Traditional animation (or classical animation , cel animation , or hand-drawn animation ) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation of the 20th century, until there was a shift to computer animation in the industry, such as digital ink and paint and 3D computer animation .
160-472: Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California , the original feature film division of The Walt Disney Company . The studio's films are also often called "Disney Classics" (or "Classic Animated Features" in the case of the films with traditional hand drawn animation), or "Disney Animated Canon ". The studio has produced 63 films, beginning with Snow White and
320-410: A 1957 recording, Walt Disney explained why motion tracking was an issue for animators, as well as what multiplane animation could do to solve it. Using a two-dimensional still of an animated farmhouse at night, Disney demonstrated that zooming in on the scene, using traditional animation techniques of the time, increased the size of the moon. In real-life experience, the moon would not increase in size as
480-420: A cel with detailed black lines was laid directly over it, each line is drawn to add more information to the underlying shape or figure and give the background the complexity it needed. In this way, the visual style of the background will match that of the xeroxed character cels. As the xerographic process evolved, line overlay was left behind. In very early cartoons made before the use of the cel, such as Gertie
640-440: A character or object looks in three-dimensions along with standardized special poses and expressions so that the artists have a guide to refer to. Small statues known as maquettes may be produced so that an animator can see what a character looks like in three dimensions. Background stylists will do similar work for any settings and locations present in the storyboard, and the art directors and color stylists will determine
800-471: A character, including props, vehicles, machinery and phenomena such as fire , rain , and explosions . Sometimes, instead of drawings, a number of special processes are used to produce special effects in animated films; rain, for example, has been created in Disney animated films since the late 1930s by filming slow-motion footage of water in front of a black background, with the resulting film superimposed over
960-477: A computer animation system for digital ink-and-paint usage. Following a commitment to the technology in 1979, computer scientist Marc Levoy led the Hanna-Barbera Animation Laboratory from 1980 to 1983, developing an ink-and-paint system that was used in roughly a third of Hanna-Barbera's domestic production, starting in 1984 and continuing until replaced with third-party software in 1996. It
1120-535: A computer program on many transparent "layers" much the same way as they are with cels, and made into a sequence of images which may then be transferred onto film or converted to a digital video format. It is now also possible for animators to draw directly into a computer using a graphics tablet such as a Cintiq or a similar device, where the outline drawings are done in a similar manner as they would be on paper. The Goofy short How To Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007) represented Disney's first project based on
1280-480: A fairy sequence where stippled cels are used, creating a soft pastel look. The methods mentioned above describe the techniques of an animation process that originally depended on cels in its final stages, but painted cels are rare today as the computer moves into the animation studio, and the outline drawings are usually scanned into the computer and filled with digital paint instead of being transferred to cels and then colored by hand. The drawings are composited in
1440-437: A foreground when laid on top of a ready frame. This creates the illusion of depth, but not as much as a multiplane camera would. A special version of cel overlay is called line overlay , made to complete the background instead of making the foreground, and was invented to deal with the sketchy appearance of xeroxed drawings. The background was first painted as shapes and figures in flat colors, containing rather few details. Next,
1600-519: A full-length compilation feature, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh , which was released in 1977. Walt Disney died in December 1966, ten months before the studio's next film The Jungle Book , was completed and released. The film was a success, finishing 1967 as the fourth highest-grossing film of the year. Following Walt Disney's death, Wolfgang Reitherman continued as both producer and director of
1760-632: A groundbreaking live-action/animation hybrid directed by Robert Zemeckis , which featured licensed animated characters from other studios (such as Warner Bros., MGM, and Universal). Disney set up a new animation studio under Williams' supervision in London to create the cartoon characters for Roger Rabbit , with many of the artists from the California studio traveling to England to work on the film. A significant critical and commercial success, Roger Rabbit won three Academy Awards for technical achievements. and
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#17328800744351920-451: A lower advance payment for each Oswald short. Disney refused and, as Universal owned the rights to Oswald rather than Disney, Mintz set up his own animation studio to produce Oswald cartoons. Most of Disney's staff was hired away by Mintz to move over once Disney's Oswald contract expired in mid-1928. Working in secret while the rest of the staff finished the remaining Oswalds on contract, Disney and his head animator Ub Iwerks led
2080-532: A lukewarm response at the box office and was a sharp critical disappointment in its initial release. Peter Pan , released in 1953, on the other hand, was a commercial success and the sixth highest-grossing film of the year . In 1955, Lady and the Tramp was released to higher box office success than any other Disney animated feature since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , earning an estimated $ 6.5 million in rentals at
2240-406: A modern pop soundtrack. Oliver & Company opened in the theaters on the same day as another Bluth/Amblin/Universal animated film, The Land Before Time ; however, Oliver & Company outgrossed The Land Before Time in the U.S. and went on to become the most successful animated feature in the U.S. to that date, though the latter's worldwide box office gross was higher than the former. At
2400-560: A new distribution contract with Columbia Pictures . Powers, in return, signed away Ub Iwerks, who began producing cartoons at his own studio, although he would return to Disney in 1940. Columbia distributed Disney's shorts for two years before the Disney studio entered a new distribution deal with United Artists in 1932. The same year, Disney signed a two-year exclusive deal with Technicolor to utilize its new 3-strip color film process , which allowed for fuller-color reproduction where previous color film processors could not. The result
2560-439: A production will combine both live-action and animated footage. The live-action parts of these productions are usually filmed first, the actors pretending that they are interacting with the animated characters, props, or scenery; animation will then be added into the footage later to make it appear as if it has always been there. Like rotoscoping, this method is rarely used, but when it is, it can be done to terrific effect, immersing
2720-523: A promotional music video from Cartoon Network 's Groovies featuring the Soul Coughing song "Circles" poked fun at animation loops as they are often seen in The Flintstones , in which Fred and Barney (along with various Hanna-Barbera characters that aired on Cartoon Network), supposedly walking in a house, wonder why they keep passing the same table and vase over and over again. The multiplane process
2880-580: A regular basis, with many of the shorts divisions' personnel either leaving the company or being reassigned to work on Disney television programs such as The Mickey Mouse Club and Disneyland . While the Silly Symphonies shorts had dominated the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) during the 1930s, its reign over the most awards had been ended by MGM 's Tom and Jerry cartoons, Warner Bros' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies , and
3040-573: A scene from its first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928). Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney after the closure of Laugh-O-Gram Studio , it is the longest-running animation studio in the world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California . Since its foundation,
3200-481: A scene in which a person is sitting in a chair and talking, the chair and the body of the person may be the same in every frame; only their head is redrawn, or perhaps even their head stays the same while only their mouth moves. This is known as limited animation . The process was popularized in theatrical cartoons by United Productions of America and used in most television animation, especially that of Hanna-Barbera . The end result does not look very lifelike, but
