Disney has announced that it is investing $1.5 billion in Epic Games. The press release, which was accompanied by the teaser video below, says that the “equity stake” creates a financial partnership that will see both companies “collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories […]
The short film below shows how Disney’s Once Upon A Studio, made to celebrate the animation studio’s 100th. birthday, progressed through the various departments before it found its way onto our screens. This one shows some of the film’s many traditional animators demonstrating their craft. And this one shows the work of the voice cast. […]
From the start of 2024, 95 years after it was created, Disney’s original Mickey Mouse character, as seen in the 1928 short Steamboat Willie (below), passes into the public domain and becomes free to use. However, anybody thinking about doing something with the world’s ost famous rodent should read Disney’s fine print before getting underway. […]
In February 1957 Walt Disney recorded this video in which he talks about how the company made and used multi-plane cameras to create image segmentation in 2.5 dimensions and give depth to animated feature films. Here’s the Wikipedia explanation for how the technology worked. The multiplane camera is a motion-picture camera that was used in the traditional animation process that moves a […]
Disney appears to have stopped releasing 4k UHD versions of its live-action back catalogue on physical media. They will now be released on digital platforms only, with Blu-ray reserved for new releases, especially Star Wars titles and films set in the Marvel Universe, and classic animated movies. The Covid-19 pandemic and Disney’s downsizing of 20th. Century […]
Working in partnership with ETH Zurich, Disney Research has made a significant technical breakthrough by devising a fully automated, neural network-based face-swapping method that can be used for, for example, changing the age of an actor, incorporating a deceased actor into a scene or for when a stunt double is required. When a face swap […]