Since I want to demonstrate which animation studios’ editing style was similar to Disney, I will first explain what the early Disney’s style was. Therefore, it can be seen from the earliest Snow White that Disney combined film editing skills into animation and successfully applied spatial and temporal continuity to it. At that time, there were few animations that were equally famous. So, a well-known animation series quickly came into my mind – Tom & Jerry.
Maybe that’s a little inappropriate to say imitate, because Tom and Jerry only came out three years after Snow White. But actually, Joseph Barbera had been affected by Disney a long time ago when he watched The Skeleton Dance. We can see a high degree of continuity through the editing. In the close-up, Jerry looks to his right to Tom’s direction outside the picture, while Tom chases from left to right. Jerry also runs right after noticing it. Basically, all the pieces are coherent in space and time. The direction of the characters’ eyes matches each other in different scenes, which makes the whole story readable. The editing is easy to understand for both adults and children. The screen direction is so great that no one would think he couldn’t understand the story in Tom and Jerry.
In addition to William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures Corporation also imitated Disney editing techniques. In Paramount’s 1973 film Charlotte’s Web, it’s easily to find the similarity of Disney editing. The animator used a flying bird to guide Wilbur’s eye in order to change screen direction. Also used graphic relations to do the continuity transition between two scenes. In addition, the animator often gave close-ups to Charlotte’s eyes to achieve spatial continuity.
The influence of Disney as the pioneer in the application of film editing techniques in animation is undoubtedly huge. And I think it was their success that laid the foundation for all of the animators. Even if people do not approve of this editing method, it is still necessary to use similar techniques for readability of the audience. This is also something we can learn from Disney.