Walt Disney and the Development of Animation

Este artigo é uma tradução para o inglês de um outro 

publicado em português aos 14.7.2012. 

(This article is a translation into English from another originally written in Portuguese

 published on 14.7.2012.)

            When Disney started his career in animation, cartoons were short subject and no more than simple entertainment in a movie session, among the serials, the news-reels, and the short comedies.

            The “Disneys” of that time were Otto Messmer (“Felix the Cat”) and the Fleisher brothers (“Out of Inkwell”, Betty Boop, etc).

Otto Messmer (1892 – 1983) and Felix the Cat.

 

Max Fleischer (1883–1972) and Bimbo.

            

Dave Fleischer (1894–1979) preparing filming with a 3D background..

            The Fleishers were great innovators, developing the rotoscopy and the first experiments in 3D, sound and color.

            What did Disney to grew to the point to overcome those great pioneers of cartoon was his desire to transform the cartoon into an art form comparable to feature movies. Animators before Disney produced funny cartoons, just exploring what the feature films couldn’t such as defying gravity, giving life to inanimate things and so on.

            Slowly Disney started to make his screen writers create more than funny situations with animals. They, the animals, needed to have personality and to be involved in situations with which the audience could connect emotionally. In other words, Disney introduced realism into fantasy. In a few years the studio no longer had space in his films for buildings swinging because the moon was singing or anything else that was not plausible fantasy.

            The natural evolution of this was the search for the best professionals, the sectorization in production and the search for technical developments as sound and colour.

            All this, Messmer and the Fleishers could not or would not to follow. When Mickey started to talk, he actually spoke, articulating mouth and pronouncing words what neither Felix of Betty Boop were able to do.

Someone once wrote that the best of Disney are the short films where he’s not concerned with the tricks of feature movies.

Possibly, but the facts are that short films were losing public favour in the 1930’s and Disney saw in it an opportunity for a further development of his art conceiving a feature movie. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was probably intended to kill the shorts if World War II did not impose its economic constraints giving to the short films over a decade of life on the big screen, being so far Disney's biggest achievement in animation.

You can watch "Woos Whoopee" (1928) by Otto Messmer & Pat Sullivan here.

You can watch "Koko's Earth Control" (1928) by the  Fleischer Studios here.

You can watch "Steamboat Willie" (1928) by the Walt Disney Studios here.

 You can watch a scene from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) by the Walt Disney Studios here. 
 

Walt Disney (1901-1966) and Mickey Mouse.