs were only interested in the extent to which they could improve the picture of an ordinary film. When Lucas divorced his wife in 1983 and lost most of his fortune in divorce proceedings, he needed to somehow streamline his business, and he decided to get rid of the computer division. For several years he was looking for a buyer, who eventually became Steve Jobs, recently fired from Apple. He invested $54 million in the new company. So Pixar was born.

In its early years, Pixar made several short animated films, one of which won an Oscar, and a couple of commercials, but did not make a profit. Three times Steve Jobs tried to resell the company to someone else, such as Microsoft and Alias, but each time he refused the deal at the last moment. Things weren't going well until Disney came on the scene. They offered to invest in making a feature-length Pixar cartoon and in return get distribution rights. Disney also wanted to get the rights to Pixar technology, but Jobs rejected this offer, saying that he was not going to disclose production secrets. After the resounding success of Pixar's first feature-length cartoon Toy Story, Disney CEO Michael Eisner realized with horror that he had created a great competitor for himself with his own hands. The relationship between Eisner and Jobs became very strained.

"The history of toys"
"Monsters university"
"Cars"
Frozen

Everything changed when Eisner was replaced by Iger, who began to actively build relationships with Jobs. Unlike Eisner, he was not going to fight their company, he wanted to help them and convinced the creators of Pixar that after the takeover he promised to preserve the spirit and values ​​​​of their company. This resulted in a $7.4 billion deal. Microsoft once offered Jobs $90 million for Pixar. The agreement with Disney stipulated Pixar's right to maintain the creative principles of their work, which Jobs considered the basis of their success. Once fired from the Disney studio, John Lasseter returned to the studio as its head.

There are different ways to assess what happened next. Pixar began to make cartoons faster, and they all brought in big profits. So, "Monsters University" can not be called a failure, because it grossed $ 800 million at the box office, but everyone understands that according to the Hamburg score, it turned out to be rather weak. In the near future, Pixar plans to release sequels to Cars, Toy Story, and The Incredibles, and this focus on sequels is a little unsettling. At the same time, Disney's home studio has grown before our eyes, standing on a par with modern studios. Frozen became the most profitable cartoon in the history of cinema, and the recently released "City of Heroes" was clearly very successful.

One might think Disney screwed up by paying as much as $7.5 billion for Pixar, but the numbers say otherwise. According to the results for 2013, they received 7 billion thanks to the merchandising of goods based on Toy Story alone. This is not counting the income from the rental of the third series, sales of discs, books and games for the Wii, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS, which brought in another 2 billion. This figure can be multiplied by 10 - the number of cartoons created by Pixar (excluding sequels).

wholesale superheroes

The first Marvel comics appeared in 1937. Since then, the company has been resold several times - and always fell into the hands of some strange people. In 1968, the founder sold it to the Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation, which had a mail-order drug division and a print division that, along with marvel comics published the Ladies' Home Journal. In 1986, they were taken over by New World Entertainment, which produced B-class television films. Three years later, they were resold to MacAndrews & Forbes, which also included the Revlon cosmetics company. In 1996, Marvel declared bankruptcy. The owners of the Toy Biz toy company, Avi Arad and Ike Perlmutter, decided to save the drowning brand. The two re-engineered Marvel's business so successfully that ten years later, Disney paid $4.6 billion for it.

Disney with their princesses has always been considered more "company for girls", and characters that you might like boys they traditionally there were very few

What did Avi and Ike come up with then? First, they began licensing popular Marvel characters. They were bought by television and film studios, manufacturers of clothing, goods for schoolchildren and toys. In total, several thousand licenses were sold. Entrepreneurs decided to make a special emphasis on films and games. The idea was that the superheroes of the Marvel universe would go beyond their usual teenage audience and become well-known. So the films about Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America were born.

In parallel with this, Marvel began to publish comics again, found new distribution channels for them, re-wrote their old stories for a young audience. By 2010, they increased their share of the comic book market to 50%. In 2005, Marvel, having collected 500 million investments, took up its own production of films. Since the rights to use the most popular heroes belonged to other studios, they focused on the lesser known heroes - iron man, Thor, Hulk. Films made in collaboration with other studios heated up the market, the public was waiting for new adventures of Marvel heroes, so the new films were a success.

"Spider-Man"
"X-Men"
"Captain America"

Bob Iger was attracted to Marvel not only by the number of potentially profitable heroes, but also by the fact that the most devoted fans of the work of this company were teenage boys. Disney with its princesses has always been considered more of a “girls company”, and they traditionally had very few heroes that boys could like. The Marvel owners agreed to the deal relatively easily, as both were more businessmen than creators. Each of them had several successfully sold companies under his belt, and Marvel was just one of them. That the acquisition was worth its $4 billion was proven by the incredible success of The Avengers, which grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide and became one of the top three highest-grossing films in cinema history.

