SLEEPING BEAUTY

1959

Sleeping Beauty is Walt Disney's 16th animated feature, and it's first attempt at a movie in 70mm film. This format was much larger than previous ones used by the studio and the sets took longer to finish. This was only one of the many reasons why the movie was the most expensive production to date by Disney.

The first version of the script, an adaptation of Pierrault's tale (written in 1697 and reinterpreted by the Brothers Grimm in 1812), was presented in 1952, but as many other Disney projects, was put on stan-by by Walt Disney. The main reason for putting the movie on hold was that Walt felt that the story bared to many similarities to Snow White and Cinderella, and although both films had been tremendously successful, he wanted to deliver something new.

LADY AND THE TRAMP

1955

Lady and the Tramp is Disney Animated Features' 15th movie, but more importantly, the first animated movie ever made for Cinemascope. Created in 1953, the CinemaScope lens allowed movies to be filmed and projected in wide screen, up to three times as long as previous formats. So the screen would actually be placed in a semicircle instead of having it flat, giving the projection a more surrounding effect.

The film was originally produced as a widescreen film, but with the increasing popularity of CinemaScope, Walt Disney decided to adapt it so it could be played both on widescreen and CinemaScope. So the team at Disney Studios had to work on two different versions of the film. Backgrounds were expanded and the characters had to be positioned further apart from each other to fit the CinemaScope format.