3360-563: A separate "story department" with storyboard artists dedicated to story development. With well-developed characters and an interesting story, the 1933 Technicolor Silly Symphony cartoon Three Little Pigs became a major box office and pop culture success, with its theme song " Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? " becoming a popular chart hit. In 1934, Walt Disney gathered several key staff members and announced his plans to make his first animated feature film. Despite derision from most of
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#17328800744353520-555: A series of silent Alice Comedies short films featuring a live-action child actress in an animated world. The Alice Comedies were distributed by Margaret J. Winkler 's Winkler Pictures , which later also distributed a second Disney short subject series, the all-animated Oswald the Lucky Rabbit , through Universal Pictures starting in 1927. Upon relocating to California, the Disney brothers initially started working in their uncle Robert Disney's garage at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in
3680-487: A small handful of loyal staffers in producing cartoons starring a new character named Mickey Mouse . The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho , were previewed in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon, however, Disney produced a soundtrack, collaborating with musician Carl Stalling and businessman Pat Powers , who provided Disney with his bootlegged "Cinephone" sound-on-film process. Subsequently,
3840-409: A viewer approached a farmhouse. Multiplane animation solved this problem by separating the moon, farmhouse, and farmland into separate planes, with the moon being farthest away from the camera. To create the zoom effect, the first two planes were moved closer to the camera during filming, while the plane with the moon remained at its original distance. This provided a depth and fullness to the scene that
4000-469: Is "traced" over actual film footage of actors and scenery. Traditionally, the live-action will be printed out frame by frame and registered. Another piece of paper is then placed over the live-action printouts and the action is traced frame by frame using a lightbox. The end result still looks hand-drawn but the motion will be remarkably lifelike. The films Waking Life and American Pop are full-length rotoscoped films. Rotoscoped animation also appears in
4160-551: Is a labor-saving technique for animating repetitive motions, such as a character walking or a breeze blowing through the trees. In the case of walking, the character is animated taking a step with its right foot, then a step with its left foot. The loop is created so that, when the sequence repeats, the motion is seamless. In general, they are used only sparingly by productions with moderate or high budgets. Ryan Larkin 's 1969 Academy Award -nominated National Film Board of Canada short Walking makes creative use of loops. In addition,
4320-432: Is a shot by shot breakdown of the staging, acting and any camera moves that will be present in the film. The images allow the animation team to plan the flow of the plot and the composition of the imagery. Storyboard artists will have regular meetings with the director and may redraw or "re-board" a sequence many times before it meets final approval. Before animation begins, a preliminary soundtrack or scratch track
4480-421: Is a technique primarily used to give a sense of depth or parallax to two-dimensional animated films. To use this technique in traditional animation, the artwork is painted or placed onto separate layers called planes. These planes, typically constructed of planes of transparent glass or plexiglass, are then aligned and placed with specific distances between each plane. The order in which the planes are placed, and
4640-549: Is also common in anime , where fluidity is sacrificed in lieu of a shift towards complexity in the designs and shading (in contrast with the more functional and optimized designs in the Western tradition); even high-budget theatrical features such as Studio Ghibli 's employ the full range: from smooth animation "on ones" in selected shots (usually quick action accents) to common animation "on threes" for regular dialogue and slow-paced shots. Creating animation loops or animation cycles
4800-480: Is among Disney's most notable assets, with the stars of its animated shorts— Mickey Mouse , Minnie Mouse , Donald Duck , Daisy Duck , Goofy , and Pluto —becoming recognizable figures in popular culture and mascots for the Walt Disney Company as a whole. Three of the studio's films— Frozen (2013), Zootopia (2016), and Frozen II (2019)—are all among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time , with
4960-428: Is based more strongly in music, a bar sheet may be prepared in addition to or instead of an X-sheet. Bar sheets show the relationship between the on-screen action, the dialogue, and the actual musical notation used in the score. Layout begins after the designs are completed and approved by the director. It is here that the background layout artists determine the camera angles, camera paths, lighting, and shading of
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5120-399: Is being done, the background artists will paint the sets over which the action of each animated sequence will take place. These backgrounds are generally done in gouache or acrylic paint , although some animated productions have used backgrounds done in watercolor or oil paint . Background artists follow very closely the work of the background layout artists and color stylists (which
5280-402: Is inexpensive to produce, and therefore allows cartoons to be made on small television budgets. Moving characters are often shot "on twos". One drawing is shown for every two frames of film (which usually runs at 24 frames per second), meaning there are only 12 drawings per second. Even though the image update rate is low, the fluidity is satisfactory for most subjects. However, when a character
5440-462: Is laid on top of each other, with the background at the bottom of the stack. A piece of glass is lowered onto the artwork in order to flatten any irregularities, and the composite image is then photographed in stop motion by a special animation camera , also called rostrum camera . The cels are removed, and the process repeats for the next frame until each frame in the sequence has been photographed. Each cel has registration holes, small holes along
5600-477: Is recorded so that the animation may be more precisely synchronized to the soundtrack. Given the slow manner in which traditional animation is produced, it is almost always easier to synchronize animation to a preexisting soundtrack than it is to synchronize a soundtrack to pre-existing animation. A completed cartoon soundtrack will feature music , sound effects , and dialogue performed by voice actors . The scratch track used during animation typically contains only
5760-442: Is required to perform a quick movement, it is usually necessary to revert to animating "on ones", as "twos" are too slow to convey the motion adequately. A blend of the two techniques keeps the eye fooled without unnecessary production costs. Academy Award –nominated animator Bill Plympton is noted for his style of animation that uses very few in-betweens and sequences that are done "on threes" or "on fours", holding each drawing on
5920-503: Is scheduled to release on November 25, 2026. A fourth Frozen film is in development. In November 2023, Jennifer Lee revealed that ten projects are in development, including films based upon original ideas. Walt Disney Animation Studios Walt Disney Animation Studios ( WDAS ), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation , is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company . The studio's current production logo features
6080-455: Is the same for both character animation and special effects animation , which on most high-budget productions are done in separate departments. Often, each major character will have an animator or group of animators solely dedicated to drawing that character. The group will be made up of one supervising animator, a small group of key animators, and a larger group of assistant animators. Effects animators animate anything that moves and are not
6240-414: Is typically integrated with cel animation in Disney films and in many television shows, such as Fox 's Futurama , Family Guy , and American Dad! and both Nickelodeon animated series Invader Zim and The Fairly OddParents . In one scene of the 2007 Pixar movie Ratatouille , an illustration of Gusteau (in his cookbook), speaks to Remy (who, in that scene, was lost in the sewers of Paris) as
6400-422: Is usually compiled into a workbook for their use) so that the resulting backgrounds are harmonious in tone with the character designs. Usually, an animatic or story reel is created after the soundtrack is recorded and before full animation begins. The term "animatic" was originally coined by Walt Disney Animation Studios . An animatic typically consists of pictures of the storyboard timed and cut together with
