Herman Schultheis

Herman Schultheis was a Walt Disney Studios photographer and technician in the Special Effects Department best known for his work on the feature films Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi. Career: Schultheis emigrated to New York City from his native Germany in 1927 working jobs in sound-recording. He then went to Los Angeles in 1937. In February 1939, Schultheis joined Walt Disney in Special Effects department. He left Walt Disney in June 1940. Disappearance: On 20 May 1955, Schultheis disappeared near Petén while on a trip to the Mayan temples at Tikal in Guatemala. Schultheis notebook: Schultheis documented advanced special effect techniques used in Disney films in a notebook titled Special Effects. It is on display at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, California. His notebook, once offered to Disney for the sum of $400 in 1939 (equivalent to $7,352 in 2019), was discovered by Disney historian Howard Lowery hidden away in a Murphy bed in his Los Angeles residence upon his widow's death in the early 1990s. John Canemaker's book, The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis and the Secrets of Walt Disney’s Movie Magic is a partial reproduction of the notebook. Canemaker called Schultheis' book "the Rosetta Stone of Disney animation."