Since Disney animators had never seen a live white-tail deer, Day arranged with the Maine Department of Economic Development to have two four-month old orphaned fawns brought from Maine to be sketched by the studio artists. And so up there in the Katahdin wild, when I took a shot – well, if it was only a short of a burnt tree, or some great webby root grasping at rockly soil, or a lichen like a colored shell wedged into a rough bark – I had to consider that Disney might say to me, 'What does that say to you? What do you feel? What does it do to you? Put it down on paper!'" In the end, Day took over a thousand photographs.ĭisney illustrators sketch a Maine white-tail deer for the film "Bambi" When corn gets into a picture, then make no mistake about it, corn must be an actor. "We had to remember," Day said, "that Disney has a ruthless fidelity to the physical scene, to the truth of nature, even when he may seem to the distorting nature. Days campaign prevailed, and Disney gave the green light for Bambi to be a white-tail deer. At night, Day and his traveling companion Lester Hall would study the shooting script to see where they should venture the next day to capture just the right image to accompany such scenes as: Bambi's first walk, mouse encounters, and Thumper's environment. He photographed not only details of the forest floor: the lichen, leaves, ferns, pools, rotting logs, pitcher plants, autumn leaves but even a bear cub’s footprints in the mud" and fire burnt trees. Day did more than that he took photos of "trees glittering with ice, snowy beaver dams and trees charred by fire. Although Day was considered Disney's best animator at the time, one whom he trusted faithfully, Disney said: "Prove it." ĭisney sent Day to Maine with a list of scenic images specific to the landscape to photograph: hazel nuts, marsh grass, oak leaves, pine cones, birch bark, low-bush and high-bush blueberries, red maple and speckled alder trees. Day argued the point that mule deer had large "mule-like" ears and were more indigenous to western North America while the white-tail deer was more commonly recognized throughout America.
Original sketch for "Bambi" and "Faline" by Maurice "Jake" Dayīambi, the main character of the book, was a roe deer, a species native to Europe but, Disney decided to base the character on a mule deer from Arrowhead, California. But it wasn't until Disney obtained the rights to the 1923 book Bambi, a Life in the Woods by Felix Salten that Day established his name with the studio becoming known as "one of the first and best-known animators at Disney Studios." In 1936, he joined the Walt Disney Studios in California working as illustrator and layout artist for films such as Merbabies. Known for his humor, Day created witty editorial cartoons for the Portland Press Herald, Lewiston Sun Journal, and Waterville Sentinel.ĭay's artistic talents acquired him positions at various animation studios including MGM, Harman and Ising, and Hanna Barbera. In addition, Day illustrated works for other authors such as naturalist Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth and for publications such as the Vanity Fair, Life, Atlantic Monthly, House Beautiful, and Outdoor Life. His adventures were featured in many outdoor sporting stories by Edmund Ware Smith which Day also illustrated. An avid outdoors man, he hiked the Katahdin region of Northern Maine long before it had trails. He was known to his family and friends as "Jake" but no one knows how or when he received the nickname.Īfter serving in World War I, Day returned to his hometown continuing to work as an artist. He attended school at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle, Maine, studied art and painting at the Massachusetts College of Art and graduated from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1915. His ancestors were shipbuilders from the 1600s. Maurice Ellicott Day was born in Damariscotta, Maine in the Day family homestead that his great-grandfather built in 1892.
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