6560-577: The Disneyland theme park, production of the animated films was left primarily in the hands of the "Nine Old Men" trust of head animators and directors. This led to several delays in approvals during the production of Sleeping Beauty , which was finally released in 1959. At $ 6 million, it was Disney's most expensive film to date, produced in a heavily stylised art style devised by artist Eyvind Earle and presented in large-format Super Technirama 70 with six-track stereophonic sound. However, despite being
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6720-718: The Donald Duck cartoons eclipsed the Mickey Mouse series in popularity. Silly Symphonies , which garnered seven Academy Awards , ceased in 1939, until the shorts returned to theatres with some re-issues and re-releases. The success of Snow White allowed Disney to build a new, larger studio on Buena Vista Street in Burbank, where The Walt Disney Company remains headquartered to this day. Walt Disney Productions had its initial public offering on April 2, 1940, with Walt Disney as president and Roy Disney as CEO. The studio launched into
6880-536: The Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, then, in October 1923, formally launched their studio in a small office on the rear side of a real estate agency's office at 4651 Kingswell Avenue. In February 1924, the studio moved next door to office space of its own at 4649 Kingswell Avenue. In 1925, Disney put down a deposit on a new location at 2719 Hyperion Avenue in the nearby Silver Lake neighborhood , which came to be known as
7040-482: The Philippines ). As the cost of both inking and painting new cels for animated films and TV programs and the repeated usage of older cels for newer animated TV programs and films went up and the cost of doing the same thing digitally went down , eventually, the digital ink-and-paint process became the standard for future animated movies and TV programs. Hanna-Barbera was the first American animation studio to implement
7200-428: The attack on Pearl Harbor , the studio housed over 500 U.S. Army soldiers who were responsible for protecting nearby aircraft factories from enemy bombers. In addition, several Disney animators were drafted to fight in the war and the studio was contracted on producing wartime content for every branch of the U.S. military , particularly military training, and civilian propaganda films. From 1942 to 1943, 95 percent of
7360-581: The third highest-grossing film of the year and the most successful and best reviewed Disney animated film since The Jungle Book . The film was reissued in 1983, accompanied by a new Disney featurette, Mickey's Christmas Carol . The production of The Rescuers signaled the beginning of a changing of the guard process in the personnel at the Disney animation studio, as veterans such as Milt Kahl and Les Clark retired; they were gradually replaced by new talents such as Don Bluth , Ron Clements , John Musker and Glen Keane . The new animators, selected from
7520-476: The 1930s, which allowed for the presence of the "muttered ad-libs" present in many Popeye the Sailor and Betty Boop cartoons. When storyboards are sent to the design departments, character designers prepare model sheets for any characters and props that appear in the film; and these are used to help standardize appearance, poses, and gestures. The model sheets will often include "turnarounds" which show how
7680-521: The 1950s. Following its success, production on the in-limbo features Alice in Wonderland , Peter Pan , and Lady and the Tramp was resumed. In addition, an ambitious new project, an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale " Sleeping Beauty " set to Tchaikovsky 's classic score, was begun but took much of the rest of the decade to complete. Alice in Wonderland , released in 1951, met with
7840-529: The 1959 layoffs and competition for Walt Disney's attention from the company's expanded live-action film, TV and theme park departments, production continued on feature animation productions at a reduced level. In 1961, the studio released One Hundred and One Dalmatians , an animated feature that popularized the use of xerography during the process of inking and painting traditional animation cels . Using xerography, animation drawings could be photochemically transferred rather than traced from paper drawings to
8000-556: The 1970s to the present. The Sword in the Stone was released in 1963 and was the sixth highest-grossing film of the year in North America with estimated rentals of $ 4.75 million. A featurette adaptation of one of A. A. Milne 's Winnie-the-Pooh stories, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree , was released in 1966, to be followed by several other Pooh featurettes over the years and
8160-586: The APT process. This technique was used in Disney films such as Oliver and Company (1988) and The Little Mermaid (1989). This process has more or less been superseded by the use of cel-shading. Related to rotoscoping are the methods of vectorizing live-action footage, in order to achieve a very graphical look, like in Richard Linklater 's film A Scanner Darkly . Similar to the computer animation and traditional animation hybrids described above, occasionally
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#17328800744358320-480: The Dinosaur (1914), the entire frame, including the background and all characters and items, were drawn on a single sheet of paper, then photographed. Everything had to be redrawn for each frame containing movements. This led to a "jittery" appearance; imagine seeing a sequence of drawings of a mountain, each one slightly different from the one preceding it. The pre-cel animation was later improved by using techniques like
8480-642: The Disney artists to make use of colored ink-line techniques mostly lost during the xerography era, as well as multiplane effects, blended shading, and easier integration with 3D CGI backgrounds (as in the ballroom sequence in the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast ), props, and characters. Rival studios in the 1990s also adapted to digipaint processes, using softwares like Animo , USAnimation , Toonz , and Pixibox . Over time, many studios switched over to digital ink and paint, though many television projects took longer. Many filmmakers and studios did not want to shift to
8640-551: The Disney studio. A bitter union strike began in May 1941 , which was resolved without the angered Walt Disney's involvement in July and August of that year. As Walt Disney Productions was being set up as a union shop, Walt Disney and several studio employees were sent by the U.S. government on a Good Neighbor policy trip to Central and South America. The Disney strike and its aftermath led to an exodus of several animation professionals from
8800-513: The Hyperion Studio to distinguish it from the studio's other locations, and, in January 1926, the studio moved there and took on the name Walt Disney Studio . Meanwhile, after the first year's worth of Oswalds , Walt Disney attempted to renew his contract with Winkler Pictures, but Charles Mintz , who had taken over Margaret Winkler's business after marrying her, wanted to force Disney to accept
8960-476: The London satellite office and retool the film into a musical-comedy format similar to The Little Mermaid . Alan Menken and Howard Ashman were retained to write the songs and score, though Ashman died before production was completed. Traditional animation Animation production usually begins after a story is converted into an animation film script, from which a storyboard is derived. A storyboard has an appearance somewhat similar to comic book panels, and
9120-521: The North American box office in 1955. Lady and the Tramp is significant as Disney's first widescreen animated feature, produced in the CinemaScope process, and was the first Disney animated feature to be released by Disney's own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution . By the mid-1950s, with Walt Disney's attention primarily set on new endeavours such as live-action films, television and
9280-542: The Pauper , The Rescuers Down Under (1990) was Disney's first animated feature sequel and the studio's first film to be fully colored and composited via computer using the CAPS/ink-and-paint system. However, the film did not duplicate the success of The Little Mermaid . The next Disney animated feature, Beauty and the Beast , had begun production in London but was moved back to Burbank after Disney decided to shutter
9440-886: The Seven Dwarfs in 1937, one of the first full-length animated feature films, and the first produced in the United States. The studio's most recent release is Moana 2 in 2024, with their upcoming slate of films including Zootopia 2 in 2025 and Frozen III in 2027. Additionally, an unannounced film is scheduled to release on November 25, 2026. This list includes the films made by Walt Disney Animation Studios ; originally Walt Disney Productions (1937–1985) and Walt Disney Feature Animation (1986–2007). 1930s/1940s · 1950s · 1960s · 1970s · 1980s · 1990s · 2000s · 2010s · 2020s · Upcoming In addition, an unannounced film
9600-408: The Seven Dwarfs , one of the first full-length animated feature films and the first U.S.-based one. In 1986, during a large corporate restructuring, Walt Disney Productions, which had grown from a single animation studio into an international media conglomerate , was renamed The Walt Disney Company and the animation studio became Walt Disney Feature Animation ( WDFA ) in order to differentiate it from
