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Animator. Storyman. Troublemaker. At 80 years old, see how Disney Legend Floyd Norman, the first African-American animat | dG1fbVY3VFNNaFQ4LVU
Transcript
00:01Look for the bare necessities.
00:04People have often asked me,
00:05how did it feel about being the first African-American at Disney?
00:08Well, I wasn't even aware that I was an African-American.
00:11I was another artist looking for a job.
00:14There's always rumors of black people at Disney.
00:17It's always like, no, I think there is one.
00:20I was told as a kid, you know,
00:22hey kid, you can't get a job at the Disney studio.
00:24You know, they don't hire blacks.
00:26I don't know, people just assume that.
00:28And because I want to do it, I just went there and applied for a job, and I got it.
00:31And when they told me I'm going to be working on the Jungle Book,
00:33I thought, how am I going to do this?
00:35Now he's upstairs with Walt Disney,
00:37and they're asking him to do the hardest thing of all,
00:39which is be funny.
00:40Come on, Floyd, be funny.
00:42But Floyd made it possible for others to say,
00:44well, he can do it, I can do it.
00:45Now there's enough of us for us to be mad at each other.
00:48Hey, there you go.
00:49There's a black guy that I don't like.
00:52I've been an animator, layout artist, storyboard artist, writer.
00:56There's no one who had worked with Walt Disney
00:59and then gone to publications and then ended up at Pixar.
01:03Every time there's a great moment in animation,
01:05look around, there's Floyd Norman.
01:07He's like the Forrest Gump of animation.
01:09The kid's good.
01:10He's only 79 years old.
01:12He's a very introverted, very humble on the outside guy.
01:15But the truth is he's iconoclastic and he's a troublemaker.
01:19I remember on Mulan he'd put out a book directed at the money-grubbing aspect of our industry.
01:25And some people got very upset by them.
01:27That guy's a bad guy.
01:28He's a troublemaker.
01:29Don't hire him.
01:32Hi there!
01:33Floyd says to us all, we could do better.
01:36That's part of what makes him a legend.
01:38Disney has been a part of his life forever.
01:40And when he turned 65, Disney told him, you're out of here.
01:43I've never seen him more devastated in his life.
01:46He was in his prime.
01:48They should not have let him go.
01:50Perfect.
01:51We tell our race has been an issue.
01:52Now ageism is a real big issue.
01:55He told me when I was a little kid, I would never retire.
01:57He's the biggest kid I know.
01:58He loves the studio.
01:59That's what has kept him young.
02:01If you love that and that's your life, you're not going to be stopped.
02:04The old guys have been beaten down.
02:06So they needed somebody that's maybe retired who can go in and raise hell.
02:11Well if you could press me wide
02:13All the past you've left behind
02:17Who wants the life you lived
02:20One frame at a time
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