Joe Hale (producer)

Hale was born on June 4, 1925 in Newland Village, Indiana. He was one of nine children, which consisted of seven sisters and one brother. During the Great Depression, his family moved to Chelsea, Michigan.^[1] To support his family, he began working as a field hand, weeding onions.^[2] When he was 17 years old, Hale stated he watched Bambi (1942) seven times in three days during its initial release, an event he considered "almost being a religious experience." He decided there he wanted to work for Walt Disney Productions.^[3]

When the United States entered World War II, Hale dropped out of the eleventh grade to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, serving from 1942 to 1946. He once stated, "I fought in the battle of Iwo Jima. We were on our way to invade Japan when the War ended. So instead of invading, we went in as occupation troops. I spent several months in Japan before I was discharged."^[2]

Following his discharge, Hale returned to the United States and passed the GED test. He received a scholarship from the G.I. Bill, and studied for one semester at the Michigan Academy of Arts in Saginaw. However, his education was interrupted by a North American blizzard, also known as the "Great Blizzard of 1947."^[2] Fed up with the cold weather, Hale moved to California to study at the Lukits Academy of Fine Arts in Los Angeles. In 1951, he graduated and applied for a job at Walt Disney Productions.^[2]

On April 2, 1951, Hale began working for Disney. He first worked in the traffic department, picking up and delivering mail to executives throughout the studio backlot.^[4] He did minor inbetweens for Alice in Wonderland (1951). He then became an assistant animator for Ollie Johnston on the 1953 film Peter Pan; they animated the character Mr. Smee. Describing their working process, Hale explained: "[Johnston] would do the rough animation. He would go through the scene and time it out and do all the key extremes and then I would fill in the other drawings."^[5] He continued animating under Johnston on Ben and Me (1953) for the character Benjamin Franklin, and Lady and the Tramp (1955), which he animated Jock, the Scottish terrier.^[6] Soon after, Hale worked on the 1953 short film Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom and the "Man in Space" (1955) episode for the Disneyland television series, both of which were directed by Ward Kimball.

Deciding not to continue working as an assistant animator, Hale approached Andy Engman about working in the layout department.^[7] He worked there, alongside Don Griffith and Eyvind Earle for Sleeping Beauty (1959). In an interview, Hale stated he did layouts for the forest scene where Aurora (as Briar Rose) dances with the animals and then Prince Philip, and interior scenes of the fairies' cottage.^[8] In 1980, Hale remembered: "...I got so sick of drawing that room, of drawing every different angle on it, over and over again."^[3] Hale did further animation layout on One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), Mary Poppins (1964), and The Fox and the Hound (1981). He did the same duties on numerous animated short films, including Scrooge McDuck and Money (1967) and It's Tough to be a Bird (1969).^[9]

By the mid-1950s, Hale began working on Disney-produced television programs, including the Disneyland anthology series. He worked under Wilfred Jackson, and then under Hamilton Luske for the Ludwig von Drake animated segments.^[10] He reunited with Ward Kimball on the television series The Mouse Factory (1972–1973). He stated, "I was doing some writing and layout on these. There wasn't much layout, so I did mostly story and set design."^[11] By the 1970s, he worked on Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Pete's Dragon (1977), in which he helped composite the animated characters and backgrounds with the live-action footage using the sodium vapor process.^[12]

Simultaneously, he did animation special effects work on several live-action films, including Return from Witch Mountain (1978), The Cat from Outer Space (1978), and The Watcher in the Woods (1980).^[12] For The Black Hole (1979), Hale served as the animation special effects supervisor, overseeing a team of artists who composited 300 effects shots containing cel animation, traveling mattes, and matte paintings.^[13] At the 52nd Academy Awards, Hale received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, along with Peter Ellenshaw, Art Cruickshank, Eustace Lycett, Danny Lee, and Harrison Ellenshaw.^[14]

Meanwhile, the long in-development The Black Cauldron (1985) had been languishing at the animation department for nearly a decade. Adapted from The Chronicles of Prydain book series by Lloyd Alexander, Walt Disney Productions acquired the film rights in 1973.^[15] Hale remembered, "Ron Miller called me up and asked me if I would take over as producer on The Black Cauldron. I think some of the animators did talk to him, or talk to someone, about me taking over the producing, but I didn't want to do it because a good friend of mine, Art Stevens, was the producer and I just didn't feel right about it."^[16] Miller replied regardless of his involvement or not, Stevens would be replaced. After a reconsideration, Hale took the position.^[16][17]

In 1980, Hale was made the producer, overseeing a production staff of 300 artists.^[15] Tim Burton, then a character animator, had drawn pages of character designs, but Hale felt they did not work in animation.^[16] Hale instead turned to Milt Kahl, one of Disney's Nine Old Men, who had retired to draw new character designs.^[18] Hale also reviewed a submitted portfolio by Andreas Deja, then a young artist from Germany. Impressed by his talent, he had Deja imported into the United States, and Deja was hired as an animator.^[19] Because of his experience in layout, Hale worked alongside Don Griffith and Mike Hodson, becoming heavily involved in the framing of each shot. He explained: "So, I wanted a lot of long shots. The way we approached layout in those days, like in the pictures that Walt was involved in, was we approached each scene as if they were a painting that you could frame and hang on a wall. We made each scene very attractive."^[16]

Shortly before the film's initial 1984 theatrical release, a preview screening of The Black Cauldron was held for test audiences. Appalled by the film's "cauldron-born" dark imagery, and questioning its appropriateness for children, Jeffrey Katzenberg demanded the scenes to be edited out. Hale objected, "Animated films can't be edited."^[20] Katzenberg overrode Hale's statements, in which he had the film print brought to an editing bay and removed the footage himself. Angered by Katzenberg's actions, Hale contacted Michael Eisner, who called Katzenberg in the editing room and convinced him to stop. Though he did what Eisner insisted, Katzenberg requested that the film be modified, and delayed its scheduled Christmas 1984 release to July 1985 so that the film could be reworked.^[21]

After the release of The Black Cauldron, Hale and his production team began developing a film adaptation of T. H. White's fantasy novel Mistress Masham's Repose. Hale selected Andreas Deja to draw preliminary artwork for it. While Roy E. Disney supported the project, Katzenberg disliked it and refused to greenlight it.^[22] Hale and two storyboard artists David Jonas and Al Wilson also worked on an early version of Beauty and the Beast (1991).^[16] Shortly after, Hale was laid off from Disney, along with the Black Cauldron animation team.^[22]

In 2008, Hale was given an honorary Disney Legend Award by the National Fantasy Fan Club (NFFC), recognizing his 35 years of service as an animator, layout man and producer.^[23]

• Joe Hale at IMDb
• 2010 interview with Joe Hale, producer of The Black Cauldron