9760-454: The Seven Seas . Many video games such as Viewtiful Joe , The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker , Ico , Ōkami , Mirror's Edge , and others use " cel-shading " animation filters or lighting systems to make their full 3D animation appear as though it were drawn in a traditional cel-style. This technique was also used in the animated movie Appleseed , and cel-shaded 3D animation
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#17328800744359920-507: The Shell , Neon Genesis Evangelion , and Cowboy Bebop , have applied both animation techniques. DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg coined the term "tradigital animation" to describe animated films produced by his studio which incorporated elements of traditional and computer animation equally, such as The Road to El Dorado , Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron , and Sinbad: Legend of
10080-441: The animatic or leica reel, taking the place of the pencil animation. Once every sequence in the production has been photographed, the final film is sent for development and processing, while the final music and sound effects are added to the soundtrack. The current process, termed "digital ink and paint", is the same as traditional ink and paint until after the animation drawings are completed; instead of being transferred to cels,
10240-410: The animation program at CalArts and trained by Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Woolie Reitherman, got their first chance to prove themselves as a group with the animated sequences in Disney's live-action/animated hybrid feature Pete's Dragon (1977), the animation for which was directed by Bluth. In September 1979, dissatisfied with what they felt was a stagnation in the development of
10400-511: The animation, in general, a distinct visual appearance. Today special effects are mostly done with computers, but earlier they had to be done by hand. To produce these effects, the animators used different techniques, such as drybrush , airbrush , charcoal, grease pencil , backlit animation, diffusing screens, filters , or gels . For instance, the Nutcracker Suite segment in Fantasia has
10560-407: The animation. Once the clean-ups and in-between drawings for a sequence are completed, they are prepared for a process known as ink and paint. Each drawing is transferred from paper to a thin, clear sheet of plastic called a cel , a contraction of the material name celluloid . (The original flammable cellulose nitrate was later replaced with the more stable cellulose acetate .) The outline of
10720-480: The animators created or formalized many of the techniques and processes that became the key tenets and principles of traditional animation. Silly Symphonies such as The Goddess of Spring (1934) and The Old Mill (1937) served as experimentation grounds for new techniques such as the animation of realistic human figures, special effects animation and the use of the multiplane camera , an invention that split animation artwork layers into several planes, allowing
10880-407: The animators' drawings are either scanned into a computer or drawn directly onto a computer monitor via graphics tablets , where they are colored and processed using one or more of a variety of software packages. The resulting drawings are composited in the computer over their respective backgrounds, which have also been scanned into the computer (if not digitally painted), and the computer outputs
11040-504: The art of animation at Disney, Bluth and several of the other new guard animators quit to start their own studio, Don Bluth Productions , which became Disney's chief competitor in the animation field during the 1980s. Delayed half a year by the defection of the Bluth group, The Fox and the Hound was released in 1981 after four years in production. The film was considered a financial success by
11200-404: The art style and color schemes to be used. A timing director (who in many cases will be the main director) will take the animatic and analyze exactly what poses, drawings, and lip movements will be needed on what frames. An exposure sheet (or X-sheet ) is created; this is a printed table that breaks down the action, dialogue, and sound frame-by-frame as a guide for the animators. If a film
11360-1084: The audience in a fantasy world where humans and cartoons co-exist. Early examples include the silent Out of the Inkwell (begun in 1919) cartoons by Max Fleischer and Walt Disney 's Alice Comedies (begun in 1923). Live-action and animation were later combined in features such as Song of the South (1946), The Incredible Mr. Limpet , Mary Poppins (both in 1964), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Cool World (1992), Space Jam (1996), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), and Enchanted (2007), among many others. The technique has also seen significant use in television commercials, especially for breakfast cereals marketed to children to interest them and boost sales. Besides traditionally animated characters, objects, and backgrounds, many other techniques are used to create special elements such as smoke, lightning and "magic", and to give
11520-596: The board to fire Miller. Roy E. Disney brought in Michael Eisner as Disney's new CEO and Frank Wells as president. Eisner in turn named Jeffrey Katzenberg chairman of the film division, The Walt Disney Studios. Near completion when the Eisner regime took over Disney, The Black Cauldron (1985) came to represent what would later be referred to as the "rock bottom" point for Disney animation. The studio's most expensive feature to that point at $ 44 million, The Black Cauldron
11680-495: The box office and became the highest-grossing first-issue animated film to that point. Katzenberg, Schneider, and Roy Disney set about changing the culture of the studio, increasing staffing and production so that a new animated feature would be released every year instead of every two to four. The first of the releases on the accelerated production schedule was Oliver & Company (1988), which featured an all-star cast including Billy Joel and Bette Midler and an emphasis on
11840-704: The box office, and had laid off a large portion of their hand-drawn animators. However, the studio stated in 2019 and 2023 that they are open to proposals from filmmakers for future hand-drawn feature projects. In addition, in April 2022, Eric Goldberg , one of the studio's hand-drawn animators who has been working with the studio since 1992, confirmed plans within the Disney studio to once again return to hand-drawn animation. Kansas City, Missouri , natives Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney founded Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Angeles in 1923 and got their start producing
12000-493: The camera to appear to move dimensionally through an animated scene. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $ 1.4 million to complete (including $ 100,000 on story development alone) and was an unprecedented success when released in February 1938 by RKO Radio Pictures , which had assumed distribution of Disney product from United Artists in 1937. It was briefly the highest-grossing film of all time before
12160-430: The cels or backgrounds 1 step at a time over a succession of frames (the camera does not pan; it only zooms in and out). Dope sheets are created by the animators and used by the camera operator to transfer each animation drawing into the number of film frames specified by the animators, typically 1 (1s, ones) or 2 (2s, twos) and sometimes 3 (3s, threes). As the scenes come out of final photography, they are spliced into
12320-403: The cels. Disney experienced a setback to its ink-and-paint department due to World War II . When peacetime resumed, much of the original equipment went to waste as more economic solutions were sought, leading to the xerography process pioneered by Ub Iwerks . When an entire sequence has been transferred to cels, the photography process begins. Each cel involved in a frame of a sequence
12480-532: The character animation on these productions and all subsequent features until the late 1970s was supervised by a brain-trust of animators Walt Disney dubbed the " Nine Old Men ", many of whom also served as directors and later producers on the Disney features: Frank Thomas , Ollie Johnston , Woolie Reitherman , Les Clark, Ward Kimball , Eric Larson , John Lounsbery , Milt Kahl , and Marc Davis . Other head animators at Disney during this period included Norm Ferguson, Bill Tytla and Fred Moore . The development of
12640-438: The characters' outlines are gray. White and blue toners were used for special effects, such as snow and water. Invented by Dave Spencer for the 1985 Disney film The Black Cauldron , the APT (Animation Photo Transfer) process was a technique for transferring the animators' art onto cels. Basically, the process was a modification of a repro-photographic process; the artists' work was photographed on high-contrast "litho" film, and
12800-410: The clear acetate sheets (" cels ") used in final animation production. The resulting art style – a scratchier line which revealed the construction lines in the animators' drawings – typified Disney films into the 1980s. The film was a success, being the tenth highest-grossing film of 1961 with rentals of $ 6.4 million. The Disney animation training program started at the studio in 1932 before
