Director Leslie Iwerks stands on the blue carpet at the premiere of her documentary film Disneyland Handcrafted. A step and repeat backdrop, featuring the film’s logo, is behind her and to the right. She smiles at the camera.

Go Inside the Disneyland Handcrafted Premiere with Director Leslie Iwerks

By Courtney Potter

Premiering January 22 on Disney+ and Disney YouTube, Disneyland Handcrafted captures the legacy, the nostalgia, and the truly memorable trials and tribulations of the year leading up to the opening of Disneyland in July 1955. And on Thursday, January 8, Disney luminaries—and some lucky D23 Members!—made their way to the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, CA, for the film’s blue carpet premiere. It was a brisk and breezy “winds in the East” evening that evoked heartwarming memories of another iconic Disney film made right at that very location...

Disneyland Handcrafted director, Oscar® and Emmy® nominee Leslie Iwerks, was joined for the occasion by a who’s who of Disney Legends—including Bob Gurr, whose memories of working on the park with Walt and crew are as sharp as ever; Martha Blanding; Wing Chao; Kenny Ortega; and Josh Gad—plus other Disney notables, such as Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter and Disney chief brand officer Asad Ayaz.

Before the screening began, inside the lot’s magical Main Theater, Iwerks sat down with internet personality (and former Disneyland cast member) Juju Green for a Q&A about the making of Disneyland Handcrafted and what she hopes audiences take away from the film.

Leslie Iwerks (left) and Juju Green (right) sit in director’s chairs under the screen at the Walt Disney Studios’ Main Theater doing a Q&A before the premiere screening of Iwerks’ documentary film Disneyland Handcrafted. Both are holding microphones and smiling. The film’s logo can be seen on the screen above and behind them.

It probably won’t surprise readers, or audiences, to know that the genesis of this project started with another one of Iwerks’ recent successes, the Disney+ series The Imagineering Story. “When we were doing that series, my editor, Mo Stoebe, and producer, Mark Catalena, had the great idea to say, ‘What if we put this together in sort of archivally construed way, where you're not cutting away to talking heads? You’re living in the footage,’” she explains. “And so what we did was we took over 200 reels of material, and—almost like an archeological dig—we forensically went through each reel and pulled it apart and figured out what was where and what time frame each shot was. And these cameramen that Walt tasked to do this—to shoot all this—they shot it observationally, they shot at time-lapse, they shot with aerial footage, they shot behind the scenes. So there was all this material that, in my experience, I’d never seen—and I could not believe it! We basically constructed it in scenes with all these wide shots, tight shots, et cetera, and then built it through from the beginning to end, from groundbreaking to opening day.”

Iwerks continues, “Ultimately, we scoured transcripts from all over the place to find the best soundbites that tell the story of what everybody went through, and what Walt went through, to pull this off. And it started to emboss itself as this really dramatic story. So that's what we created. We had a great team—our archival team, our music supervisors, our ‘brain trust’; everybody that came together to make this so great... they really worked hard to make the film rock-solid as far as accuracy.”

She adds, “And by the way—this was all silent film. When we saw it, we thought, ‘Wow, we've got to build a whole soundtrack!’ So we went up to Skywalker Sound, and the team there did an amazing job building every single sound effect you hear. Outside of the TV show [clips], all the original footage was all silent. Think about that!”

A wide view of Leslie Iwerks (left) and Juju Green (right) at the Walt Disney Studios’ Main Theater doing a Q&A before the premiere screening of Iwerks’ documentary film Disneyland Handcrafted. Both are sitting in director’s chairs, holding microphones while talking. The film’s logo can be seen on the screen above and behind them. In the foreground is the Main Theater audience.

If Iwerks’s last name sounds familiar, it’s because she comes from incredible Disney lineage; both her father, film innovator Don Iwerks, and grandfather, Ub Iwerks (credited with, among many other things, sketching Mickey Mouse for the very first time), are Disney Legends. “I grew up around all this,” Iwerks admits, “and hearing these stories of my grandfather, and just watching my dad do what he did and all the things that he invented and created at Disney—it was just such an honor to look over his shoulder, so to speak, and sometimes come back here to the Studios backlot and walk around... or go backstage at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. That was awe-inspiring as a kid. So I think when I saw this footage, it was especially cool because I really never knew how Disneyland was created or constructed.”

She continues, “I often think about—what other place on the planet would you want to watch the making of? Which building or location, you know? Disneyland has more of a fan base than I think anywhere in the world,” she adds with a chuckle. “This is The Happiest Place on Earth! It’s more than construction; it's about the building of the DNA of where all this magic was created. And Walt really wanted to create ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’—he wanted people to leave their worries at the gate, and he wanted people leave as a better person than when they arrived. He wanted to elevate. And I think that's what's emotional for me—just to think about his vision; the magic that was in his head. He mobilized all these people, all these engineers and craftspeople, to follow him and do everything they could to bring his dream to fruition, when something like this was unheard of and people were doubting him left, right, and center.

“I think it's just a truly inspirational story—that we can continue to build happiness,” Iwerks adds. “That happiness is not an unforeseen ideal, especially in today's world. And I think we need it more than ever. This film really inspires me in that way.”

An image from inside the Walt Disney Studios’ Main Theater as the invited audience watches Leslie Iwerks’ documentary Disneyland Handcrafted. The film is playing on the screen, and audience members can be seen—illuminated by the screen—in the foreground.

All told, Iwerks hopes audiences recognize the incredible effort that went into creating something that, really, had never existed before Walt and team put pencil to proverbial paper. “I personally felt a whole new, renewed appreciation for what Walt's vision was, and what he wanted,” the director admits, “and all the adversity that he went through to make us all, to this day, experience these parks. To think that it was just a dirt lot—and now there are 12 Disney Parks around this world. This was the blueprint; this was the DNA for all those places. When you think about the fact that every single minute on the earth, there is happiness being created at these parks—it’s incredible. And these parks aren't just a park, they are a place of pilgrimage for millions of people yearly, if not monthly, if not weekly, but certainly generationally.”

She continues, “This is something that means so much to so many people. I've traveled to all these parks to watch how many people experience every single moment and take photos and just live and breathe these characters and these stories. It goes beyond the parks—it’s Walt's vision, and it’s what I think I'm most impressed by.”

Don’t miss Disneyland Handcrafted, coming to Disney+ and Disney YouTube on January 22. And for those in the Los Angeles area, you can catch the film at AMC Burbank Town Center 8 from January 14 through 20!