This brings me to the other changes in Disney’s first medium - animation. The major trends seem to be the melding of live action with "realistic" digital animation, which really took off way back with "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "Jurassic Park"; another trend is the specialization of animation into subcategories.

The first trend means that animation units and digital special effects houses are becoming one in the same. Consider special effects house Sony Pictures ImageWorks, which created an animated short and spawned Sony Pictures Animation, which made the recent feature "Open Season" and is completing the upcoming "Surf’s Up". When you watch the films from major series such as "The Matrix", "Harry Potter", "The Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars", "The Chronicles of Narnia", and "Pirates of the Caribbean", so much of what you are seeing in these "live action" films is animation or digital virtual sets. Plus, think of all of the advertisements on television that use animation to portray a realistic-looking setting, character, or prop. I have long hoped to see Disney keep its animation operation full and busy with work on such projects as well as enhancing websites, interactive games, music videos, toys, stage productions, and theme park attractions.

The second trend means that, even though more entertainment corporations may see the need for in-house animation/effects houses, there will also be more independent companies with different specializations of portrayal – backgrounds, crowds, props, humanoid leads, realistic animals, caricature animals, vehicles, explosions, weather, etc. Those firms will be used for both "live action" films and fully animated films.

For Disney, the acquisition of Pixar and subsequent changes marked an especially significant moment in the history of a corporation that had long lead, dominated, and inspired the animation film industry using an operation that grew from the ground up on the inside. The entire corporation existed because it grew around that animation production operation, and the corporation had gotten to the point where it had allowed someone else to beat them at their own game. Even more dramatic is the fact that some of the talented members of the victorious outsiders were frustrated or cast-off refugees from its own institution, people who were more in tune with what made Disney animation great to begin with.

It got to the point where Disney's name was more known in animation for the sequels that mere made with less expensive methods – most of them direct to video, but not all - and digital animation films released by Disney that were produced entirely by others.

The acquisition of Pixar and major Pixar talent and subsequent restructuring of Disney’s animation operations is, of course, something that will continue to have a profound effect on the company. Circle 7, the operation that Disney had formed to create digital sequels to the Pixar films it had released, was shut down as redundant. There are people who assert that Circle 7 was created purely as a bargaining chip to use against Pixar in negotiations. I have no way of knowing, and it is water under the bridge now anyway.

With Pixar's Ed Catmull and John Lasseter now also in charge of Disney's animation, and other Pixar people joining the mix, there has been a major change in Disney's animation leadership, along with the change in corporate leadership with Iger and Jobs.

Beyond Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and Sony Pictures Animation, there's Fox's Blue Sky Studios, which made the "Ice Age" films and "Robots". We may yet see more special effects houses follow Sony's recent example and create animated features – companies like Digital Domain, Rhythm & Hues Studios, Weta Digital, and Industrial Light & Magic, which spawned Pixar in the first place. Although George Lucas has said he's done making feature films, I would never say never.

There’s much more to note, such as changes in the cinemas themselves, home viewing, network television, telecom, theme parks, and more - but that will have to wait for the next installments of my column, which will be posted soon.

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