12960-467: The company's film and television production divisions, creating the Walt Disney Pictures banner under which future films from the feature animation department would be released. After a series of corporate takeover attempts in 1984, Roy E. Disney , son of Roy O. and nephew of Walt, resigned from the company's board of directors and launched a campaign called "SaveDisney", successfully convincing
13120-418: The company's other divisions. Its current name was adopted in 2006 after Pixar Animation Studios was acquired by Disney. For many people, Disney Animation is synonymous with animation, for "in no other medium has a single company's practices been able to dominate aesthetic norms" to such an overwhelming extent. The studio was recognized as the premier American animation studio for much of its existence and
13280-448: The day-to-day operations in 1985. On February 6, 1986, Disney executives moved the animation division from the Disney studio lot in Burbank to a variety of warehouses, hangars and trailers located about two miles east (3.2 kilometers) at 1420 Flower Street in nearby Glendale, California . About a year later, the growing computer graphics (CG) group would move there too. The animation division's first feature animation at its new location
13440-609: The development of Snow White eventually led to Walt Disney helping found the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) . This university formed via the merger of Chouinard Art Institute and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. It included a Disney-developed animation program of study among its degree offerings. CalArts became the alma mater of many of the animators who would work at Disney and other animation studios from
13600-492: The digital ink-and-paint process because they felt that the digitally colored animation would look too synthetic and would lose the aesthetic appeal of the non-computerized cel for their projects. Many animated television series were still animated in other countries by using the traditionally inked-and-painted cel process as late as 2004, though most of them switched over to the digital process at some point during their run. The last major feature film to use traditional ink and paint
13760-418: The director and have their scene sweatboxed . Once the key animation is approved, the lead animator forwards the scene on to the clean-up department , made up of the clean-up animators and the inbetweeners . The clean-up animators take the lead and assistant animators' drawings and trace them onto a new sheet of paper, making sure to include all of the details present on the original model sheets, so that
13920-435: The distance between them, is determined by what element of the scene is on the plane as well as the entire scene's intended depth. A camera, mounted above or in front of the planes, moves its focus toward or away from the planes during the capture of the individual animation frames. In some devices, the individual planes can be moved toward or away from the camera. This gives the viewer the impression that they are moving through
14080-426: The drawing is inked or photocopied onto the cel, and gouache , acrylic or a similar type of paint is used on the reverse sides of the cels to add colors in the appropriate shades. The transparent quality of the cel allows for each character or object in a frame to be animated on different cels, as the cel of one character can be seen underneath the cel of another; and the opaque background will be seen beneath all of
14240-473: The drawings in place. A key animator or lead animator will draw the key frames or key drawings in a scene, using the character layouts as a guide. The key animator draws enough of the frames to get across the major poses within a character performance. While working on a scene, a key animator will usually prepare a pencil test of the scene. A pencil test is a much rougher version of the final animated scene (often devoid of many character details and color);
14400-403: The early days of animation, washed clean and reused for the next film. In some cases, some of the cels were put into the "archive" to be used again and again for future purposes in order to save money. Some studios saved a portion of the cels and either sold them in studio stores or presented them as gifts to visitors. A cel overlay is a cel with inanimate objects used to give the impression of
14560-426: The extra layer of cel added between the image and the camera; in this example, the still plate would be painted slightly brighter to compensate for being moved one layer down. In TV and other low-budget productions, cels were often "cycled" (i.e., a sequence of cels was repeated several times), and even archived and reused in other episodes. After the film was completed, the cels were either thrown out or, especially in
14720-499: The feature animation department created a caste system at the Disney studio: lesser animators (and feature animators in-between assignments) were assigned to work on the short subjects, while animators higher in status such as the Nine Old Men worked on the features. Concern over Walt Disney accepting credit for the artists' work as well as debates over compensation led to many of the newer and lower-ranked animators seeking to unionize
14880-503: The feature animation studio and outsourcing future animation. Roy E. Disney intervened, offering to head the feature animation division and turn its fortunes around, while Eisner established the Walt Disney Pictures Television Animation Group to produce lower-cost animation for television. Named Chairman of feature animation by Eisner, Roy E. Disney appointed Peter Schneider president of animation to run
15040-498: The film industry, who dubbed the production "Disney's Folly", Disney proceeded undaunted into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , which would become the first animated feature in English and Technicolor. Considerable training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the studio greatly expanded, with established animators, artists from other fields and recent college graduates joining
15200-404: The film maintains a cohesiveness and consistency in art style. The inbetweeners will draw in whatever frames are still missing in-between the other animators' drawings. This procedure is called tweening . The resulting drawings are again pencil-tested and sweatboxed until they meet approval. At each stage during pencil animation, approved artwork is spliced into the leica reel. This process
15360-433: The film's final original box office take varying between $ 1.4 million and $ 1.9 million. However, Pinocchio was a critical success, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score , making it the first film of the studio to win not only either Oscar, but both at the same time. Fantasia , an experimental film produced to an accompanying orchestral arrangement conducted by Leopold Stokowski ,
15520-407: The film. Creating scenes that will eventually be edited out of the completed cartoon is avoided. In the traditional animation process, animators will begin by drawing sequences of animation on sheets of transparent paper perforated to fit the peg bars in their desks, often using colored pencils , one picture or "frame" at a time. A peg bar is an animation tool used in traditional animation to keep
15680-498: The final film by either exporting a digital video file, using a video cassette recorder or printing to film using a high-resolution output device. Use of computers allows for easier exchange of artwork between departments, studios, and even countries and continents (in most low-budget American animated productions, the bulk of the animation is actually done by animators working in other countries , including South Korea , Taiwan , Japan , China , Singapore , Mexico , India , and
15840-435: The first multiplane animation structures, a device called a Tricktisch . Its top-down, vertical design allowed for overhead adjusting of individual, stationary planes. The Tricktisch was used in the filming of The Adventures of Prince Achmed , one of Reiniger's most well-known works. Future multiplane animation devices would generally use the same vertical design as Reiniger's device. One notable exception to this trend
16000-475: The image on the resulting negative was then transferred to a cel covered with a layer of light-sensitive dye. The cel was exposed through the negative. Chemicals were then used to remove the unexposed portion. Small and delicate details were still inked by hand if needed. Spencer received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for developing this process. Rotoscoping is a method of traditional animation invented by Max Fleischer in 1915, in which animation
16160-449: The kids, we lose everything". The studio began the 1970s with the release of The Aristocats , the last film project to be approved by Walt Disney. In 1971, Roy O. Disney, the studio co-founder, died and Walt Disney Productions was left in the hands of Donn Tatum and Card Walker , who alternated as chairman and CEO in overlapping terms until 1978. The next feature, Robin Hood (1973),
