Lighting the way
DISNEY’S HISTORY IS FULL OF GROUNDBREAKING MOVIE MOMENTS
The dazzling computer-generated worlds, empowered princesses and Oscar-winning ballads we take for granted in animated Disney movies today have only been achieved after a near-century of technological advancements and creative risks.
The first to change the game was Walt Disney himself, without whom animated feature films might not even exist.
Take a look back at animated Disney moments that were groundbreaking for their time.
Technological breakthrough: Steamboat Willie (1928)
Now baked into the opening credits of every Walt Disney Animation Studios film, the Steamboat Willie short introduced Mickey and Minnie Mouse to the world almost 100 years ago.
Steamboat Willie ushered in the era of sound cartoons. It was the first Disney animation with synchronised sound (where sound matched the images on screen), and the first animation to feature a post-produced soundtrack.
Tackling social issues: Zootopia (2016)
Ruth Strother, an Australian senior production supervisor at Disney, says Zootopia’s message was ahead of the Zeitgeist.
“It spotlighted the issues of social injustice and racial bias before everyone was talking about it,” she says. “The last couple of years we’ve started having conversations about equality, yet we already talked about this five years ago making this film!”
Zootopia used animal characters to highlight human prejudices. For instance, rabbit parents worry that the big city is full of foxes: “They’re all predators … it’s in their biology.”
Strother says her eyes were opened while making the film. “I
felt so privileged that we got to tell a generation of kids that story.”
Feature-length animation: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Even during the Great Depression, Walt Disney didn’t rein in his ambition. In 1934, he told animators to create something no studio had ever attempted: a feature-length animated film.
Competing studios predicted no moviegoer would want to sit through 80 minutes of cartoon. Walt’s attitude: “Go for broke.” Artists were sent back to school. Live actors were filmed then traced to capture realistic movement. New shades of paint were invented. The budget ballooned.
The risk paid off. Adjusted for inflation, Snow White remains the most profitable film of all time.
A new breed of princess: The Little Mermaid (1989)
When mermaid Ariel dreams of something more in the song Part of Your World, an entire new breed of Disney princess was born.
There would be no Mulan, no Moana and no Elsa without Ariel. In fact, there may be no Disney: The Little Mermaid pulled the studio out of a slump and kicked off the Disney Renaissance.
It was lyricist Howard Ashman who fought for Part of Your World to be in the film. Teamed with composer Alan Menken, the pair brought a Broadway sensibility to the cartoon, their work inspiring future maestros such as Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
First Black princess: The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Frog-kissing heroine Tiana was a landmark for representation: the first Black Disney princess, arriving 72 years after Snow White.
“Older people have been waiting for this for such a long time,” Anika Noni Rose, who voiced the princess, said when the film opened. “And it’s so important for children to be able to see these images and relate to them.”
Remote production: Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
The innovative production of Disney’s most recent animated hit was forced on the studio by Covid.
It was animated and recorded remotely, with artists working from home. Actor Awkwafina, who voiced the titular dragon, recorded her lines in Australia, where she was shooting a Marvel movie. For several weeks, animators had to alternate shifts, until the studio’s server could be upgraded to allow the entire team to log in at the same time.
Surround sound: Fantasia (1940)
It had no story and barely any dialogue, but Fantasia did have surround sound – half a century before dads around the world began placing speakers behind the couch. The ambitious classical music anthology was the first film to be made in stereo surround, a technology Walt Disney dubbed “Fantasound”.
He insisted cinemas install new
sound systems to screen the film, requiring five speakers through which different instruments would rotate. But he was ahead of his time: because the system was so expensive to install, Fantasia’s release was limited. It wouldn’t make a profit until it was released on home video.
Actors and animation interact: Mary Poppins (1964)
Before green screen technology could make anyone appear anywhere, Mary Poppins dropped through a chalk drawing into an animated wonderland where her friend Bert dances with a gaggle of penguin waiters.
This avant-garde interaction of live and animated characters came almost 25 years before Roger Rabbit, and was achieved using a specially designed Technicolour camera. The camera was loaded with a prism and two strips of film – one recorded the actors, while the other captured a specific wavelength of light over which the animation could be added.
The ultimate slumber party: Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Bringing all the Disney Princesses together in one scene was a feat even the makers of the Wreck-it Ralph sequel didn’t think they would be able to pull off.
“I was in the room as that conversation was happening and secretly thinking, ‘There’s no way we’re going to be allowed to do this’,” Strother recalls. “It was wild that it all came together.”
To unite the gang, all the characters from different eras had to be redesigned to belong in a modern, computer-animated world. All the original voice actors returned, except for the late Adriana Caselotti (Snow White).
■ The studio’s decades of innovation and culture-defining storytelling are captured in Disney: The Magic of Animation exhibition at ACMI in Melbourne. Disney: The Magic of Animation, ACMI, Federation Square, daily until January 23, $17-$26, family $72, under-4s free, acmi.net.au