Walt Disney Animation Studios, sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company. Founded on October 16, 1923 by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney, it is one of the oldest-running animation studios in the world and acts as a division of Walt Disney Studios, being headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. Since its foundation, the studio has produced 58 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Frozen II, hundreds of short films. Founded as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923, renamed Walt Disney Studio in 1926 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929, the studio was dedicated to producing short films until it expanded into feature production in 1934, resulting in 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, one of the first full-length animated feature films and the first one made in the United States.
In 1986, during a large corporate restructuring, Walt Disney Productions, which had grown from a single animation studio into an international multimedia company, was renamed The Walt Disney Company and the animation studio Walt Disney Feature Animation in order to differentiate it from the other divisions. Its current name was adopted in 2007 after Pixar Animation Studios was acquired by Disney in the previous year. For much of its existence, the studio was recognized as the premier American animation studio; the studio pioneered the art of storyboarding, now a standard technique used in both animated and live-action filmmaking. The studio's catalog of animated features is among Disney's most notable assets, with the stars of its animated shorts – Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Pluto – becoming recognizable figures in popular culture and mascots for The Walt Disney Company as a whole. Walt Disney Animation Studios is managed by Jennifer Lee and Clark Spencer, continues to produce films using both traditional animation and computer-generated imagery.
Kansas City, Missouri natives Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Angeles in 1923 and got their start producing a series of silent Alice Comedies short films featuring a live-action child actress in an animated world; the Alice Comedies were distributed by Margaret J. Winkler's Winkler Pictures, which also distributed a second Disney short subject series, the all-animated Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, through Universal Pictures starting in 1927. Upon relocating to California, the Disney brothers started working in their uncle Robert Disney's garage at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles in October 1923 formally launched their studio in a small office on the rear side of a real estate agency's office at 4651 Kingswell Avenue. In February 1924, the studio moved next door to office space of its own at 4649 Kingswell Avenue. In 1925, Disney put down a deposit on a new location at 2719 Hyperion Avenue in the nearby Silver Lake neighborhood, which came to be known as the Hyperion Studio to distinguish it from the studio's other locations, in January 1926 the studio moved there and took on the name the Walt Disney Studio.
Meanwhile, after the first year's worth of Oswalds, Walt Disney attempted to renew his contract with Winkler Pictures, but Charles Mintz, who had taken over Margaret Winkler's business after marrying her, wanted to force Disney to accept a lower advance payment for each Oswald short. Disney refused, as Universal owned the rights to Oswald rather than Disney, Mintz set up his own animation studio to produce Oswald cartoons. Most of Disney's staff was hired away by Mintz to move over, once Disney's Oswald contract was done in mid-1928. Working in secret while the rest of the staff finished the remaining Oswalds on contract and his head animator Ub Iwerks led a small handful of loyal staffers in producing cartoons starring a new character named Mickey Mouse; the first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, were previewed in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon, Disney produced a soundtrack, collaborating with musician Carl Stalling and businessman Pat Powers, who provided Disney with his bootlegged "Cinephone" sound-on-film process.
Subsequently, the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound and was a major success upon its November 1928 debut at the West 57th Theatre in New York City. The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons, distributed by Powers through Celebrity Productions became the most popular cartoon series in the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, debuted in 1929 with The Skeleton Dance. In 1930, disputes over finances between Disney and Powers led to Disney's studio, reincorporated on December 16, 1929, as Walt Disney Productions, signing a new distribution contract with Columbia Pictures. Powers in return signed away Ub Iwerks, who began producing cartoons at his own studio although he would return to Disney in 1940. Columbia distributed Disney's shorts for two years before the Disney studio entered a new distribution deal with United Artists in 1932; the same year, Disney signed a two-year exclusive deal with Technicolor to utilize its new 3-strip color film process, which allowed for fuller-color reproduction where previous color film processors could not.
The result was the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees, the first film commercially released in full Technicolor. Flowers and Trees wa
Il pastor fido is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was set to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi based on the famed and familiar pastoral poem of the same name by Giovanni Battista Guarini, it had its first performance on 22 November 1712 at the Queen's Theatre in the London. It was first performed on 22 November of the same year under the composer; the opera opened to a hostile reception due to disappointment after the success of Rinaldo: one diarist noted critically that "the scene represented only the Country of Arcadia. The roles of Mirtillo and Silvio were sung by the castratos Valeriano Pellegrini and Valentino Urbani; the overture is in six movements and is long for its time: it is thought that it may have been composed as an unrelated orchestral suite. The revival of the spring of 1734, in which Giovanni Carestini took the role of Mirtillo, was far more successful, but Handel altered the music: only seven of the original arias remained, those cut were replaced by arias from Handel's cantatas or earlier operas.
