FROM 2007
FRANCIS XAVIER "X" ATENCIO
talks about animation and his move to Disneyland

by Scott Wolf

Francis Xavier Atencio started out at Disney in animation but thanks to Walt Disney's keen perception of people's talents, he eventually ended up as a writer for some of Disney's most popular attractions.

Amongst his projects, X not only wrote the dialogue for the "Haunted Mansion" and "Pirates of the Caribbean", but he also wrote the lyrics for those attractions' popular songs including "Yo Ho (A Pirates Life For Me)."

X is a particular inspiration to me because of his positive outlook on life. I think he really lives by that old saying about when life gives you lemons you make lemonade. It is certainly evident in his professional life. He went to work for Disney as an artist but was asked to become a writer and today admits that he enjoyed writing more than being an artist.

I'm so pleased to share my interviews with you so you can learn about this wonderful man.

SW: Were you an animator?

XA: Actually I did more story sketch and stuff. I was lessoned as an animator but I did very little animation.

SW: What was story sketch? Doing the storyboards? Figuring out what it will all look like?

XA: Yeah.

SW: And what’s layout?

XA: That’s planning out the scene, and I had to do quite a bit of that. By that time I hooked up with Bill Justice, and we were doing some I’m No Fool series, there was just Bill & I, and we had a unit and I was doing layout for the scenes.

SW: How is layout different from story sketch?

XA: That’s the second phase. First is story sketch and then layout.

SW: Did you see Walt often?

XA: Not very much.

At that time Ward Kimball recruited me to work in his unit because he had the very stylized characters, pointy nose characters we used to call them, and that was right up my alley, so he wanted to know if I’d come to work with his unit.

SW: So each animator had their own unit and they were able to choose who they wanted to work with?

XA: Yeah, so I went to work with Ward for a short period and we did Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom.

SW: So that’s why you can really tell when a film is Ward’s style.

XA: Yes, as a matter of fact, when Ward got the Academy Award for Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom Walt said, “That’s Ward’s picture. That’s not mine.” So he never took the credit.

I remember once I said to Walt when UPA was doing some (Mister) Magoo’s and all that stylized animation, and I said, “Why don’t we do some of the stylized stuff?” He said, “Oh (heck) X, they make enough pictures for the intellect, I’m making mine for the heart and there’s a (heck) of a lot more hearts than there are intellects.”

SW: How did you go from animation to writing for the theme parks?

XA: Walt was a great doodler and he suggested we do a short on doodles. So we got Larry Clemmons working with us and he was a good story man. We worked on that but we just couldn’t get a handle on it. So after about our third story meeting I went to Walt and said, “I don’t think we know what the (heck) we’re doing here, Walt.” He looked at me with that arched eyebrow and reached over. I thought he was going to hit me, but he shook my hand and said, “I appreciate an honest man. I think now’s the time to scrap the whole thing.”

SW: So it was going to be stop motion?

XA: Stop motion short subject. Taking the doodles and animating them. So we scrapped it.

Then he called me up to his office the next day and he said, “You know, I’ve been wanting to get you over to WED (now called Walt Disney Imagineering) for some time and now would be a good time for you to go.”

So I went over to the studio and nobody knew why I was there.

SW: Did you?

XA: Not at that time. John Hench and Dick Irvine knew that I was being sent there by Walt so they were gracious enough not to say, “What the (heck) are you doing here?” They were trying to find something for me so they hooked me up first with Claude Coats. He was doing the diorama thing for the train ride thru Disneyland.

I worked on a model with Claude and I thought, “What am I doing here working on models? All these clever kids in the model department can do it the right way.” But, I did it.

I’d guess it was about three or four weeks working with Claude on this thing and then I got a call from Walt and he said, “I want you to do the script for the Pirates of the Caribbean.

I had never done any scripting before other than storyboards and stuff like that.

SW: Why do you think he asked you? Did he ever read your writing?

XA: No…

SW: Do you think he just sensed it?

XA: Walt had an uncanny ability of finding talent in these people that we didn’t know we had ourselves.

SW: That’s amazing.

XA: Yeah, it really is.

More from X:
His start with Disney
His work in stop motion animation
Working on "Pirates of the Caribbean"
Disney attractions he's worked on

See other interviews