Disney's Frozen

Disney's latest release- Frozen- really shows how far 3D animation has come in recent years. The technology now allows the characters to move so realistically and it makes it possible to create detailed and realistic textures that almost make you feel like it's real instead of animated, although it clearly is..

I really loved this movie when I saw it over Christmas, the attention to detail and the realism were beautiful and the ability of technology in animation today amazes me. The "let it go" song sequence was stunning with the ice magic, this sort of animation would not have been possible many years ago and it really shows how far technology has come. Overall I think it was an amazing feature film.

Disney Pixar's Toy Story 1995

Toy Story was the first ever full length feature film made entirely with CG. It was made by a team of 27 animators at Pixar on a very small budget. Considering the small team, small budget and the fact that half the animators on this project hadn't even used computers to animate before, the leap from traditional hand drawn animation to CG made by Pixar with this movie is amazing. The expressions and movements achieved were incredible and the movie is still as good now as it was then, even with the improvements in CG and the new skills the Pixar team has now. Toy Story is nearly as old as I am and I grew up with it, so it's interesting to see how  much or little has changed between the original Toy Story, and Toy Story 3. Interestingly, not too much has changed in styles between these two movies, however the textures available in Toy Story 3 are much improved on the first.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937

Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is widely regarded as the first animated feature film. In fact it wasn't, however it was Disney's first animated feature length film and the first feature animation to use technicolour, making it a pioneering film. It was also the first animated feature to become successful across the english speaking world. It is a really well done 2D animation and the Disney style for princesses was established from this film. The Disney Style is easily recognised in all of their work because of the success of this film.

Environmental Storytelling: Up

The art directors at Disney outdid themselves in the movie 'Up'. The lighting and shadows in this movie are so realistic. This movie really shows the importance of observational on location drawing because, although the actual location of Paradise falls in the movie doesn't exist, a team of artists and photographers for Disney went to South America to draw and capture the surroundings and environment of jungles for their fictional world.

In these two images taken from Up, you can see the use of light and shadows and how realistically the shadows fall on the ground. This amount of realism could only be achieved through actual research of the table top mountains and jungles.

 They have also captured realistic rock textures and the texture of the jungle trees from a distance which makes this scene even more believable. 
I also like the way they have put detail into the distance, the way you can see other mountains faded into the horizon, blending into the sky. So much detail has gone into the backgrounds for this movie.


The lighting in this final picture shows paradise falls in the sunset and the shades of pink look natural in this light. 

Silly Symphonies- The Skeleton Dance 1929

The Skeleton Dance was one of Disney's first animated shorts with synchronised sound. The first was Steamboat Willie, however I prefer the Skeleton Dance as I like how the music fits so well with the characters. The movements are really fluid and the disney style is evident in this short. 
Although this is in black and white because colour wasn't really available for animation at the time, I think the black and white thing works really well with this animation because of it's graveyard scene.