New Documentary Highlights Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Orlando Building

A new independent documentary has been released about the history of the Walt Disney World Animation team.

What’s Happening:

  • Directed by Dane T. and uploaded to YouTube, Beyond The Glass: The WDW Animation Building is a new feature length documentary on Orlando’s own branch of the Walt Disney Animation Studios, which was called Walt Disney Feature Animation at the time.
  • The studio operated at the then-called Disney-MGM Studios as part of an attraction giving a behind-the-scenes look at animation production. The studio, Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, was a real working studio that was meant to provide support for its Burbank counterpart, eventually producing full features at the location. The studio itself closed in 2004, with the attraction becoming more of an interactive animation exhibit and show until its closure in 2015 to make way for the Star Wars Launch Bay.
  • The new documentary is filled with footage and interviews from numerous animators who worked at the Disney-MGM Studios’ Magic of Disney Animation attraction, and the working studio showcased within.
  • Orlando, now often ignored as a production house for film and television, was once an up-and-coming studio city, with the animation facility being the most successful part of the studio-theme park, playing a big part in the high-profile Disney Animation Renaissance as a support facility, later expanded to produce Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear in full at the Florida studio.
  • The documentary is now available to view for free on Youtube.

More Animation News:

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Marshal Knight
Marshal Knight is a pop culture writer based in Orlando, FL. For some inexplicable reason, his most recent birthday party was themed to daytime television. He’d like to thank Sandra Oh.