Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA) is the animation studio that makes up a key element of The Walt Disney Company. The Feature Animation studio was an integrated part of Walt Disney Productions from 1934 (the start of production on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) until 1986, when, during the corporate restructuring to create The Walt Disney Company, it officially became a subsidiary of the company. Image File history File links Walt Disney Feature Animation Logo File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Animation is the filming a sequence of drawings or positions of models to create an illusion of movement. ... The Walt Disney Company (most commonly known as Disney; NYSE: DIS) is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Locations

It is headquartered in Burbank, California, across the street from the original Walt Disney Studios in a specialized building that was completed in 1995. Satellite studios once existed at Disney-MGM Studios in Lake Buena Vista, Florida (1989–2003) (1995–2002), but those studios were closed in an effort to revive lagging profits by restructuring and recentralizing the division to produce fully computer-animated features solely in Burbank. From 1985 until his resignation in November 2003, WDFA was officially headed by Chairman Roy E. Disney, who exercised much influence within the division. Most decisions, however, were made by the WDFA President, who officially reported to Disney but who in practice also reported to the (then) head of the Disney studios and Disney chief Michael Eisner. Founded May 1, 1887 Incorporated July 8, 1911 General Information County Los Angeles County, California Latitude Longitude 34°1049 N 118°1942 W Area  - Total  - Water 45 km² (17. ... ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Disney-MGM Studios is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, USA. It opened on May 1, 1989. ... Lake Buena Vista is a city located in Orange County, Florida, U.S., at the 2000 census the population was 16. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Roy E. Disney Roy Edward Disney, KCSG, (born January 10, 1930) is a longtime senior executive for the Walt Disney Company, which his father Roy Oliver and his uncle Walt founded. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ...

Today, Ed Catmull serves as president of the combined Disney-Pixar animation studios, and John Lasseter serves as the studios' Chief Creative Officer. Catmull reports to Walt Disney Company President & CEO Bob Iger as well as Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook. Lasseter, who has greenlight authority, reports to Disney's President & CEO Bob Iger and consults with Disney Director Roy E. Disney. Edwin Catmull after receiving a medal at SIGGRAPH 2001. ... John A. Lasseter (born January 12, 1957 in Hollywood, California) is an American animator and the chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Feature Animation. ... Robert Bob Iger is the President and COO of the Walt Disney Company and Michael Eisners hand_picked successor as CEO. Previously he served as President and COO of Capital Cities/ABC until that companys merger with Disney. ... Dick Cook is the studio chief for the Walt Disney Company (officially, Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios). ...

History

Walt Disney began the move into features in 1934, pulling selected animators away from the short subjects division that had previously been the whole of Walt Disney Productions. The result was the first animated feature in English and Technicolor, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White became an unprecedented success when it was released to theatres in February 1938, and it and many of the subsequent feature productions became film classics. These first features were presented as being made in "multiplane technicolor", since both the multiplane camera and technicolor were still something new in the area of animation. Following the successes of these features, Disney expanded his company's operations, moving into live-action features, television, and theme parks. Beside successes like Snow White, Dumbo, and Cinderella, Disney also directed the Feature Animation staff create experimental and stylized films such as Fantasia and Sleeping Beauty which sustained losses and did not recoup their costs until decades after their original releases. Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966), was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, visionary, and philanthropist. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... A short film (also short or short subject) is a motion picture that is shorter than the average feature film. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Logo celebrating Technicolors 90th Anniversary. ... Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Ferris wheel Amusement park is the more generic term for a collection of amusement rides and other entertainment attractions assembled for the purpose of entertaining a fairly large group of people. ... Dumbo is the fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... Walt Disneys 1950 adaptation of Cinderella. ... Fantasia is a 1940 motion picture, the third in the Disney animated features canon, which was a Walt Disney experiment in animation and music. ... Sleeping Beauty is the sixteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ...

After Walt Disney's death in 1966, the animation department found itself without direction. The animators struggled to regain their footing but created films which were technically polished but told lackluster stories. In 1973, lead animator Eric Larson began an experimental recruitment program to see if new young talent could be found to bring new blood to the industry. This began the training of a whole new generation of animators that would bring animation to new heights and greatly influence the world's popular culture. After honing their craft on a series of fairly modest pictures, these new artists finally found true success again with The Little Mermaid in 1989. A string of successful films, such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King followed suit, and Disney expanded WDFA to a total staff of over 2,400 by 1999, including employees located at satellite studios in Orlando and Paris. 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Eric Larson (September 3, 1905-October 25, 1988) was an animator for the Walt Disney Studios in the early 20th century and was one of the Disneys Nine Old Men. ... The Little Mermaid is a Disney animated feature adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Little Mermaid. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated film, the thirtieth animated feature to be released by the Walt Disney Company. ... Aladdin (first released on November 11, 1992) is an animated Disney movie telling a version of the story of Aladdin and the magic lamp from The Arabian Nights. ... The Lion King is the 32nd animated feature in the Disney animated feature canon, and the third highest-grossing animated feature film ever released in the United States. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

