The Living Desert James Algar, 1953

The documentary was filmed in Tucson, Arizona. Most of the wildlife shown in the film was donated to what would soon become the ArizonaSonora Desert Museum. The film was inspired by 10 minutes of footage shot by N. Paul Kenworthy Jr. , a doctoral student at the University of California at Los Angeles. Kenworthy s footage of a battle between a tarantula and a wasp intrigued Disney, who funded a featurelength production following the lives of diverse desert species. Disney was highly supportive of Kenworthy s work and its impact on nonfiction filmmaking, stating, This is where we can tell a real, sustained story for the first time in these nature pictures.