How Disney Influenced Animation

Within this essay I'm going to explain how Disney has had an enormous impact on the animation industry, influencing basically every animation you watch to this day, and also about how they have highly influenced large animation companies such as Warner Bros. and Pixar.

 
 
 
 

 

Two brothers Walt and Roy Disney created Walt Disney Productions on October 16th 1923. The Disney company are highly regarded within the animation sector, considered to be the pioneers of cartoon animation. In the 1920s there was a miniscule amount of technology world-wide let alone specific technology to create cartoon animations. All Walt and Roy had only basic drawing utensils to created these iconic characters you see today. The Walt Disney Company were also the first animators to create a full length animation movie called, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", in 1937. This movie to this day it is seen by vast quantity's of people and is known globally as it is an iconic movie that took the world by storm. Making Snow White has had a huge effect on the way people viewed animation as it was now considered a very serious component to the arts specifically the film industry as they work adjacent to each other. This movie has influenced other recognizable companies such as Pixar that have gone on to make global animation movies such as the Toy Story series. The magic to Walt's success is that he targets his movies specifically for children, nevertheless the movies touch not only the children but the adults too, the reason why they are so very successful is because there just isn't anything like a Disney Production and parents are happy to let children view this content, which is very memorable making it into a traditional film to play for youngsters.

Walts most ambitious project making Snow White and the Seven dwarves was the first full-length cel animated feature film that was released in 1937 was a break through as no one had ever attempted before this tiresome accolade, because there wasn't any computer generated animation technology back then it was made up from tens of thousands of drawings, it has been named as the greatest American animation film of all time in 2008. The movie contained speech for the characters which was rather new within the animation 'scene' as it was extremely hard to synchronize in the edit. The sound/speech was created  by people doing voiceovers for characters these tapes of audio were cut into the production without having to use text in speech bubbles to explain the situation. Because of these never before chartered territories in animation with the lack of technology and the costs of an ambitious project like this, it shocked audiences that this could be created, audiences loved this film and audiences today still love it and is a family favourite in most households.

 

However before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney had already created another milestone in animation making the first animated short to synchronize sound with the relevant action in the frame. This was “Steamboat Willie”, it just like Snow White amazed its global audience, This didn’t have any synchronized voiceovers in it nevertheless it had FX sounds clips (a example of this is: when the iconic Disney character Mickey Mouse is having a tug of war with a goat, a FX sounds has been added so you can hear the sound of something stretching.)

 

Most if not all of The Walt Disney Company's early productions were Cell animations this means that the animation is made up of a extremely high amount of drawn pictures, the way a cell animation works is the same way as a flick book where there are drawn images and they get flick rapidly giving the illusion that there is a fluid motion when really they are just still pictures. To create the professional and polished look Disney animators have done they would draw an image of someone moving slightly over each time on each sheet of paper. As you can imagine this is a very long time consuming process you could say Disney did cut some corners by because to save creating a lot of backgrounds for each individual scene, They only make the characters move to create the illusion of motion throughout each scene as if it were changing. This is an earlier traditional way of animation because of the lack of computers and other technology, but in the current most animation is done with the aid of computer technology to generate characters, scenes etc... Also the editing software on computers today is very advanced and you can make decisive cuts to footage, whereas previous to computer technology editing would of had to of been done by hand editing raw film reels.
 
Another reason why Snow white broke the boundaries'  was also the very first full length animation feature film to have Technicolor technology within it. This was a huge breakthrough in animation  technology and even film in the 1930s, this was I feel a vital part to Walt's success because most of Disney's storylines are based on fantasy and because of this new technology it emphasised the magical new revolutionary side to the brand, which people where happy to buy into.

After The Walt Disney Company released Snow White, they were seen as the pioneers of animation at the top the league, making many others influenced to make animated films such as the Disney productions, witnessing how successful Disney was with Snow White and various other shorts. Warner Brothers  joined in and had a crack at the industry, they started to make cartoon shorts in the 30s known as Looney tunes and Merrie Melodies. Warner Bros were definitely influenced by Disney as Warner released there first Looney Tunes 'cartoon' in 1930 (shortly after Steamboat Willie in 1928), Loony Tunes was also a cel style of animation (created using drawings). Also because Warner Bros. were trying to be a competitor of Walt Disneys, Warner named Loony Tunes, Looney Tunes because it is a variation on Silly Symphonies, the name of Disneys series of music-based short films. Despite Warner being new to the Industry from 1942 until 1969, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were the most popular cartoon shorts in movie theaters, exceeding Disney and other popular competitors. Visually Warner had shown a lot of influence from Disney as it contained similar Disney styles of animation, the sounds for example: when one character starts to play a musical instrument, a tune has been edited in so the instrument starts to play, visually with musical notes coming out of the instrument. Something else we see from this cartoon that seems influenced from Disney’s shorts is that they also have the typical style of story where two main characters chasing each other around with extra background character’s within the story.

Large production houses still find inspiration from these Walt Disneys productions. Although Disney has collaborated with Production companies as well, Disney approached Pixar to make a full-length computer animated film, seeing as how successful the earlier short Tin Toy in 1988, as it won the first Oscar to an animated short. Pixar has achieved a high accolade in them being the first production company to win an Oscar for an animated short. Pixar have definitely been influenced by Disney being the first to make a full-length animation film, Toy Story was Pixar’s first time making a full-length animation film, which has gone on and now there is a series of Toy Story films. By Disney approaching them to make a full-length production, they may have looked at Disney for inspiration on how the generate their ideas for sections of the storyline and also Disney can give guidance to Pixar as Disney has been in the same position creating (Snow White) their first animation film. Disney have definitely inspired Pixar to make their first animated film despite the use of computer to generate it and the different aesthetic to the film visually, Pixar have now been making full length animation films since Toy Story which was a huge success making them both share quite accolades similar of success.        
 
 

To conclude this I would have to say that Walt and Roy Disney starting up Walt Disney Productions In the early 1920's has had a huge influence on not only animation but on all of its viewers, personally I couldn't imagine my childhood without a Disney production in it, and I think this is the same for the majority of people. In the early 1900's Walt Disney saw potential in the animation strand of the film industry and Disney was the only production company really attempting to experiment with it, the turning point for animation was when Disney started using film production techniques in their animations such as audio and colour visually, these were both made very apparent in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, let alone the fact that is was the first full-length animation movie. From Walt and Roy Disney's humble origins on a farm they would have never dreamt the empire The Walt Disney Company is today. Disney has also influenced other production company's into making theme parks as Disneyland is a world renowned holiday resort. Disney has created an empire that is a pilgrimage to his initial ideas that are a huge part of western culture, When I say pilgrimage it is very similar to religion, we buy the books and films to get closer and educated on the characters and 'everything Disney', and then followers will go to a Disneyland resort and this is like the pilgrimage you go to this resort to ultimately get closer to everything Disney, but it is a fun experience nonetheless.