Disney
Following college, Peet sent off some of his cartoon action sketches after hearing that the Disney Studio was hiring artists for their animated films. He was subsequently asked to come to try-outs. He trekked across the country to Los Angeles, and participated in a one month audition process; only three of fifteen survived the period. It was at this time Disney was working on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Peet began work towards the end of its production. After the success of Snow White, he began work as an in-betweener (making up the frames between the key drawings) on the Donald Duck shorts. However, he found the work somewhat tedious. To bring in additional income, he sent character sketches for Pinocchio to the production team. Before the verdict on his designs had come back, Peet felt like he had enough, and went screaming out of the studio, “no more lousy ducks!” Fortuitously, he came back the next day to pick up his jacket and found an envelope, informing him he had been promoted to the story department.
Peet then officially began working as a sketch artist, putting the words of a story man into pictures on the film. Peet’s first encounter with Walt Disney directly was at this time, when Disney reviewed the storyboards Peet had put together. Even though both his boards were eventually cut from the film, Peet continued to work on Pinocchio for another year and a half. After that period, Peet worked on Fantasia and Dumbo. When World War II broke out, Disney halted normal production, and contributed to the war effort making propaganda films. Peet helped here as well, but received his big break after the war was over. His work was so impressive to Walt that he made him a fully fledged story man who also handled the sketching end of character design.
Peet started to paint again at this time, but soon found he had lost touch with the brush. Fine art had changed dramatically during the years Peet had been at Disney; abstractionism was in vogue and Peet's realistic paintings were out of date. He attempted editorial cartoons, but failed there as well. Peet decided to continue working at Disney, where he developed a few short cartoons and worked on the feature films of the period. At this point, he was working very closely with Walt Disney; Peet respected Disney's creative genius, but found him to be a sometimes difficult man. A large part of his autobiography is dedicated to his dealings with Disney over the years. Peet described the Disney studio as a "brutal" place, rife with rivalries and jealousy. After successes developing short stories for the company, Peet had his first book published, Hubert’s Hair-Raising Adventure.
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