History of animation #3: The Golden age and the Television era

In 1923, Studio Laugh-O-Grams , went bankrupt, which forces its owner , Walter E. Disney to open up a new studio in Los Angeles , starting what is to become a multi-billion corporation that has pretty much monopoly on the world animated scenes. But before it was the stereotypical , greedy corporation it is today, Disney animation studio started out as Disney Brother's Cartoon studios which exclusively produced short films. Prior to that , Disney created an animated film titled Alice's Wonderland, which is later on followed by Alice comedies. After its demise, Disney went to to work on a series featuring his own original character , Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It is within this character , that we will see the resemblance in design choices later on for Mickey Mouse

  
In 1928, The short steamboat Willie was created . Regard one of the most important animation to date, it not only introduced the world to one of the most popular character ever but also is considered a technical innovation of cartoon ingenuity , being the first of Disney's cartoons to have a full post-produced synchronised soundtrack and voice acting (albeit it is not actual dialog ) using Pat Power's cinephone system, which set it apart from earlier attempts like Song Car-tunes. Walt Disney has long considered synchronised sounds to be the future of animation , and is this pioneering mentality of him that eventually bleed into the studio and in turn make it one of the most creative studio at the time in terms of innovation. One example of this was the utilisation of storyboarding as we know it today. Although credited to George Melies, it the Disney studio who fully developed the method and spread its popularity, spreading not only into other animation studio but into the film industries as well, becoming a norm in relatively most visual media nowadays. It was also Disney who maintained the idea of having a separate department for story which handles the storyboard, hence creating the storyboard artist , a whole different from the animators themselves. One can said that Disney was in a very industrialisation mindset when he pioneer this idea, and it was like the Industrial revolution for animation .

  



One advantage of using storyboards is that it allows (in film and business) the user to experiment with changes in the storyline to evoke stronger reaction or interest. Flashbacks, for instance, are often the result of sorting storyboards out of chronological order to help build suspense and interest.

Another benefit of storyboarding is that the production can plan the movie in advance. In this step, things like type of camera shot, angle, and blocking of characters are decided.

The process of visual thinking and planning allows a group of people to brainstorm together, placing their ideas on storyboards and then arranging the storyboards on the wall. This fosters more ideas and generates consensus inside the group.

After the success of Mickey Mouse, and the signing with Technicolour to produce the first 3-strip technicolor film : Flowers and trees , Disney went on to work on Snow White and the seven dwarf. Also within that period , focuses was place on attracting season and experienced artists as well as newly graduate to come to the studio to join the production and create a learning environment, in which , it is within this time , that senior animators at Disney began compiling and formatting the important techniques of traditional animation , which would form the tenets and principles for all form of traditional animation to come, culminating in the 1981 book Illusion of life, and the 12 principles of animation. During the process , Disney animators also began experimenting with animating realistic movement and human figures, and also use multiplane camera , in which the artwork is separated into layers to create different plain hence create depth of field . This can be considered an early form of implementing 3D elements into tradition animation. Snow white was a unprecedented success that began what is the Golden age of animation and set to the be the beginning of Disney power over the industry and culture.

The Disney animation training program started at the studio before the development of Snow White in 1932 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, 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 the 1970s to the present.

From then on, Disney has experience a rise and fall in popularity , but still play its part in improving the quality of traditional animation , ( although , it has lost considered popularity to the current anime scenes ) , and more importantly serves as the place of learning and a stepping stone for new animators today. 

However, new players were coming into the scenes, and with the advent of the color Television , Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbera were beginning to dominate the small-screens numbers with Show like the Flint Stones, Looney toons, and Tom and Jerry, which forces Disney to look to the future : CGI .