Ever since birth I have been exposed to Disney in many aspects. On most every holiday vacation, my family would try to spend at least one day at Disneyland and Disney movies were always, and still are, a huge part of my life. In more recent years, my love has grown more than just the average fascination with princesses and fairytales; I’ve been taking an interest in animation. I find animation to be incredible, and Disney was a huge trendsetter in the animating field. Upon little research, it appeared that Disney’s animation began around the 1920s, continuing in this modern day, fitting the topic of modern world history. It seemed obvious that I would choose my topic to be on Disney’s influence on animation and technology.
I began my research by first going to Disneyland Resort. While you might not think that Disneyland Resort would have information on Disney animation, you are mistaken; Disney’s California Adventure has a specific building dedicated just to Disney animation. In said building, there are many different interactive activities: zoetropes involving both clay and drawn models, the Animation Academy which has fifteen minute classes teaching you how to draw certain characters, as well as other marvels in the Sorcerer’s Workshop. After my day at Disneyland, I checked out three very detailed books in the library. One of the books was a key primary source, written firsthand by two of Disney’s “nine old men.” The other two books, also helpful, were secondary sources. Other secondary sources were found on the Internet. I recorded all my information on index cards to further organize my information.
After all my information was gathered, I began creating my site. I used a site, known as blogger, as the host, simply because I know how it works and knew it would be the best for the effect I was trying to achieve. I also purchased a poster board to act as my tangible museum exhibit and to organize my information properly. I used pictures I took at Disney’s California Adventure to paste to my exhibit. On my site, I used pictures of my museum exhibit to display on there. In addition, I also recorded many short videos that I uploaded to a host site, YouTube, so I could also have those on my site.
