Saturday 24 August 2024

Beyond The Glass: The WDW Animation Building


Directed by Dane T. and free to watch at YouTube, Beyond The Glass: The WDW Animation Building is a new feature length documentary about the Orlando, Florida branch of the Walt Disney Animation Studios - known as Walt Disney Feature Animation at the time.  For me personally it's a trip down memory lane, as I started my own animation career at Disney MGM Studios on "RollerCoaster Rabbit" back in the late 1980s.  
Disney MGM Studios
Back in the 1980s the Disney Studio operated at the then-called Disney-MGM Studios, as part of an attraction giving a behind-the-scenes look at animation production. The studio, Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, was a real working studio that was meant to provide support for its Burbank counterpart, eventually producing full features at the location. The studio itself closed in 2004, with the attraction becoming more of an interactive animation exhibit and show until its closure in 2015 to make way for the Star Wars Launch Bay.

Beyond The Glass: The WDW Animation Building
The new documentary is filled with footage and interviews from numerous animators who worked at the Disney’s MGM Studios’ Magic of Disney Animation attraction, and the studio showcased within.
Orlando, now often ignored as a production house for film and television, was once an up-and-coming studio city, with the animation facility being the most successful part of the studio-theme park, playing a big part in the high-profile Disney Animation Renaissance as a support facility, later expanded to produce Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear in full at the Florida studio.





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