16320-412: The latter becoming the third-highest-grossing animated feature film of all time . It also had the highest-grossing worldwide opening of all time for an animated feature film up until the release of Nintendo and Illumination 's The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). By 2013, the studio had no hand-drawn animated features in development as a result of their computer animated films performing better at
16480-469: The main output accompanied by cartoons starring Mickey Mouse, Figaro and, in the 1950s, Chip 'n' Dale and Humphrey the Bear . In addition, Disney began reissuing the previous features, beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944, Pinocchio in 1945, and Fantasia in 1946. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s before being translated into
16640-406: The midst of the animators' strike, premiered in October 1941 and proved to be a financial success. The film cost $ 950,000 to produce, half the cost of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio , and two-fifths of the cost of Fantasia . Dumbo eventually grossed $ 1.6 million during its original release. Dumbo was the first Disney animated film to be completed at
16800-474: The multiplane camera used for the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs utilized artwork painted on up to seven separate, movable planes, as well as a vertical, top-down camera. Predecessors of this technique and the equipment used to implement it began appearing in the late 19th century. Painted glass panes were often used in matte shots and glass shots, as seen in the work of Norman Dawn . In 1923, Lotte Reiniger and her animation team constructed one of
16960-492: The music videos for A-ha 's song " Take On Me " and Kanye West 's " Heartless ". In most cases, rotoscoping is mainly used to aid the animation of realistically rendered human beings, as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , Peter Pan , and Sleeping Beauty . A method related to conventional rotoscoping was later invented for the animation of solid inanimate objects, such as cars, boats, or doors. A small live-action model of
17120-503: The object not present in the live-action photography of the model, it was xeroxed onto cels. A notable example is Cruella de Vil's car in Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians . The process of transferring 3D objects to cels was greatly improved in the 1980s when computer graphics advanced enough to allow the creation of 3D computer-generated objects that could be manipulated in any way the animators wanted, and then printed as outlines on paper before being copied onto cels using Xerography or
17280-493: The original Animation Building of the Walt Disney Studios (Walt Disney Productions) in Burbank, California . In August 1942, Bambi was released and, as with Pinocchio and Fantasia , did not perform well at the box office. Out of its $ 1.7 million budget, it grossed $ 1.64 million. Production of full-length animated features was temporarily suspended after the release of Bambi . Given the financial failures of some of
17440-789: The paperless technology available today. Some of the advantages are the possibility and potential of controlling the size of the drawings while working on them, drawing directly on a multiplane background and eliminating the need for photographing line tests and scanning. Though traditional animation is now commonly done with computers, it is distinct from 3D computer animation , such as Toy Story , Shrek , Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius , and Ice Age . Traditional animation and 3D computer animation can be used together, as in Don Bluth 's Titan A.E. and Disney 's Hercules , Tarzan , Atlantis: The Lost Empire , and Treasure Planet . Some recent anime and western animated series, such as Ghost in
17600-406: The pencil drawings are quickly photographed or scanned and synced with the necessary soundtracks. This allows the animation to be reviewed and improved upon before passing the work on to their assistant animators , who will add details and some of the missing frames in the scene. The work of the assistant animators is reviewed, pencil-tested, and corrected until the lead animator is ready to meet with
17760-420: The plate. In this example, after the person puts the plate down, the plate can then be drawn on a separate cel from them. Further frames feature new cels of the person, but the plate does not have to be redrawn as it is not moving; the same cel of the plate can be used in each remaining frame that it is still upon the table. The cel paints were actually manufactured in shaded versions of each color to compensate for
17920-433: The production of new animated features, the first of which was Pinocchio , released in February 1940. Pinocchio was not initially a box office success. The box office returns from the film's initial release were below both Snow White 's unprecedented success and the studio's expectations. Of the film's $ 2.289 million cost – twice of Snow White – Disney recouped $ 1 million by late 1940, with studio reports of
18080-487: The recent features and World War II cutting off much of the overseas cinema market, the studio's financiers at the Bank of America would only loan the studio working capital if it temporarily restricted itself to shorts production. Features then in production such as Peter Pan , Alice in Wonderland and Lady and the Tramp were therefore put on hold until after the war. Following the United States' entry into World War II after
18240-414: The required object was built and painted white, while the edges of the model were painted with thin black lines. The object was then filmed as required for the animated scene by moving the model, the camera, or a combination of both, in real-time or using stop-motion animation. The film frames were then printed on paper, showing a model made up of the painted black lines. After the artists had added details to
18400-481: The same time in 1988, Disney started entering into Australia's long-standing animation industry by purchasing Hanna-Barbera 's Australian studio to start Disney Animation Australia . While Oliver & Company and the next feature The Little Mermaid were in production, Disney collaborated with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and master animator Richard Williams to produce Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,
18560-410: The scene. Character layout artists will determine the major poses for the characters in the scene and will make a drawing to indicate each pose. For short films, character layouts are often the responsibility of the director. The layout drawings and storyboards are then spliced, along with the audio and an animatic is formed (not to be confused with its predecessor, the leica reel ). While the animation
18720-454: The screen from 1 ⁄ 8 to 1 ⁄ 6 of a second. While Plympton uses near-constant three-frame holds, sometimes animation that simply averages eight drawings per second is also termed "on threes" and is usually done to meet budget constraints, along with other cost-cutting measures, like holding the same drawing of a character for a prolonged time or panning over a still image, techniques often used in low-budget TV productions. It
18880-564: The separate layers of art as though in a three-dimensional space. The most famous device used for multiplane animation was the multiplane camera . This device, originally designed by former Walt Disney Studios animator / director Ub Iwerks , is a vertical, top-down camera crane that shot scenes painted on multiple, individually adjustable glass planes. The movable planes allowed for changeable depth within individual animated scenes. In later years Disney Studios would adopt this technology for their own uses. Designed in 1937 by William Garity ,
19040-414: The shorts division was shut down in 1956. After that, all future shorts were produced by the feature films division until 1969. The last Disney short of the golden age of animation was It's Tough to Be a Bird . Disney shorts would only be produced on a sporadic basis from this point on, with notable later shorts including Runaway Brain (1995, starring Mickey Mouse) and Paperman (2012). Despite
19200-480: The size of the xeroxed objects and characters. At first, it resulted in a more sketchy look, but the technique was improved upon over time. Disney animator and engineer Bill Justice had patented a forerunner of the Xerox process in 1944, where drawings made with a special pencil would be transferred to a cel by pressure, and then fixing it. It is not known if the process was ever used in animation. The xerographic method
19360-403: The slash and tear system invented by Raoul Barré ; the background and the animated objects were drawn on separate papers. A frame was made by removing all the blank parts of the papers where the objects were drawn before being placed on top of the backgrounds and finally photographed. In lower-budget productions, shortcuts available through the cel technique are used extensively. For example, in
19520-413: The soundtrack. This allows the animators and directors to work out any script and timing issues that may exist with the current storyboard. The storyboard and soundtrack are amended if necessary, and a new animatic may be created and reviewed with the director until the storyboard meets the users' requirements. Editing the film at the animatic stage prevents the animation of scenes that would be edited out of
