Over the past century, Walt Disney and the company he founded have been at the forefront of some of the most important innovations in entertainment – from film and television to theme parks, hotels, and live performances. According to reports, the company currently has more than 4,000 active patents worldwide. Even so, many of its greatest successes have come from being an early adopter and significant improver of other people's inventions. Here are eight technological innovations that helped Disney become Disney.
1. Mix live-action and animation
Walt Disney first came to public attention in 1924 when he created a series of silent short films based on Alice in Wonderland. The Alice Comedy uses a technique that allows live-action actors to interact with animated characters as Alice, especially a Felix-like cat named Julius. Although this technique is not entirely new, putting a real character into a cartoon world is novel.
Disney uses a variety of technologies to achieve this goal. But basically, the process involves shooting Alice against a white background, drawing an animated character to fill in the blank areas, and then merging the two sets of images together by running two films at the same time.
Although Walt Disney is credited with the creator of the film, the special effects are mostly the work of animator Ubu Iwox, a colleague and occasional collaborator at Disney, according to Jeff Ryan, author of the book "Divided Mouse: How Ubu Iwox Was Forgotten, How Disney Became a Familiar Uncle."
The innovations of Ewox and Disney are considered pioneers of chroma key and green screen techniques, which were widely used in film and television.
Synchronized speakers
Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928) is often cited as the first cartoon to feature synchronized sound. While Disney's competitors actually had a few before that, his work was more advanced in terms of the delicate integration of music and sound effects with images, using a new technology called "Cinephone", which recorded audio directly on strips of film.
In November 1928, the show business newspaper Variety praised it as "a perfectly synchronized work, bright, lively, and perfectly matched to the situation".
Neil Gabler, in his 2006 biography Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, called Steamship Willie "a milestone in cinema" and "truly a musical cartoon rather than a cartoon with music." It is also a milestone in another way, giving the public a first glimpse of Mickey Mouse.
3. Technicolor
The Technicolor process used to make color films dates back to the 1910s. But Walt Disney was one of the first animators to adopt this process.
In 1932, Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation introduced a new, greatly improved process, known as the "Three Strips" Technicolor, and wanted the cartoon divisions of the major film studios to experiment with it. (In a nutshell, the three-step process uses a prism inside the camera to divide the light entering through the lens into three colors: green, red, and blue, and record them on three strips of black-and-white film.) These images are then dye-processed and combined together to form an image that appears to be a single, full-color image. ）
Unfortunately, "no cartoon maker would have taken it," recalls H.T. Calms, the company's co-founder, in 1938. "They told us that cartoons were good enough in black and white, and that of all the production departments, cartoons probably didn't need extra money the least. Finally, Walt Disney tried to give it a try in his 'Symphony for Dummies'. ”
Disney realized the superiority of the new processes and was willing to bear the additional cost of purchasing new cameras and dedicated technicians to operate them. His "Flowers and Trees" (1932) not only became the first cartoon with Technicolor in Sanjo, but also the first cartoon to win an Oscar.
From 1932 to 1935 Walt Disney purchased the exclusive rights to use the three strips Technicolor in his cartoons. This meant that other studios were stuck in poor color craftsmanship, contributing to Disney's growing reputation for technological excellence. Disney's first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, used this craft to stunning effect, even though the film's staggering production costs earned it the nickname "Disney's Silly Things" until equally staggering box office receipts began to roll in.
4. Multi-layer planar camera
This innovative camera setup allows animators to shoot multiple layers of animation at the same time, creating the illusion of three-dimensional depth in their cartoons. Disney wasn't the first filmmaker to experiment with the concept, but his team took it to the next level and is credited with inventing the technology functionally. Their cameras are 11 feet tall and 6 feet wide, requiring multiple operators.
"The multi-layered planar camera creates an effect that's hard to describe," Ryan says, "but when you see it, you're very immersed in the cartoon." ”
Disney first used his multi-layered flat-plane camera in the 1937 short film Old Mill, which was part of his "Symphony for Dummies" series, which won the award for Best Animated Short Film. It played an important role in the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was used until The Little Mermaid (1989) until computer-aided animation made it obsolete.
The Disney version of the multi-layered planar camera even won its own Oscar for technical achievement in 1937.
5. Audio animation
Invented and patented by Disney, these sound-synchronized robot figures first appeared at Disneyland in 1963 in the form of singing birds and flowers. In 1964, Disney's animated character Abraham Lincoln became a star at the Illinois Pavilion at the New York World's Fair, performing five times a day. According to the fair's guidelines, the puppet was able to stand up from a chair, read snippets of the president's speech, and was "capable of making more than 250,000 combinations of movements, including smiling, frowning and gestures." When the fair ended, the animated doll Lincoln took his show to Disneyland.
Today, animated dolls, including a more advanced Lincoln and characters from many Disney films, perform at the company's attractions worldwide. At the presidential hall at Disney World, Lincoln took the stage along with all the presidents including Joe Biden.
6. Fragrance diffuser
This relatively simple technique, more formally known as the "aroma firing system," uses hidden fans to pump out a variety of aromas throughout Disney theme parks and resorts to enhance the experience (and possibly appetite) of visitors, whether they realize it or not. It is said that Walt Disney arranged for the smell of vanilla to waft from the candy stores on Main Street in the United States in 1955, the same year that Disneyland opened.
Tourists strolling down Main Street in the United States these days may smell the smell of popcorn in the air, while the Pirates of the Caribbean cruise ship is legendary for its distinctive smell of water, often described as "damp and moldy" but still beloved. Scented candles that attempt to replicate its aroma are widely available online.
7. Thrilling technology
Starting with a giant leap forward in audio-animation, thrilling technology introduced in 2018 allowed wirelessly connected robotic stuntmen to perform thrilling stunts at Disney theme parks. As the company explains, "The on-board sensor enables the puppet to perform a variety of combinations of tumbling, twisting, and posing with repeatability and precision." Five flips and landed with a curl? No problem. ”
At the Avengers campus at California Adventure Park, a robotic stunt double dressed as Spider-Man briefly replaces the live actor and flies at 65 feet, somersaulting along the way. Normally, the stunt Spider-Man landed safely, except for an unfortunate incident in 2022 when he crashed into a wall.
8. Robots in training
Most likely, it will soon appear at a Disney attraction near you, and the robot in training is a baby-sized robot capable of staggering freely and interacting with visitors, thanks to the help of artificial intelligence. Leveraging Disney's engineering expertise and artists' talent for giving endearing personalities to everything, the company pre-displayed three of these robots at Disneyland in the fall of 2023 to widespread acclaim.
If there's one common denominator here, it's that Disney doesn't let technology get in the way of telling a good story, no matter how flashy it is.
"All the innovations they come up with are secondary," Ryan said. "This is a great innovation from Walter. He knows that people pay more attention to the characters than the technology behind them. ”