The conjurer of a cartoon empire

IT could all so easily have been a rabbit. When a young animator, hoping to carve a name for himself in Hollywood, was looking for an animal character to feature in a series of stories, he came up with Oswald the Rabbit. Unfortunately, he signed away the copyright, and had no choice but to come up with something else.

Perhaps it was just as well - the idea of an empire being built on the back of Oswald the Rabbit has an unconvincing ring to it. In the end, the second choice didn't do too badly, though. From his screen debut, Steamboat Willie in 1928, Mickey Mouse has become one of just a handful of figures recognised throughout the world, and helped turn his creator, Walt Disney, into one of the most important cultural figures of the 20th Century.

Even more than 30 years after his death, Disney's influence over animation is keenly felt, according to Shaun Featherstone, lecturer in computer animation at Teesside University.

"Walt Disney is an incredibly important figure in modern animation. You have to give Disney his due as a visionary for the time - the animation industry would not have moved as far as it has without him," he says.

Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, and at the age of seven was sketching pictures of the neighbours. After serving as an ambulanceman in the First World War, he worked in a Kansas City advertising agency, where he developed a fascination for animation techniques.

In 1923, he moved to Hollywood and started making short feature films from a garage with his brother Roy, with a moderate amount of success, until Mickey Mouse came along. But, it was the 1937 feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which revolutionised the way animation was perceived by both audiences and critics.

'Animation was the vaudeville act, it was very much in simple, straight-forward, five-minute films. Up until Snow White the audience really hadn't experienced animation as an art form," says Mr Featherstone. "Now we have such a lot of animation around, and a modern audience, I believe, owes everything to the risks that were taken with Snow White.

"It was a hell of a risk to fund a full-length feature, but it was Disney's vision to establish this new creative force." He says the keys to Disney's success in establishing animation as a film-making art in itself, and not just an adjunct to live action, were the emphasis on a strong story, and the top-flight techniques used by Disney's animators.

While Disney himself was no more than an ordinary draughtsman, he kept a keen eye on the work of his animators, earning himself a reputation as an ultra critical boss. And he pioneered the extended use of a technique known as roto-scoping, where film of a team of actors playing out sequences is then transposed into animation, giving the animated characters a live action feel. "He was a incredibly critical man, and would not settle for anything less than the best, to the point of being absolutely scathing," says Mr Featherstone. "He had his creative vision and, if anyone on the team didn't have the same vision, they suffered his wrath. But the pressure that must have been on him to come up with a winner every time was phenomenal, so I think we can forgive him his crotchetyness."

Not only did Disney transform the whole perception of animation, but he also gave birth to a cultural phenomenon, according to Lee Barron, lecturer in sociology at Northumbria University and a writer on films and culture. "He created an enduring icon and an American icon in Mickey Mouse - a figure recognised the world over as a symbol of America.

"Those early films have an emotional quality, and there are quite scary elements to Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, and the death of Bambi's mother was a huge event in many people's childhoods. For an animated feature to have that impact is extremely impressive."

Walt himself died of cancer at the age of 65, but the company which bears his name has carried on. But it has not been a tale of unalloyed success. A fallow period in the 1980s saw films including Oliver and Company and The Black Cauldron fail to set the box office alight. And recent years have seen them face stiff competition for the animators' crown from Dreamworks, responsible for Antz and this year's success, Shrek.

"They represent a major threat to Disney, particularly as Atlantis was not hugely successful this year," says Mr Barron. "If Disney has not lost its crown, it is in the process of doing so. There are alternative companies coming out and doing fabulous work, and the whole CGI (Computer Generated Images) revolution is really changing the face of animation."

But Disney is not taking this challenge lying down. Its collaboration with Pixar has produced the wildly successful Toy Story series, and the forthcoming Monsters Inc had the sixth highest opening in American box office history, taking $63.5m in a weekend.

It is going back to the principles of story-telling, combined with the latest animation techniques, which have put Disney back on the right course, according to Shaun Featherstone. "They are trying to establish a modern audience and be brave with animation again," he says. "The word from the studios is that the next few concepts are top-flight stuff."

These concepts include Lilo and Stitch, the story of an intergalactic alien who disguises himself as a dog and pairs up with a girl in Hawaii, and the rather simpler Treasure Planet, a futuristic reworking of Treasure Island.

But whereas the computer generated animation may be a prerequisite for a modern audience, the techniques used in the early features still figure prominently in Mr Featherstone's classes. When it comes to explaining the principles of animation, such as "squash and stretch" to show force of impact, there is little to compare with the classics.

"When I am teaching animation, some of the best examples of the basic principles I have found come from the Disney studios from about 1935 onwards," he says. "There are other incredibly talented animators who have not been given the same profile as Walt Disney, but he was a uniquely creative individual."