19680-440: The speaking character. For a more complex example, consider a sequence in which a person sets a plate upon a table. The table stays still for the entire sequence, so it can be drawn as part of the background. The plate can be drawn along with the character as the character places it on the table. However, after the plate is on the table, the plate no longer moves, although the person continues to move as they draw their arm away from
19840-607: The stop-motion The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), a live-action adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (2010), and a stop-motion feature remake of Frankenweenie (2012). Bird was also fired after a few years working at the company for criticizing Disney's upper management as he felt that they were playing it safe and not taking risks on animation. He subsequently became an animation director at other studios, including Warner Bros. Animation and Pixar. Ron Miller , Walt Disney's son-in-law, became president of Walt Disney Productions in 1980 and CEO in 1983. That year, he expanded
20000-400: The studio and observe animators at work. That same year, the studio released The Little Mermaid , which became a keystone achievement in Disney's history as its largest critical and commercial success in decades. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who'd been co-directors on The Great Mouse Detective , The Little Mermaid earned $ 84 million at the North American box office, a record for
20160-449: The studio has produced 63 feature films , from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Moana 2 (2024), and hundreds of short films . Founded as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio ( DBCS ) in 1923, renamed Walt Disney Studio ( WDS ) in 1926 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions ( WDP ) in 1929, the studio was dedicated to producing short films until it entered feature production in 1934, resulting in 1937's Snow White and
20320-400: The studio to work on the film. The training classes, supervised by head animators such as Les Clark , Norm Ferguson and Art Babbit and taught by Donald W. Graham , an art teacher from the nearby Chouinard Art Institute , had begun at the studio in 1932 and were greatly expanded into orientation training and continuing education classes. In the course of teaching the classes, Graham and
20480-412: The studio's animation output was for the military. During the war, Disney produced the live-action/animated military propaganda feature Victory Through Air Power (1943), and a series of Latin culture -themed shorts resulting from the 1941 Good Neighbor trip were compiled into two features, Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944). Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros set
20640-447: The studio's feature films. It was Reitherman who was responsible for a noticeable softening of Disney villains, and over the next two decades, nearly all Disney villains were more comical or pitiful than scary. Reitherman's main priority was ensuring that the studio would continue to turn a profit and towards that end, he stressed the importance of making family-friendly films. According to Andreas Deja , Reitherman said that "if we lose
20800-482: The studio's handling of home video releases. In 1948, Disney returned to the production of full-length features with Cinderella , a feature film based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault . At a cost of nearly $ 3 million, the future of the studio depended upon the success of this film. Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box-office success, with the profits from the film's release allowing Disney to carry on producing animated features throughout
20960-413: The studio's highest-grossing animated feature since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , the film's large production costs and the box office underperformance of Disney's other 1959 output resulted in the studio posting its first annual loss in a decade for fiscal year 1960, leading to massive layoffs throughout the studio. By the end of the decade, the Disney short subjects were no longer being produced on
21120-686: The studio, and development continued on The Black Cauldron , a long-gestating adaptation of the Chronicles of Prydain series of novels by Lloyd Alexander produced in Super Technirama 70. The Black Cauldron was intended to expand the appeal of Disney animated films to older audiences and to showcase the talents of the new generation of Disney animators from CalArts. Besides Keane, Musker and Clements, this new group of artists included other promising animators such as Andreas Deja , Mike Gabriel , John Lasseter , Brad Bird and Tim Burton . Lasseter
21280-480: The studio, from top-level animators such as Art Babbitt and Bill Tytla to artists better known for their work outside the Disney studio such as Frank Tashlin , Maurice Noble , Walt Kelly , Bill Melendez , and John Hubley . Hubley, along with several other Disney strikers, went on to found the United Productions of America studio, Disney's key animation rival in the 1950s. Dumbo , in production during
21440-416: The studio. The film was built around a score from Broadway songwriters Alan Menken and Howard Ashman , who was also a co-producer and story consultant on the film. The Little Mermaid won two Academy Awards, for Best Original Song and Best Original Score . The Little Mermaid vigorously relaunched a profound new interest in the animation and musical film genres. The film was also the first to feature
21600-694: The template for several other 1940s Disney releases of "package films": low-budgeted films composed of animated short subjects with animated or live-action bridging material. These films were Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The studio also produced two features, Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948), which used more expansive live-action stories which still included animated sequences and sequences combining live-action and animated characters. Shorts production continued during this period as well, with Donald Duck , Goofy , and Pluto cartoons being
21760-771: The third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie , became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound and was a major success upon its November 1928 debut at the West 57th Theatre in New York City. The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons, distributed by Powers through Celebrity Productions, quickly became the most popular cartoon series in the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, Silly Symphonies , debuted in 1929 with The Skeleton Dance . In 1929, disputes over finances between Disney and Powers led to Disney's animation production company, reincorporated on December 16, 1929, as Walt Disney Productions , signing
21920-439: The top or bottom edge of the cel, which allow the cel to be placed on corresponding peg bars before the camera to ensure that each cel aligns with the one before it; if the cels are not aligned in such a manner, the animation, when played at full speed, will appear "jittery." Sometimes, frames may need to be photographed more than once, in order to implement superimpositions and other camera effects. Pans are created by either moving
22080-621: The unprecedented success of Gone with the Wind two years later, grossing over $ 8 million on its initial release, the equivalent of $ 173,163,120 in 1999 dollars. During the production of Snow White , work had continued on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series of shorts. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935, by which time the series had added several major supporting characters, among them Mickey's dog, Pluto , and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy . Donald, Goofy, and Pluto would all be appearing in series of their own by 1940, and
22240-438: The use of Disney's Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). Developed for Disney by Pixar, which had grown into a commercial computer animation and technology development company, CAPS/ink-and-paint would become significant in allowing future Disney films to more seamlessly integrate computer-generated imagery and achieve higher production values with digital ink and paint and compositing techniques. The Little Mermaid
22400-486: The use of traditional cels for the main content of each episode. Minor productions, such as Hair High (2004) by Bill Plympton , have used traditional cels long after the introduction of digital techniques. Most studios today use one of a number of other high-end software packages, such as Toon Boom Harmony , Toonz (OpenToonz), Animo, and RETAS , or even consumer-level applications such as Adobe Flash , Toon Boom Technologies and TV Paint . The cel animation process
22560-529: The voices, any songs to which characters must sing-along, and temporary musical score tracks; the final score and sound effects are added during post-production . In the case of Japanese animation and most pre-1930 sound animated cartoons, the sound was post-synched ; the soundtrack was recorded after the film elements were finished by watching the film and performing the dialogue, music, and sound effects required. Some studios, most notably Fleischer Studios , continued to post-synch their cartoons through most of
