10 Movies That Literally Had To Reinvent Filmmaking

Disney and Pixar have profited well in recent decades from high-quality animation movies aimed at kids. It was only a few years back that Frozen earned over $1 billion at the box office and this year's sequel has already accumulated $500 million worldwide since its release in November.

Back in the 1930s though, animation was used much less frequent, being mostly utilised to create short-films. Disney was the frontrunner in terms of reinventing animation for motion-pictures and in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was their biggest filmmaking risk of all time.

Snow White became the first feature-length animated film, which demanded ground-breaking technology during its production. Disney opted for the inclusion of a new type of multiplane camera, which was capable of providing rotational effects. This gave the animation an improved three-dimensional appearance, helping bring the cartoon to life. This form of technology was positively received and began to be used more prominently in following Disney films, such as Pinocchio and The Jungle Book.

Disney initially found trouble collecting the funds for the production of their first fully animated film, which exceeded $1.6 million (which adjusted for inflation is, well, loads of money). Nevertheless, with the success of Disney's animated short-films such as Steamboat Willie, they believed there was a strong market for the existence of animated features. This eventually proved to be the case, as the Snow White movie grossed over $7 million, becoming a truly all-time classic and its success enabled Disney to replicate it with dozens of other movies, dominating a genre for decades (and still to this day) that they essentially created.