Walt Disney’s 1957 MultiPlane Camera
Posted on June 21, 2011 in Cinematography | 1 Comment
Walt Disney explains his multiplane camera in this 1957 film. The camera is a special motion picture camera used in the traditional animation process that moves a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another. This creates a three-dimensional effect, although not actually stereoscopic.
The first multiplane camera, using four layers of flat artwork before a horizontal camera, was invented by former Walt Disney Studios animator/director Ub Iwerks in 1933, using parts from an old Chevy car.
The Little Mermaid was the final Disney film to use a multiplane camera, though the work was done by an outside facility as Disney’s cameras were not functional at the time. The process was made obsolete by the implementation of a “digital Multiplane camera” feature in the digital CAPS process used for subsequent Disney films and in other computer animation systems.
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We got to see this rig in San Francisco at the Walt Disney Museum . Very impressive!