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Walt Disney Animation Studios

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Foundation date 1 january 2007
Creator Walt Disney

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, is an American animation studio that creates animated feature films, short films, and television specials for The Walt Disney Company. Founded on October 16, 1923, it is a division of The Walt Disney Studios. The studio has produced 54 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 to Big Hero 6 in 2014.

Originally founded as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929, the studio was exclusively dedicated to producing short films until it expanded into feature production in 1934. In 1983, Walt Disney Productions named its live-action film studio Walt Disney Pictures. During a corporate restructuring in 1986, Walt Disney Productions was renamed The Walt Disney Company and the animation division, renamed Walt Disney Feature Animation, became a subsidiary of its film division, The Walt Disney Studios. In 2006, Walt Disney Feature Animation took on its current name, Walt Disney Animation Studios after Pixar Animation Studios was acquired by Disney in the same year.

For much of its existence, the studio was recognized as the premier American animation studio; it developed many of the techniques, concepts, and principles that became standard practices of traditional animation. The studio also pioneered the art of storyboarding, which is 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, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto – becoming recognizable figures in popular culture and mascots for The Walt Disney Company as a whole.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, today managed by Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter (who also manage Pixar), continues to produce feature films using both hand-drawn animation and computer-generated imagery (CGI). Its 55th and 56th features, Zootopia and Moana, are currently in production; the former is scheduled for release on March 4, 2016, and the latter is scheduled for release on November 23, 2016.