This production enjoyed a run of 13 performances. In the winter of 1734 Il pastor fido was revived again: Carestini remained as Mirtillo and the English tenor John Beard took the role of Silvio. A newly composed prologue, was added to the opera for this run of performances; the prologue consisted of solo arias, choral movements, orchestral writing for dance: the danced role of Terpsichore was performed by Marie Sallé, whose dance company had been engaged by Covent Garden manager John Rich. As with all Baroque opera seria, Il Pastor Fido went unperformed for many years, but with the revival of interest in Baroque music and informed musical performance since the 1960s,Il Pastor Fido, like all Handel operas, receives performances at festivals and opera houses today. Among other performances, the work was performed as part of the London Handel Festival in 2012 and by the Handel Festival Halle in 2019. Scene: Arcadia, in the Greek countryside, in legendary antiquity. Diana, virgin huntress goddess, has become displeased with Arcadia and has let it be known that only through the marriage of a couple descended from heavenly ancestors, one of whom will be "a faithful shepherd", will her wrath be appeased.
The couple who are believed to fit this description are the hunter Silvio, but he has no interest in love, being dedicated to Diana and only interested in hunting, the shepherdess Amarilli, who however is in love with the shepherd Mirtillo, whose ancestry is unknown. The shepherd Mirtillo is unhappy due to his great love for Amarilli, going to have to marry the hunter Silvio in order to please the goddess Diana. Amarilli is unhappy about her proposed marriage as she has fallen in love with Mirtillo, whose family background is not known, although she has not told him she loves him. Mirtillo overhears her lamenting her love for him and woos her, but she rejects him as her duty is to marry Silvio for the sake of the common welfare. Mirtillo is in such despair at this; the shepherdess Eurilla is in love with Mirtillo, prevents him from killing himself, offers to try to win Amarilli for him. Eurilla is only interested in winning Mirtillo for herself. Silvio, the hunter, has no interest in girls or getting married at all, he wishes to remain chaste like his patroness the goddess Diana.
Yet another shepherdess, Dorinda, is smitten with Silvio but he rejects her love, to her sorrow. In a rocky grove, Mirtillo sings himself to sleep with a song in praise of his beloved Amarilli; as he slumbers, Eurilla enters with a garland of flowers with a note "From someone who adores you and is waiting for you there" and places it on his body. When he awakes, he thinks. Eurilla tells Amarilli that Mirtillo has received a love token and an invitation to an amorous tryst from another girl, which makes her jealous. Meanwhile, Dorinda continues to pester Silvio with her protestations of affection, he continues to make it clear he is not interested. Eurilla tells Mirtillo that his love is on her way and he should go into the nearby cave and wait for her, which he does. Eurilla fetches Amarilli and tells her she can watch what Mirtillo is up to with the other girl from inside the same cave, leads Amarilli into it too. Now that the two are in the cave together, Eurilla will go and tell the law authorities to arrest them for illicit sex, for which Arcadian law prescribes death for the female partner, Amarilli will be executed, Eurilla will have Mirtillo for her own.
In the sacred grove outside the temple of Diana, the lovesick Dorinda hears her Silvio coming with his fellow hunters and hides in the bushes to watch him. Silvio, seeing movement in the growth, thinks it is a deer and spears it, but he is sorry to find it is Dorinda, not dead but wounded. Silvio discovers he is overwhelmed with love with her after all and they vow to be one. Eurilla's scheme has been successful - Amarilli has been condemned to die for unchastity. Mirtillo begs to be allowed to die in her place but he is refused. Amarilli is being led to her execution when the chief priest of Diana enters with a new decree from the goddess. Mirtillo is the "faithful shepherd" of the prophecy. Human sacrifice is abolished, a double wedding is announced and Amarilli as well as Silvio and Dorinda. Eurilla asks for and receives forgiveness, the curse is lifted from the land, all rejoice; the German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian op
Taxis to Hell – and Back – Into the Jaws of Death is a photograph taken on June 6, 1944, by Robert F. Sargent, a chief photographer's mate in the United States Coast Guard, it depicts U. S. Army's 1st Infantry Division soldiers disembarking from an LCVP from the U. S. Coast Guard-crewed USS Samuel Chase at Omaha Beach during the Normandy Landings in World War II; the photograph was taken by Chief Photographer's Mate Robert Sargent during the troop landing phase of Operation Neptune, the naval component of the Operation Overlord Normandy landing known as D-Day. The photograph was taken at 7:40 AM local time, it depicts the soldiers departing the Higgins boat and wading through waist-deep water towards the "Easy Red" sector of Omaha Beach. The image was one of the most reproduced photographs of the D-Day landings; the original photograph is stored by the United States Coast Guard Historian's Office. Neptune was the largest combat operation performed by the United States Coast Guard in American history.
The Higgins boat depicted in the photograph had departed from the attack transport USS Samuel Chase about 10 miles from the coast of Normandy at around 5:30 AM. Waves continuously broke over the boat's square bow, the soldiers inside were drenched in cold ocean water. In all, Samuel Chase lost six landing craft on D-Day; the phrase "into the jaws of Death" in the photograph's title comes from a refrain in "The Charge of the Light Brigade", an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. The image was evoked in the 1998 Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan, appears on the cover of Stanley Lombardo's 1997 English translation of the Iliad as a symbol of the universality of war; the picture was rendered on the 2017 Call of Duty game Call of Duty: WWII. Media related to Into the Jaws of Death at Wikimedia Commons