WALT DISNEY — footnote episodes

Footnote #73 - Rotoscoping

Footnote 73 looks at animation’s historical relationship to the body and how physicality was transcribed via the rotoscoping process as part of the construction of the earliest animated characters. From the Fleischer Studios pioneering the technology for use in their Out of the Inkwell series of shorts (1918–1927) and later feature films Gulliver's Travels (David Fleischer, 1939), and Mr. Bug Goes to Town (Dave Fleischer, 1941), through to Bob Sabiston’s digital homage to rotoscoping when developing the Rotoshop tool during the 1990s, this episode has Chris take Alex through the mechanics of projecting performances onto glass to be be traced by the animators to craft their animated performances.

Footnote #57 - Disney's Nine Old Men

The Fantasy/Animation Footnotes continue with this look at Disney authorship and the industry of animation via a turn to the celebrated Nine Old Men, a core group of directors and artists involved with the consolidated of the Disney aesthetic and a key component of its hyper-realist visual style.

FOOTNOTE PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantFebruary 3, 2025WALT DISNEY, STYLE, GENDER, LABOUR, HOLLYWOODComment

Footnote #45 - The Disney Renaissance (with Peter Kunze)

Chris and Alex once again draw on the expertise of Dr Peter Kunze (Tulane University) for this discussion of the form and function of the period critically and culturally known as the Disney Renaissance.

Footnote #43 - Disney Princesses (with Robyn Muir)

Fresh from their discussion of Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023), Chris and Alex are once again joined by Dr Robyn Muir, Lecturer in Media and Communication (University of Surrey), author of The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A Feminist Analysis (2023), and founder and director of the Disney, Culture and Society Research Network to discuss the historical and cultural power of Disney princesses, a phenomenon that traverses films, merchandise, and several ancillary media.

Footnote #38 - Storybook Openings

Footnote #38 tackles the recurrent motif of the storybook that so often begins Disney’s animated features, but which also takes other forms and styles as part of the studio’s sustained dramatisation of storytelling.

FOOTNOTE PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantNovember 27, 2023WALT DISNEY, NARRATIVE, STORYTELLING, STYLE, HOLLYWOODComment

Footnote #8 - Plasmaticness

Footnote #8 offers a brief detour to the abridged and incomplete animated writings of Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein from the 1940s, and in particular his notorious concept of “plasmaticness” that he argued was a way of understanding the appeal and attraction of Walt Disney’s cartoon images