How George Lucas sold Star Wars

In 2011, George Lucas participated in the preparation of the Star Wars attraction at Disneyland. At the opening ceremony, Paul Iger asked him if he was thinking of selling the company, and hit the nail on the head. Lucas at that time was 67 years old, and he began to think about retirement. After the cold reception of the second Star Wars trilogy, he did not want to make new films at all. The question of who to leave the company to was an edge. Lucas told Eiger that since his tomb would be inscribed "the creator Star Wars”, then for him it is not so much a matter of money as a matter of preserving his heritage. He was afraid to imagine that someone could take the Universe he had created and start doing whatever he wanted with it. He, in principle, trusted Aiger, because he saw how delicately he behaved in relation to his other "former company" - Pixar.

Lucas decided to sell the company on the condition that they make another trilogy based on his script and keep the CEO and part of the staff of his choice. He also wanted to have a voice in everything related to the use of his brand. Iger insisted that while Lucas' opinion would be taken into account, it would be Disney who would own the right. last word. The negotiations went on for six months, Lucas was doubtful and nervous, and when the contract was eventually signed, Aiger, according to him, felt like Darth Vader. He bought the Lucas company for $4 billion. On the day the deal was announced, someone tweeted, "I felt a commotion in the Force, like millions of geeks screaming in horror at the same time."

When Iger was just thinking about buying Lucasfilm, he reviewed all six episodes and recorded characters that his company could get the rights to. Only later did he learn about the existence of the Holocron, a database of the Star Wars universe that contains information about 17,000 characters. Each of them is now owned by Disney.

TheWaltDisneycompany is an American multinational media corporation, the world's second largest broadcasting and cable company in terms of revenue after Comcast Corporation. The headquarters is located in Burbank, California, USA. Disney Studios was founded by Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney on October 16, 1923. After becoming a leader in the American animation industry, the company diversified its production and began to develop such areas as feature films, television and amusement parks. The studio operated under the names The Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions until 1986, when the holding included theater divisions, radio, record labels, publishers and online media. In addition to the main lines, Disney is beginning to develop divisions that are not associated with its flagship brands - for example, opening a business unit selling content for the older generation.

Since 1986, the corporation has been known as The Walt Disney Company. On the this moment The Walt Disney Company includes five key segments: The Walt Disney Studios - film labels, record labels and theatrical divisions; Parks and Resorts - amusement parks, cruise lines and other travel-related assets; Disney Consumer Products - production of toys, clothing and other branded goods; Media Networks - the company's television products; Disney Interactive - Internet projects, mobile projects, social media, virtual worlds and computer games. The corporation also includes brands such as The Muppets Studio, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm.

Since May 6, 1991, the company's shares have been listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, traded on the New York Stock Exchange NYSE and the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange. Ticker: DIS.

Stock quotesWaltDisneycompanyonline (with capitalization, P/E ratios, EPS and beta)

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The Walt Disney Company operates in 172 countries. In Russia, the company is based in Moscow and occupies three offices: the main one is located in Lotte Plaza, the Disney Channel office is located in Varshavka, the rental office Walt Disney Studios Sony Pictures Releasing - on Taganka. Regional representatives work in the largest cities of Russia, including St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar and Novosibirsk. Also they are in Kazakhstan.

The company moved to the Lotte Plaza business center seven years ago. At that time, the office occupied only the 12th floor. And when the 11th floor was vacated in the building the year before last, the company expanded the office area by another 1,500 square meters. Now the two floors house the departments of media distribution and interactive projects, dubbing, retail sales, television and film production, marketing, finance and strategy, legal, administrative and IT departments, as well as the human resources department. The entire top management of the company, including the general director Marina Zhigalova-Ozkan, also works here.

The Walt Disney Company

Entertainment industry

Foundation date: 1923

Number of employees in the head office: 200 people

Office area: 3 thousand sq. m

Recruitment

Getting a job at Disney, the applicant may not be afraid tricky questions- when applying for a job, they are not asked, but are more interested in personal qualities and previous work experience. Although sometimes an HR specialist may ask about your favorite Disney character or find out why you chose this particular company. Often, in order to check the competence of the applicant, he is offered to complete a test task. But the main feature of the interview, HR specialists call a detailed story about the company's business, which occupies a significant part of the interview. It is important for them to convey that Disney is not only animation, so that future employees, when they come to work, understand how the company lives.

The process of adaptation of new employees is quite long - about a year. During this time, the specialist immerses himself in his field and learns about the features of the company as a whole.

Each newcomer, regardless of position, is given a list of representatives of all departments with whom they need to make an acquaintance meeting. So a person immediately gets a more complete picture of the company and an understanding of who to contact if questions arise in the process of work. After the meeting, instead of a tick next to the name of a colleague, you need to paint over Mickey Mouse.

On the first day of the employee’s work, the HR specialist sends to all departments a photo of the newcomer and information about him: his short biography and description of new duties, and also starts his profile in the corporate local network Intranet.

