David Hand

David Dodd Hand was an American animator and animation filmmaker, best known for his work at Walt Disney Productions. Hand worked on numerous Disney shorts during the 1930s, eventually becoming a supervising director on the animated feature films: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi.
==Career==
Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Hand began his animation career working on the Out of the Inkwell cartoons throughout the 1920s. He joined the Disney studio in 1930, during a major drive by Disney to recruit from the cream of animating talent. Hand immediately made his mark as an animator, contributing to mostly to Silly Symphonies, such as Midnight in a Toyshop, The China Plate, and Egyptian Melodies.
By 1932, he was regarded as one of Walt Disney's top animators (despite some complaints that his work was "too mechanical"), as well as having become a close friend of Disney. Hand's organizational skills made Disney select him to be the studio's third director after Burt Gillett and Wilfred Jackson. He made his directorial debut for the company with the Mickey Mouse short Building a Building and went on to direct both Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse shorts, including The Flying Mouse, Who Killed Cock Robin?, Three Orphan Kittens, and Thru the Mirror. By the late 1930s, Hand's management skills had allowed him to ascend in the hierarchy of the Studio to functioning as Disney's right-hand man. But as historian Michael Barrier notes "Hand's position was fundamentally untenable—he was second in command in an organization whose leader, younger than Hand himself, had no intention of ever stepping aside or sharing real power."
===Gaumont British Animation===
After leaving Disney in 1944, Hand went to England and for J. Arthur Rank established Gaumont British Animation at Moor Hall in 1946 to produce the Animaland (9) and Musical Paintbox (10) cartoon series. In 1994, Hand was inducted into the Disney Legends program.
==Gallery==
Disney staff 1931 (1).jpg|Standing from left: Edmond Seward, Frank Churchill, Otto Englander, Ben Sharpsteen, Bert Lewis, Gilles "Frenchy" de Tremaudan, Les Clark, Rudy Zamora, Wilfred Jackson, Jack King, Tom Palmer, Jack Cutting (behind Palmer), Johnny Cannon, Norman Ferguson, Webb SmithSeated, from left: Hand, Ted Sears, Dick Lundy, Burt Gillett, Walt Disney
Disney staff 1931 (2).jpg|1931; Standing from left: Smith, Seward, Englander, Zamora, Hand, Palmer, Cutting, W. Disney, Churchill, Cannon, SharpsteenSeated from left: King, Lundy, Sears, Ferguson, de Tremaudan, Jackson, Clark, Gillett, Lewis
David Hand with Walt and Lillian.jpg|Hand with Walt and Lillian Disney at the wrap party for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
==External links==
*David Hand at the Internet Movie Database
*David Hand's Disney Legends bio
pt-br:David Hand
Category:Males
Category:Animators
Category:People from New Jersey
Category:American people
Category:1980s deaths
Category:1900s births
Category:Deceased
Category:Mickey Mouse
Category:Silly Symphonies
Category:Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Category:Bambi
Category:Disney Legends
Category:Annie Award Winner
Category:Walt Disney Animation Studios