The multiplane camera

Although Disney (always the ripoff artist par excellence) claimed to have invented the system he called Multiplane Camera in 1933), the fact is that a previous animated film by Lotte Reiniger, "The Adventures of Prince Achmed", had used a similar system as early as 1926.

The actual system that Disney is referring to was actually invented by Ub Iwerks (who used to work for Disney before and was the creator of Mickey Mouse) in 1933 and he used it to produce a number of Iwerks animations. Iwerks (today called SimEx Iwerks) by the way is the company that manufactures some of the theme park rides in use around the world today.

Disney first used a multiplane camera version refined by William Garity, then working for Disney Studios for the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Multiplane camera sequence of various Disney Films (no embedding allowed!)

The reason I posted this is because what we do today in motion graphics, using a program like After Effects is in part a digital version of a multiplane camera space. The concept of layers and the interaction between them is an essential component of almost any visual effect today. Except that a motion graphics, title sequence or visual effect production will probably consists of hundreds of layers both in 2d and 3d space.