Animation – Studio research

Over half term I’ve had the task of choosing one of the major animation studios, Ardman, Blue Sky, Dreamworks, Pixar, Studio Ghible, or Walt Diseny, and researching it with the end goal of creating a slid show presentation. The presentation includes history, key people, and examples of the style.

I have chosen Walt Disney to research, as I am most familiar with their work and history, as well as there being a huge amount to explore, the studio having been active since the 1920s.

For research I’ve had really two sources; the Wikipedia pages for the studio and various films they produced, and documentaries found on YouTube. Some of the documentaries are about certain films, whilst some are about Disney in general.

Whilst watching and reading I took notes on the work sheets I was given.

Here are all the documentaries on YouTube that I found useful:

Making of Dumbo –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEhqBNlSfow

Making Of Snow White-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWJDWKQViI4

How Disney Cartoons are made –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OebUzEhSLBI

The Walt Disney Story Documentary –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHw5JSflDDk

The History of Mickey Mouse –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7C9DJmRjBE

Mickey Mouse History “It all started with a mouse” –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViTDhlxNCds

Making of the Little Mermaid –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACtGIs-elB0

Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009 documentary)

I watched this documentary on the Disney renaissance era, behind the scenes during this time and the build up to it. This was really helpful as my information was quite light on this time, focusing more on the golden age. This really showed me the hard times the studio was going through the struggle for animators to continue working.

It also shows that Disney was quite a difficult place to work and all the politics behind the films that where coming out. The film also helped me pick out Roy E. Disney as one of the key people in Disney history, as he really kept the animation department going despite the unsuccessful films. He kept them going through the hard times so that they could live to create the renaissance era.

With the research and resource gathering done, I now just have to put it altogether into the slide show.