However, the expansion coincided with a decline in both revenue and quality of the department's output. Competition from other studios drove animator salaries to a high level, making 2D animated features a costly proposition, and beginning in 2000, massive layoffs were done to bring the staff back down to 600. Deciding that the reason for its failing box office draw was the fact that they still used traditional animation methods in a time when Pixar and DreamWorks were producing highly successful computer-animated features, Disney converted WDFA into an all-CGI studio, performing more layoffs and selling off its traditional animation equipment. The Orlando studio was shut down in 2003, and the Paris studio followed suit in 2004. The Orlando studio was turned into an attraction at a Disney theme park, the Paris studio was located in Montreuil, at the city limits of Paris and was never associated with the theme park. An entire new Disney theme park was built on the site next to the old Paris theme park. This article is about the year 2000. ... Traditional animation, sometimes also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation, is the oldest and historically the most popular form of animation. ... Pixar Animation Studios is an award-winning American computer animation studio based in Emeryville, California (USA). ... DreamWorks SKG is one of the major American film studios which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games, and television programming. ... Computer animation is the art of creating moving images via the use of computers. ... Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the application of the field of computer graphics (or more specifically, 3D computer graphics) to special effects. ... Disney-MGM Studios is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, USA. It opened on May 1, 1989. ... The Walt Disney Studios Park, known as Parc Walt Disney Studios in France, is one of two theme parks in the Disneyland Resort Paris. ...

As of 2004, WDFA's last traditional film was Home on the Range. Its first all-computer animated film was Chicken Little in 2005. Disney continued to release lower-budget traditional films produced by the DisneyToons studio in Australia until 2005, when that studio was shut down as well. In January 2006, Disney purchased Pixar and began plans to merge Pixar's studio with WDFA. The collective works of both WDFA and Pixar from 2006 will be overseen by former Pixar president Ed Catmull and Walt Disney Studios head Dick Cook, with Pixar guru John Lasseter appointed chief creative officer of all Disney animated product. 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Home on the Range is the forty-fourth film in the Disney animated feature canon. ... Chicken Little (2005) is a computer-generated imagery (CGI) animated film and the forty-fifth animated film made and produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution on November 4, 2005. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... DisneyToons, formerly known as Walt Disney Television Animation Austrailia, is an animation studio owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company, and based out of Sydney, Australia. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pixar Animation Studios is an award-winning American computer animation studio based in Emeryville, California (USA). ... John A. Lasseter (born January 12, 1957 in Hollywood, California) is an American animator and the chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Feature Animation. ...

On February 22, 2006, Jim Hill Media released a report that WDFA is making a slow, but steady return to traditional animation, with the release in 2007 of a new film called Enchanted, which is a blend of animation and live action. The animated portions are stated to be done in traditional animation. The report further stated that if they decide to return to traditional animation, WDFA would turn out a major film once every three and one-half to four years, compared to every six months to one year before. This is due to the fact that WDFA's workforce would be significantly reduced from the number of workers it had since the last traditionally animated production.^[1] Enchanted is a Disney film currently in production. ...

In July 2006, Disney announced the production of its first traditionally animated film in some time, to be titled The Frog Princess. ^[2] John Lasseter green-lit the project, hiring Ron Clements and John Musker to direct (Clements and Musker had resigned from Disney the year prior), and Alan Menken to provide the film score. Clements, Musker, and Menken had been among the key figures of Disney's late-1980s/early-1990s renaissance. The Frog Princess is an animated film currently in development by Walt Disney Feature Animation. ... John A. Lasseter (born January 12, 1957 in Hollywood, California) is an American animator and the chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Feature Animation. ... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... John Musker (born in Chicago, Illinois, USA) is an American animation director. ... Alan Menken Alan Menken (born July 22, 1949) is an American Broadway and film music composer. ...

Collaborations

WDFA has occasionally joined forces with Walt Disney Imagineering to create an attraction for a Disney theme park which has required the expertise of Disney animators. Among this select number of attractions are; Walt Disney Imagineering, was formed by entertainment mogul Walt Disney on December 16, 1952 as WED Enterprises (WED: Walter Elias Disney) to develop plans for a theme park and to manage Disneys personal assets. ...

• Mickey's PhilharMagic at the Walt Disney World, Magic Kingdom and Hong Kong Disneyland
• Stitch's Great Escape at the Walt Disney World and Magic Kingdom

WDFA and WDI also collaborated with the in-house entertainment studios at Disneyland and the Disney-MGM Studios to develop the night-time Fantasmic! show. Mickeys PhilharMagic is a 3D interactive show at the Magic Kingdom theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. ... Cinderella Castle, at the center of the Magic Kingdom, is Walt Disney World Resorts most recognizable icon Introduction Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company, the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, USA is home to four theme parks, two water parks, several resort hotels and golf courses... The Magic Kingdom is a theme park covering 107 acres (433,000 m²) at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. ... Hong Kong Disneyland (Traditional Chinese: 香港迪士尼樂園; Cantonese Jyutping: hoeng1 gong2 dik6 si6 nei4 lok6 jyun4; Mandarin Pinyin: Xiānggǎng Díshìní Lèyuán) is the first theme park inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, which is owned and managed by the Hongkong International Theme Parks, an incorporated company... Stitchs Great Escape, opened on November 16, 2004, and is a new attraction located at Walt Disney World in the Magic Kingdoms Tomorrowland. ... Disneyland (since 1998 officialy Disneyland Park, to distinguish it from the Disneyland Resort complex of which it is a part), is a theme park in Anaheim, California, USA (28 miles from Downtown Los Angeles). ... Disney-MGM Studios is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, USA. It opened on May 1, 1989. ... Fantasmic! is the night-time fireworks and visual hydrotechnic show at Disneyland in California and Disney-MGM Studios, Florida. ...

