ABOUT ME

ABOUT ME

As you probably know by now, my name is Hans Walther, and I was born in Amsterdam, which is the capital of The Netherlands. Now, more than forty-five years later, I live in a small town only fifteen minutes from Amsterdam, together with my girlfriend and two wonderful daughters.

In the late '70s I studied at the Dutch Film Academy and became a film-editor, which I stayed for nine years. I was an assistant on numerous Dutch feature films, as well as chief editor on two features and a couple of television-series. In 1990 I got the opportunity to become second-unit director on a big television-show, and as you can understand I jumped to the occasion. After two years I became the director of this show, and afterwards moved towards drama. I did a very popular drama-series called "12 Steden, 13 Ongelukken" for four years, and directed a daily soap opera called "Onderweg naar Morgen" for seven years (I did 395 episodes of that show!).

Because animation is such a huge passion, it's always been my dream to work in the animation business, and in 2003 my dream became reality when I started directing the computer-animated series "Café de Wereld" (Café the World). The basis for the animation in this series is motion-capture, and it's been very successful in the Netherlands. In its first season it even got nominated for the Golden Rose Award, Europe's most prestigious television award. I directed the first three seasons of the show, a total of 315 episodes. After that I directed five seasons of the computer-animated television show for children, "Sprookjesboom", which has become extremely popular.

I also wanted to know what it is like to make an animated film the way they used to do it for almost a century, and therefor I started making my own handdrawn film in the summer of 2005, using mostly traditional techniques. It will probably be some time before it's finished...

As Disneyland Paris (formerly called Euro Disney) is only a five hour drive from here, I visit it at least once a year, obviously to great enjoyment of my daughters, who share my Disney-enthusiasm. I also visited Disneyland in California a couple of times, but it's been years since I've been there. Paris is a good alternative.

Besides collecting animation art, I also write about it. I had my own column, called WHACO (Walther's Animation Corner) in "Meet the Magic", a magazine for Disneyland Paris-fans. Besides that I wrote articles for the Belgian animation magazine "Plateau", and still write for "Filmstrip", the newsletter of the Fi Donc Gallery (the oldest and biggest animation art gallery here in Holland).

In 2004 I started interviewing Dutch people who work in the animation industry, and this became the book "Animated Conversations", which has been published by the Dutch Institute for Animated Film in October of 2006. Unfortunately the book has only been published in Dutch. I'm now working on Volume 2...

I try to read as much as possible about animation, and have built a respectable library of books, magazines, videos, laserdiscs and DVD's on the subject. I also have a data-base, so that I can find related articles in the hundreds of magazines that I have.
There are several collectors with whom I get together regularly. They are not all animation art collectors, but for instance also Snow White-collectors, a Sonic the Hedgehog-collector and even a signature-collector. We go to conventions and animation-events together, exchange information, and even try to find stuff for each other's collections. Though there are several people who think we are crazy, we all share a common passion and are proud of it.

I also started to collect animation related autographs, and obtained some very nice and rare ones, like Ub Iwerks, Walter Lantz, , George Pal, Grim Natwick, as well as numerous voice artists and independent animators.

On this page you can find some pictures of me, together with other people whom I think are very special. There is also a picture of a ring that I had made, depicting the heartbox that the Evil Queen gives to the Huntsman to bring back Snow White's heart in. I wear this ring proudly every day, and it shows you how far a "passion" can go...

I hope you'll enjoy my website. I have little time to update it regularly, but I'll be adding new pieces to my collection and I'll put them on the site as soon as I'm able to. If you have any comments, or just want to drop me a line, please do so.

You can e-mail me at hwalther@xs4all.nl

Yours sincerely,

Hans Walther

You can click on the thumbnails to see larger images.

	This is me with Snow White and Dopey in Disneyland California. Yes, this was taken 'some' years ago..... (in 1988 to be precise!)
	This is me with Joanna Quinn and Evert de Beijer. Both won numerous prizes with their independent films. Evert is best known for his wonderful designs. Here we are joint at the Holland Animation Film Festival in 2004.
	This is me with Bill Plympton, whom I met at the Holland Animation Film Festival in 2004.
	This is me with Adriaan Lokman, who made “Barcode” which won the Grand Prize in the Annecy festival in 2002.
	This is me with Michael Dudok De Wit, the Academy Award winner of 2001 for his wonderful animated short film "Father "& Daughter. I met Michael at the Holland Animation Film Festival in 2000.
	This is me with Börge Ring, Academy Award winner for his short "Anna & Bella", from which I have several cels.
	This is me with Daan Jippes, who has worked for Disney as a storyboard artist on "Aladdin" and "The Lion King II".
	This is me with Paul Driessen, the award winning independent Dutch animator. To read more about Paul, see my "Dutch Animation" section.
	This is me with Ronald Bijlsma. To read more about Ronald, see the special page on this website which is entirely devoted to him and his artwork.
	This is me with Piet Kroon, who made the wonderful independent short "DaDA" and was the animation director of "Osmosis Jones". He also worked as a storyboard artist on one of my favorite features: "The Iron Giant".
	This is me with Wilbert Plijnaar, who worked as a storyboard artist on numerous animated features like "Quest for Camelot", "Jimmy Neutron", "Ice Age" and "Shrek 2".
	This is me with Marten Toonder, who sadly passed away in July 2005. He was the creator of Olivier Bommel, one of Holland's best known comic strip characters. Toonder is also known as 'the European Walt Disney'.
	This is me with Rob Stevenhagen, one of the animators who worked on "Who framed Roger Rabbit".
	This is me at gallery "Fi Donc" in 1997 with world famous sculptor Kent Melton, who sculpted most of the Walt Disney Classics Collection sculptures.
	This is me at gallery "Fi Donc" in 1999 with Bruce Lau, also a sculptor of some of the pieces in the Walt Disney Classics Collection. He is the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck specialist.
	This is me at gallery "Fi Donc" in 2002 with Dusty Horner, one of the sculptors who works for Disney, sculpting for the Walt Disney Classics Collections. He also works for DreamWorks, making animators maquettes. I met him in October 2002, when he visited Europe.
	This is me with Peter Lord from Aardman Animation. I met him at the Holland Animation Film Festival in 2009.
	Raoul Servais, the great Belgian animator, also visited the Anima Festival in Brussels, which I attented in 2011.
	At the Holland Animation Festival in 2010 I met Shane Acker, the director of the wonderful computer animated "9".
	This is me with sculptor and animator Ruben Procopio.
	Here I am with actress Sylvia Kristel, who also directed the award winning animated film "Topor et moi".
	This is me with the three voice actors who did the voices of the Chipmunks for the Dutch dubbing, which I directed.
	Here I am with Paul Fierlinger, a wonderful animator who made (among many shorts) the feature "My Dog Tulip".
	This is me with Pixar director and animator Mark Walsh, whom I interviewed at the Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam.
	This is me with Andreas Deja, the wonderful Disney animator. I moderated his masterclass at the Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam.
	Here I am with Priitt Pärn, the most famous Estonian animator. I just love his work.
	Here are some photos of the ring I had made, depicting the heartbox of the Evil Queen.
	This is my stone at Disneyland Paris. As you can see the date is Snow White's 60th birthday...
	This is part of the Snow White videos and CD's in my collection. I try to collect as many different languages as possible.
	This is a cel of Doc that I made myself. I once wanted to buy the original, but unfortunately it was far above my budget. I tried to make it look like a Courvoisier setup with a wood-veneer background.
	Another one that I made myself, copied from the "Heigh-Ho" limited edition. It is huge, and has over forty different paint colours! I'm very proud of this one.