We are now up to part four of our story of Disney legend Mary Blair, a person many described

as Walt's favorite artist.

She was a person with tremendous talent, a woman who would reshape many Disney projects

with her unique style, but also a person who faced substantial struggles in her personal life, particularly at home.

In the last three episodes, we followed the lives of Mary and her husband Lee Blair as they

moved through the Chenard Art School, established themselves as fine art painters, and turned to

animation eventually to support themselves.

Lee initially worked at the I-Works studio as an in-betweener, the lowest level of animator.

Mary worked there too as an opaker, painting cells.

Eventually, Lee left I-Works to work at one of Disney's leading rivals,

the Harmon Ising Studio, where he quickly advanced to elite animator, while Mary returned home

to focus on her watercolors. In today's episode, we see the California animation industry transform itself in the late 1930s,

as some studios started to look to animated features.

And in terms of the story of Mary Blair, we are now at the point where the Disney studio is

going to become a large part of the Blair family.

And so, if you're ready, let's go.

By 1937, many animators could see that the Disney studio was operating at a higher level than other animation studios. They had been the first with synchronized sound in 1928, also first with true full-color cartoons in 1932. Beyond this, Disney had been the

first to create a robust story department to develop narrative elements and gags before a

cartoon was laid out for production. They tested rough animation far more than other studios, going so far as to film drafts

of most scenes so that animators would better know how to revise movement, and they developed

in-house art training classes to improve the skills of animators.

These classes were overseen by Don Graham and Phil Dyke, both of whom had previously taught at Chenard.

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