The world of Disney is truly magical with movies, musicals, theme parks and apparel for all kids and kids at heart. The Disney corporation changed the way people view and experience entertainment. Walter Elias Disney and his penchant for drawing imaginative creatures started it all.
ORIGINS
Walt was born in Chicago on Dec. 5 in 1901 and developed a love for animation and the works of cartoons at a rather young age.
According to Disney.com “He had made a cartoon in Kansas City about a little girl in a cartoon world, called Alice’s Wonderland, and he decided that he could use it as his ‘pilot’ film to sell a series of these ‘Alice Comedies’ to a distributor.”
In 1923 he moved to California to become an animation director with his brother Roy. For four years he made these shorts as the plot line to his career.
Disney signed a contract with M. J. Winkler which produced a series of “Alice Comedies.” The signing of this contract opened up what was first known as “The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio” according to Disney.com. The production of many rough draft short films about “Alice’s Wonderland” finally led to the release of “Alice’s Day at Sea.” This was the first ever short film produced by Disney.
After two years of success, the company moved and was later renamed the “Walt Disney Studio.”
EARLY ANIMATION
In 1928, Walt came up with Disney’s most well-known character, Mickey Mouse.
Though on the verge of bankruptcy, Walt Disney Studios“Steamboat Willie” starring Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the first ever animated short film released with synchronized sound, on Nov. 18, 1928.
After the success of “Steamboat Willie”, Walt and his animation team began experimenting with filming techniques.
Walt began the production of Silly Symphony, a series of 75 musical shorts, which allowed him to explore the world of animation to a new degree. Silly Symphony began in 1932 and was based on a springtime romance between two young trees under the gaze of a jealous old tree stump. The first episode was in black and white, but by 1932 all future Silly Symphony episodes were in three-strip technicolor.
“Flowers and Trees, a ‘Silly Symphony’ and the first full-color cartoon, won the Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1932, the first year that the Academy offered such a category; for the rest of that decade, a Disney cartoon won the Oscar every year” according to Disney.com.
Disney Studios began growing, and the world of magic and animation flourished when combined with innovative technology.
“Eventually the ‘Silly Symphonies’ turned into the training ground for all Disney artists as they prepared for the advent of animated feature films.” according to Disney.com.
Technician Bill Garity developed the Multiplane Camera in 1937. Studio successes allowed him to advance his storytelling and artistic abilities. Disney achieved color and in-depth animation with the multiplane camera which was structured to be standing on a vertical stand and the lens of the camera pointed down. There would be multiple layered glass paintings and each would individually move toward the camera, replicating a motion picture. This process was first used in the “Old Mill.”
According to Disney 100th Anniversary Expedition, “Disney’s multiplane camera was designed in Walt’s words “to make cartoons more realistic and enjoyable.” It was however intended for use in feature-length films because it brought depth and dimensionality to animation cinematography. The goal was to take a painting and make it behave like a real piece of scenery under the camera.”
Hoping to reach the right audience and send the right message was important to Disney as was how the message was being conveyed. With the works of the beautiful animation hopes were high for the production of each of his films.
“An audience could be swept up by sheer subtlety and become deeply involved in an animated film,” according to the Disney 100th Anniversary Exhibition. “Disney’s inventive technical team received a special Scientific and Technical Academy Award for the development of the multiplane camera.”
LATER ANIMATION
As Disney Studios began to improve technology and venture more into full-length films, Walt decided to spend his time developing and producing the first full animated film movie in history using rotoscoping.
Rotoscoping is the animation process of creating animated sequences by tracing over live-action footage frame by frame.Though the production time is doubled, it allows the producers and animators a better chance at creating lifelike characters..
Released on Dec. 21, 1937, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” became the first feature film created with the multiplane camera and the rotoscoping technique. Each character in the film moved with rather similar and well-identified human actions.
Following rotoscoping came Xerography which was used in the film “101 Dalmatians” released in 1961. Xerography was the cleaner and more seamless version of drawings and animation since hand-drawn animations left errors and much room to clean-up.
Xerography uses hand-drawn work and is the process of photocopying the work into frame cells. This allows the work to have a more defined immaculate look to each of the scenes.
According to Disneyhistory.org “‘101 Dalmatians’ saved Disney’s animation department.” It was the highest grossing film of its time and made the production of all Disney movies more successful through the mid 1970s.
CGI
The success of animation further advanced when computer animation was introduced to the industry.
1985’s “The Black Cauldron”was the first Disney 2D CGI film, but it received several negative reviews from critics and failed miserably at the box office. A large portion of the film used 2D CGI, and it was rather tricky to replicate certain images that were being fed into the computer. Taking small and real life objects and drawings and allowing the computer to pixelate the work.
Disney faltered in the computer animation department, so it began joining forces with Pixar Animation Studios in 19991.
According to Pixar.com “The Walt Disney Studios and Pixar Animation Studios announced an agreement to jointly produce five movies over 10 years.”
This collaboration produced films such as “Toy Story”, “Monsters Inc”, and “Finding Nemo.”
It wasn’t until 2006 that Disney CEO Bob Iger convinced Pixar CEO Steve Jobs to sell him the company for 7.4 billion. The latest Disney / Pixar collaboration is this year’s summer release of “Elemental.”
In an interview with CNBC’s David Faber, Iger said about the deal, “It put us on the path to achieving what I wanted to achieve, which is scale when it comes to storytelling. That was probably the best.”