22720-466: The west, and PBS Kids ' Dragon Tales , all of which switched to digital paint between 2000 and 2004, while the last major animated production overall to abandon cel animation was the television adaptation of Sazae-san , which remained stalwart with the technique until September 29, 2013, when it switched to fully digital animation on October 6, 2013. Prior to this, the series adopted digital animation solely for its opening credits in 2009, but retained
22880-553: The works of United Productions of America (UPA), whose flat art style and stylized animation techniques were lauded as more modern alternatives to the older Disney style. During the 1950s, only one Disney short, the stylized Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom , won the Best Short Subject (Cartoons) Oscar. The Mickey Mouse , Pluto and Goofy shorts had all ceased regular production by 1953, with Donald Duck and Humphrey continuing and converting to widescreen CinemaScope before
23040-530: The years. Despite its financial failure, Fantasia was the subject of two Academy Honorary Awards on February 26, 1942 – one for the development of the innovative Fantasound system used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack, and the other for Stokowski and his contributions to the film. Fantasia was the final Disney animated film to be completed at the Hyperion Studio of the Walt Disney Studios (Walt Disney Productions) in Los Angeles. Much of
23200-464: Was The Great Mouse Detective (1986), begun by John Musker and Ron Clements as Basil of Baker Street after both left production of The Black Cauldron . The film was enough of a critical and commercial success to instill executive confidence in the animation studio. Later the same year, however, Universal Pictures and Steven Spielberg 's Amblin Entertainment released Don Bluth's An American Tail , which outgrossed The Great Mouse Detective at
23360-462: Was Satoshi Kon 's Millennium Actress (2001); the last major animation productions in the west to use the traditional process were Nickelodeon 's SpongeBob SquarePants , both Fox 's The Simpsons and King of the Hill , both Cartoon Network 's The Powerpuff Girls , Dexter's Laboratory and Ed, Edd n Eddy , the latter of which is also the last cartoon to switch to Digital Ink and Paint in
23520-420: Was "for many decades the undisputed world leader in animated features"; it developed many of the techniques, concepts and principles that became standard practices of traditional animation . The studio also pioneered the art of storyboarding , which is now a standard technique used in both animated and live-action filmmaking, as well as television shows and video games. The studio's catalog of animated features
23680-427: Was a critical and commercial failure. The film's $ 21 million box office gross led to a loss for the studio, putting the future of the animation division in jeopardy. Between the 1950s and 1980s, the significance of animation to Disney's bottom line was significantly reduced as the company expanded into further live-action production, television and theme parks. As new CEO, Michael Eisner strongly considered shuttering
23840-529: Was closer in resemblance to real life, which was a prominent goal for many animation studios at the time. Applied to animation by Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney studio during the late 1950s, the electrostatic copying technique called xerography allowed the drawings to be copied directly onto the cels, eliminating much of the "inking" portion of the ink-and-paint process. This saved time and money, and it also made it possible to put in more details and to control
24000-568: Was fired from Disney in 1983 for pushing the studio to explore computer animation production, but went on to become the creative head of Pixar , a pioneering computer animation studio that would begin a close association with Disney in the late 1980s. Similarly, Burton was fired in 1984 after producing a live-action short shelved by the studio, Frankenweenie , then went on to become a high-profile producer and director of live-action and stop-motion features for Disney and other studios. Some of Burton's high-profile projects for Disney would include
24160-617: Was first tested by Disney in a few scenes of Sleeping Beauty and was first fully used in the short film Goliath II , while the first feature entirely using this process was One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). The graphic style of this film was strongly influenced by the process. Some hand inking was still used together with xerography in this and subsequent films when distinct colored lines were needed. Later, colored toners became available, and several distinct line colors could be used, even simultaneously. For instance, in The Rescuers
24320-728: Was first tested in the Pac-Man episodes "Nighty Nightmares" and "The Pac-Mummy". In addition to a cost savings compared to traditional cel painting of 5 to 1, the Hanna-Barbera system also allowed for multiplane camera effects evident in H-B productions such as A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (1988). The computer files for these projects were not archived and the shows themselves were printed to videotape, making remastering difficult due to their lack of high resolution. Digital ink and paint has been in use at Walt Disney Animation Studios since 1989, where it
24480-503: Was invented by Earl Hurd and John Bray in 1915. The cel is an important innovation to traditional animation, as it allows some parts of each frame to be repeated from frame to frame, thus saving labor. A simple example would be a scene with two characters on screen, one of which is talking and the other standing silently. Since the latter character is not moving, it can be displayed in this scene using only one drawing, on one cel, while multiple drawings on multiple cels are used to animate
24640-601: Was key in renewing mainstream interest in American animation. Other than the film itself, the studio also produced three Roger Rabbit shorts during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A second satellite studio, Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida , opened in 1989 with 40 employees. Its offices were located within the Disney-MGM Studios theme park at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida , and visitors were allowed to tour
24800-406: Was produced with a significantly reduced budget and animation repurposed from previous features. Both The Aristocats and Robin Hood were minor box office and critical successes. The Rescuers , released in 1977, was a success exceeding the achievements of the previous two Disney features. Receiving positive reviews, high commercial returns, and an Academy Award nomination, it ended up being
24960-479: Was released in November 1940 by Disney itself in a series of limited-seating roadshow engagements. The film cost $ 2 million to produce and, although the film earned $ 1.4 million in its roadshow engagements, the high cost ($ 85,000 per theater) of installing Fantasound placed Fantasia at a greater loss than Pinocchio . RKO assumed distribution of Fantasia in 1941, later reissuing it in severely edited versions over
25120-647: Was the Setback Camera, developed and used by Fleischer Studios . This device used miniature three-dimensional models of sets, with animated cels placed at various positions within the set. This placement gave the appearance of objects moving in front of and behind the animated characters, and was often referred to as the Tabletop Method. The spread and development of multiplane animation helped animators tackle problems with motion tracking and scene depth, and reduced production times and costs for animated works. In
25280-558: Was the Silly Symphony cartoon Flowers and Trees , the first film commercially released in full Technicolor. Flowers and Trees was a major success and all Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. By the early 1930s, Walt Disney had realized that the success of animated films depended upon telling emotionally gripping stories that would grab the audience and not let go, and this realization led him to create
25440-481: Was the first of a series of blockbusters that would be released over the next decade by Walt Disney Feature Animation, a period later designated by the term Disney Renaissance . The Renaissance era also saw the studio return to making films with darker themes and scarier villains, similar to the films it had made when Walt Disney was still alive. Accompanied in theaters by the Mickey Mouse featurette The Prince and
25600-493: Was used for the final rainbow shot in The Little Mermaid . All subsequent traditional Disney animated features were digitally inked-and-painted (starting with The Rescuers Down Under , which was also the first major feature film to entirely use digital ink and paint), using Disney's proprietary CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) technology, developed primarily by Pixar Animation Studios . The CAPS system allowed
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