Achievements

The Feature Animation studio is noted for creating a number of now-standard innovations in the animation industry, including:

• the multiplane camera (for Snow White, but first used in the Academy-award winning short "The Old Mill")
• the realistic animation of special effects and human characters (for Snow White)
• advanced composition processes to combine live-action and animated elements using color film (for The Three Caballeros)
• the use of xerography in animation to transfer drawings to cels as opposed to ink-tracing (developed for One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but first tested in a few scenes in Sleeping Beauty and first fully used in the Academy-award nominated short Goliath II)
• the use of all-digital methods for painting, compositing, and recording animated features CAPS (Computer Animation Production System)

Among its significant achievements are: A multiplane camera built by an animation hobbyist in 1972. ... The Old Mill is a 1937 Silly Symphonies cartoon produced by Walt Disney, directed by Wilfred Jackson, and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on November 5, 1937. ... The Three Caballeros is the seventh animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... Chester F. Carlson Xerography (or Electrophotography) is a photocopying technique developed by Chester Carlson in 1938 and patented on October 6, 1942. ... One Hundred and One Dalmatians (often abbreviated as 101 Dalmatians) is the seventeenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... Sleeping Beauty is the sixteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... The Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) is a proprietary collection of software programs, camera systems and custom desks developed by The Walt Disney Company together with Pixar in the late-1980s to computerize the ink and paint and post-production processes of traditionally animated feature films produced by Walt Disney...

• the first animated feature in Technicolor (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
• the first major motion picture in stereophonic sound (Fantasia)
• the first large format animated film (the 70mm Sleeping Beauty)
• the first film to use the APT process (The Black Cauldron)
• the first feature film to be shot using an all-digital process (The Rescuers Down Under, which introduced Disney's CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) process)
• the first animated feature to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (Beauty and the Beast),
• the highest-grossing traditionally animated feature of all time (The Lion King).
• the largest film premiere in history with over 100,000 viewers (Pocahontas).

Logo celebrating Technicolors 90th Anniversary. ... Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... For other uses see film (disambiguation) Film refers to the celluliod media on which movies are printed Film — also called movies, the cinema, the silver screen, moving pictures, photoplays, picture shows, flicks, or motion pictures, — is a field that encompasses motion pictures as an art form or as... Stereophonic means having two channels of audio. ... Fantasia is a 1940 motion picture, the third in the Disney animated features canon, which was a Walt Disney experiment in animation and music. ... Large format describes photographic films, view cameras (including pinhole cameras) and processes that use a film or digital sensor the size of 4 x 5 inches or larger. ... Sir Edward Burne-Jones painted The Sleeping Beauty. ... Example of the APT process in the movie The Black Cauldron The APT process is basically a photographic transfer system that can photographically transfer lines or solid blocks of colour onto acetate sheets. ... The Black Cauldron (also known as Taran and the Magic Cauldron in some countries) is the twenty-fifth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... The Rescuers Down Under is the twenty-ninth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and was released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution on November 16, 1990. ... The Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) is a proprietary collection of software programs, camera systems and custom desks developed by The Walt Disney Company together with Pixar in the late-1980s to computerize the ink and paint and post-production processes of traditionally animated feature films produced by Walt Disney... // The Academy Award for Best Motion Picture is one of the Academy Awards, awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which are voted on by others within the industry. ... Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated film, the thirtieth animated feature to be released by the Walt Disney Company. ... The Lion King is the 32nd animated feature in the Disney animated feature canon, and the third highest-grossing animated feature film ever released in the United States. ... Pocahontas is the thirty-third animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ...

See also

• List of Disney animated features
• The Walt Disney Company
• Walt Disney

This is a list of theatrical animated feature films produced and/or released by Walt Disney Productions/The Walt Disney Company: // Official canon (Walt Disney Animated Classics) The following is a list of the forty-eight feature films part of the Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA) canon, also known as... The Walt Disney Company (most commonly known as Disney; NYSE: DIS) is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. ... Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966), was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, visionary, and philanthropist. ...

Notes

1. ^ Hill, Jim (Feb. 22, 2006). Traditional animation's slow-but-steady return to Walt Disney Studios. JimHillMedia.com.
2. ^ (@006). " Disney to Animate 2-D Frog Princess." Comingsoon.net. Retrieved from http://comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=15709 on August 10, 2006.