Since the release of the first full-length animated movie in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney has been a powerhouse in the animated movie industry. The early animated movies started with hand-drawn pictures that were completely animated by hand. They were created by drawing the character on celluloid sheets, and each frame shifted a small amount of the background creating the illusion of movement. In order to advance the reality of different backgrounds, Disney implemented the use of the multiplane camera. This camera created images on a piece of glass after shooting through layers of oil-based images. “The process involves moving a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another” (Saporito, 2015). This produced three-dimensional results creating realness to the scenes. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs quickly grossed $8 million, which was an obscene amount of money during the Great Depression, making it the highest grossing film up to that date. The multiplane camera was used to create Disney animated films until the release of The Little Mermaid in 1989.

Eventually, Disney evolved to using computer-generated animation in the 1980’s. Toy Story was the first computer-generated feature-length film. Disney and Pixar collaborated on this project together, and Toy Story created the new standard for animation. During this phase of animation, the animators determined the position of every object in the frame. Then, the computer played the frames at 25 frames per second creating a more advanced illusion of movement. Eventually, new technology was introduced such as depth sensors. Depth sensors were used to format the camera to capture every shot in wireframe form and then translate these shots into an animation that would line up flawlessly to the characters. A wireframe is a, “Static, low-fidelity representation of different layouts that form a product. It’s a visual representation of an interface using only simple shapes” (Babich, 2020).  

Disney currently uses techniques such as storyboarding, fur grooming, and tonic to create their new animated movies including Frozen, Moana, and Zootopia. Storyboarding uses combinations of vector drawing technology, multi-sketch and multi-layer tools, and can be done on an iPad using the StoryPad app. The vector drawing technology, Meander, has won Academy Awards and is a collaboration between 2D animation and production technology. Meander is an animation toolset that allows automatic inbetweening between frames creating on-the-fly vectorization. Fur grooming uses tools such as iGroom and XGen to create the amazing and classic furry characters of the Disney franchise. Fur grooming was a key tool used for the creation of Zootopia. Characters such as Moana, and Elsa from Frozen were created using tonic. Tonic allows the artist to implement a real life look to the character by sculpting and grooming the character’s hair.

After doing research on this topic, it is no wonder to me how Disney continues to be a powerhouse in the animated movie industry. For the past 80 years they have focused on ingenuity and technological advancements to bring their animated characters to life. While they have done some collaborations with Pixar, Disney has developed numerous box office hits and record breaking releases using their own technology. Below is a video illustrating the advancements of the Disney animated movies from 1937-2016. It is truly incredible to see them compared one after the other.

*Please note, this video does not include and Disney-Pixar collaborations. The movies referenced in this video are strictly Walt Disney films. *