Handcrafted Disneyland has been streaming on Disney+ and YouTube since January 22, offering stunning, raw behind-the-scenes footage of the construction of Disneyland, the entertainment giant’s first theme park. It’s immediately different from other retellings of the park’s origin story, relying almost entirely on never-before-seen footage of the process, without the extra polish or pixie dust one might expect from Disney.
What made it different was a meticulous editing and restoration process — a process that director Leslie Iwerks describes as less like traditional storytelling and more like an investigation. Although there is a model for how Disneyland was built, Handcrafted it wasn’t about creating a new narrative. It was about discovering one that was already there.
“And so, like I said, it was kind of forensics to try to figure out where the dramatic pinch points were with the footage,” Iwerks told me. “But it was only because of this film that when we saw the slates on the reels themselves, we knew, ‘Okay, that was that time period,’ and that was that place.”
Fortunately, the Walt Disney film crews tasked with documenting the construction of Disneyland were good at dating the slates for each reel, which was quite critical to the mission.
Iwerks and his team worked through approximately 65 to 70 hours of this material, recording the footage and aligning it chronologically before the story could even begin to take shape.
“I remember being in the editing room and asking Moe, I said, ‘There’s no way it’s three months from now,'” Iwerks recalled. “And he says, ‘Oh yeah, look at the slate.’ So slates have dates, right? So we were – we were, uh, locked into the reality of the images.
All footage was shot on 16mm film and Iwerks intentionally chose not to modernize its appearance. Even as Handcrafted Disneyland In a contemporary post-production workflow, the goal has never been to make images look “new,” but simply to make them honest.
“The footage had already been transferred to 2K,” Iwerks explained, noting that for editing, that footage was converted to slightly lower resolution proxy files, and that for the final edit, his team brought back the “2K” to over-cut the working print.
From there, restraint became the guiding principle. “There was no colorization or anything,” Iwerks said. “It was already 16mm Kodachrome footage. When we started finishing, we enhanced the color, but only to keep it as natural as possible, right? There were no effects or anything that was created.”
Imperfections have also not been entirely erased, as dirt, scratches and grain have been selectively treated.
“It was that fine balance between having too much grain and too much stuff that reminded you that it was a movie, and, you know, the actual feeling of being immersed in it,” Iwerks said.
In an instant, this balance deliberately tilts toward visibility. The film briefly exposes the jagged holes in the original film stock – a choice that flies in the face of most restoration philosophies.
“I intentionally placed the frame of the film – the holes in the film – inside,” Iwerks explained. “I wanted people to remember that this was actually a film, that it was filmed. There was a cameraman behind all that footage.”
This forensic approach not only shaped the editing, it also brought out moments that seem almost unbelievable when seen in proper chronological context.
“And, you know, even a month later, they’re still building Tomorrowland and it’s been crazy,” Iwerks said. “It’s all rubbish! A month’s break.”
The line arises because the film never attempts to soften the timeline of the build-up, nor the fact that it was truly a race to the finish. The timeline is not tailored to match what Disneyland ultimately became; he is allowed to exist exactly as he was, uncertainty and all.
This same philosophy extends to the shots Iwerks chose to focus on. Beyond the vast construction scenes, Handcrafted Disneyland repeatedly slows down for details – hand-carved bricks, boots pressing into gravel, stones placed in red asphalt. These are small moments, but they reinforce the idea that Disneyland wasn’t thrown together neatly or in one fell swoop. It was built piece by piece, surface by surface.
These choices quietly suggest where the film will ultimately land. By treating images as something to be examined rather than reinvented, Handcrafted Disneyland lets the physical labor – and the people who do it – define the story. And in doing so, the meaning of its title begins to emerge.
I asked Iwerks where the title came from, and she said it came up at some point in the middle of the editing process: “I just think, my God, it’s so handmade, it just feels like it’s – that’s what it should be called: Disneyland Handcrafted.” »
You can watch Handcrafted Disneyland now on Disney+ and YouTube.
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