Work organization

Basically, employees appear in the office from 09:00 to 11:00. It all depends on the needs: if counterparties start their activities closer to lunch, then the employee does not have to come in the morning. Another feature is that the Russian office of Disney is part of a global team headquartered in Los Angeles. And due to the big difference at 11 o'clock, all video conferences and phone calls take place mostly in the evening from 20:00. The office is open 24 hours a day, and if someone wants to calmly sort out papers on the weekend, he can always do it. This does not always happen, but employees periodically use it if they didn’t have time to finish something or left earlier on one of the working days.

Behind the scenes, it is customary in the company to be always in touch, even on weekends or on vacation. Employees explain this by saying that they love their work and do not want to drop out of the work process even for a minute.

At the internal conference, which takes place at the end of the year, the company sums up the results. Representatives of each of the ten business areas tell what has been done and what results have been achieved. The event was originally conceived in a standard presentation format, but three years ago, the Department of Finance and Strategy filmed an informative and funny reporting video. Colleagues liked the idea so much that it became a tradition. Now all departments shoot creative videos for the conference, and their plot is always kept a big secret.

“There are no bad ideas,” they say in the company. Therefore, any considerations can always be voiced, even if they are not directly related to the activities of the employee. And for those who do not dare to discuss them with colleagues, there is a special box for suggestions and wishes. However, according to employees, it is often empty - there are few shy people at Disney.

Each team member can turn to a colleague from any Disney office around the world for help. To do this, just go to the electronic directory, where all the contacts of the company are stored. There is also an international corporate social network, but e-mail is still more popular. Often company-wide creative events take place in the office. brainstorming: one of the employees sends an email to everyone asking them to come up with, for example, a translation of the title for a book, and everyone shares their ideas.

If someone from Disney wanted to try his hand in another direction of the company's business, then he can always apply for a vacancy.

According to employees, the office has a creative and friendly atmosphere. There is no strict dress code, almost everyone communicates with each other on “you”. And recently, the company introduced a new initiative - lunch with CEO Marina Zhigalova-Ozkan, which takes place once a month. Anyone can take part, regardless of position or experience. All you have to do is sign up and wait your turn. In an informal setting, you can discuss your ideas or just chat.

Every Disney specialist watches the company's films and series and knows all the main characters of Disney, Marvel, and, more recently, the Star Wars movie saga. This is considered the rule good manners. The marketing department has a movie library and anyone can take the DVD home.

Every two years, Disney conducts a global internal employee engagement survey: each team member receives a link to an anonymous survey. The results are analyzed and, based on them, an action plan is drawn up to improve working conditions in the company.

Interior

The design of the office is inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and the Disney animated film of the same name. Fairy-tale theme was proposed by the architectural bureau UNK project, which was engaged in designing.

Walking along the twelfth floor, you can see images of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Bambi and other heroes. The workspace of the eleventh floor resembles a labyrinth, in which a blue stripe on the floor helps the beginner not to get lost, it indicates the direction to the exit.

All walls in the office are transparent. The team is placed in an open space, broken down by department. You can chat with colleagues from other departments or talk on the phone in special booths, the soft walls of which block out sound. Employees who are tired of sitting at a desk can change the situation and move to sofas placed throughout the office.

The office has a Digital Zoo, a room equipped with several large screens and game consoles. In this room, the Media Distribution and Interactive Projects department tests Disney content. Anyone can play the console.

A large showroom with glass showcases is designed for meetings with potential or current licensees. Here they can see all licensed products of the company. The same room can easily be transformed into a cinema hall for thirty people, if you remove the tables and put chairs in their place.

Food in the office

You can dine in the "Tea" - this is how the company calls the kitchen, the interior of which is inspired by the scene of crazy tea drinking from the animated film about Alice.

Six varieties of coffee and different types of tea are always available in the kitchen. Part of the cost of food in the company is compensated by payments along with the salary. Each employee is also given a special SilverPass that entitles them to free admission to Disneyland parks around the world with up to three guests.

Entertainment and recreation

Every morning, receptionists check which colleague has a birthday today and send out a letter of congratulations and an image of a character whose appearance or character may resemble the birthday person or his occupation. For example, on the birthday of a corporate vehicle manager, congratulations, with a high degree of probability, will be illustrated by the characters of the animated film "Cars".

The company recalls how a couple of years ago the male part of the team congratulated the girls on March 8. The men recorded a song in the studio, each line of which was dedicated to one of their colleagues, and then shot a comic video for it.

Employees often meet after work. There is a club of lovers of photography, running, football, sailing. This year the employees participated in the Moscow marathon. You could recognize Disney athletes from the crowd by the image of Mickey Mouse on a T-shirt.

Distinguished employees are rewarded with tickets to Disney movie premieres, and sometimes the company arranges family special screenings on weekends. They take place in a cinema hall located in the office of a joint film distribution company.

Samples of products and toys that licensees send to the office are distributed to employees or donated to charitable foundations. On the New Year the company traditionally arranges a family event for employees with children, to which animators are invited and gifts are given.

Photo: Ivan Anisimov