The Multiplane Camera - San Francisco, CA - Preserved Machines on Public Display on Waymarking.com

"The multiplane camera crane was developed by the Walt Disney studio in '1937. Most animated cartoons were filmed on a flat table, with the animation cels placed directly on top of the background art. The multiplane was a new development, designed to bring a convincing feeling of depth to animated films. This 12-foot crane, which extends into gallery five upstairs, is one of the three original multiplanes used in the Disney camera department during the 1930s and 1940s. It allows for multiple levels of animation and background art, spaced at wide intervals from each other. As these elements move toward or away from the camera, they appear to move in perspective. The result is a cartoon scene that seems to take place in a convincing three-dimensional world.

"The problem was how to take a painting and make it behave like a real piece of scenery under the camera. The trouble was, we were photographing a flat, two-dimensional background. . . . [But] with our original picture broken down in this manner, it is possible to control the relative speed with which each individual part of it moves to or away from the camera. . . . Since this new camera used many planes, we called it the multiplane camera." WALT, from his 1957 TV demonstration of the multiplane

Type of Machine: camera Year the machine was built: 1937 Year the machine was put on display: 2009 Is there online documentation for this machine: [Web Link]

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