Every stage of Snow White brought up a new technical or storytelling challenge. The look of Snow White changed radically as the animators sought to get away from a stylized, Betty Boop-like design to one more realistic and emotional. Likewise the Dwarfs went through dozens of name and character changes before the final seven–Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey–were chosen. While casting around for voice actors, Disney had so much trouble finding a suitable personality for Dopey that he simply gave up – hence the character being silent in the finished film.

Even the formulation of paint required special consideration. According to issue 36 of Cinemagic magazine, 1500 shades of paint were created over the course of several months.

Whistle While You Work

All told, Snow White required the work of 750 artists: 32 animators, 25 background artists, and 102 assistants, and the creation of thousands of drawings. Unsurprisingly, the commitment to quality and detail soon took its toll on the budget. And as the three-year production went on and costs continued to soar, Walt Disney began to worry about the possibility of making Snow White a success. “As the budget climbed higher and higher, I began to have some doubts too,” he said.

There was worse news to come. The project was way over budget, but the cash Disney had still wasn’t enough. Roy Disney estimated that Snow White would need another $250,000 before it could be completed–thus pushing the overall cost to a then exceedingly high $1.7 million. Clearly the bank would take a great deal of convincing before it lent the production anymore money, so Roy had a potentially risky plan: “I’m afraid you’re going to have to show the bankers what you’ve done on the picture so far, Walt.”

Despite his initial resistance, Walt knew that he didn’t have much of a choice. A private screening was duly arranged for Joseph Rosenberg, the Bank of America’s vice president, which amounted to an assemblage of pencil tests and snippets of recently-completed footage. Understandably, Walt was nervous; if Rosenberg was unmoved by what he saw, he could easily refuse to hand over the extra money.