If we pay a closer attention to Disney productions over the years we notice a common structure from which each film develops their own story: it is “the hero’s journey” formulated by Joseph Campbell in the book “a hero with a thousand faces”. it can be perceived as a cycle that takes place in the universe in which the hero lives. All the key stages happen in a special world but he starts and finishes (transformed) in his ordinary world. Some could argue that Disney’s attention to detail tends to be more directed towards animation rather than the story: this led many figures in the past years to try and broke the rules of Disney.

Can you think of any animation studios/forms of animation/animators who have imitated or been influenced by Disney’s hyperreal animation aesthetic in their editing? How do they do this? Include animation in its myriad forms in your consideration of your answer. 

There is always been the box office battle between Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks (even though ones can argue that the productions from the latter are more mature and deal with more introspective themes). We can spot similarly in a large number of films that they released around the same period. This is what happened in two film regarding stories set in South America: “The Road to El Dorado” (Dreamworks) and Emperor’s New Groove” (Disney), featuring an adventure comedy with a very similar narrative progression. Moreover, we can notice similarities between their animation styles and character concepts and design. In “The Road to El Dorado” the reference of Disney hyperrealism is easy to identify: the fictitious events and characters of the film are constructed to make the audience believe they are viewing events and characters that actually exist. The story was too derivative of the hall of fame of Disney Renaissance movies that came before it.

The following is a clip from the film:

Can you think of any any animation studios/forms of animation/animators who resist this aesthetic? How do they do this? Include animation in its myriad forms in your consideration of your answer. 

On the other hand, some made a shift towards Disney’s production procedures and hyperrealism such as Studio Ghibli created in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. The reason why their storytelling is so different from the Disney’s one is because is based on a different culture, the Japanese one: this way of telling a story is called “kishōtenketsu” (which characterised the fist Studio Ghibli’s films). Compared to the storytelling that western cultures are used to the kishōtenketsu includes long, quiet and introspective moments (often conceived as a window for the audience to be part of that particular passage) interrupted by a sudden change of events. This is method is often misinterpreted as a lack of action (relevant to the development of the film) or driving conflict. This method is the one we can find in works such as “My Neighbor Totoro”.

https://medium.com/the-creative-journey/the-secret-to-disneys-storytelling-formula-3a2a2a8bb322

https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/1/21202735/the-road-to-el-dorado-characters-memes-dreamworks-movies

https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/what-makes-ghibli-storytelling-so