With Thanksgiving just around the corner and the holiday season fast approaching, the winter's answer to the summer box office has arrived. Oscar hopefuls have begun their rush to the boxoffice, holiday-themed stories have been let out of the starting gate, and Disney has rolled out its 2008 feature animation star, Bolt. A simple story about a girl, a dog, a cat, a hamster, and the friendship and loyalty that bring them together, Bolt is a movie that easily slides into Disney's classic collection of heart-felt films for all audiences.

But in the same way that Bolt's story exists in a modern reality of shifting dynamics and constant newness, one of the most fascinating aspects of Bolt is how much its creation has also been about first experiences and new territory. And while down at the Disney Animation Studios for a press conference on the eve of Bolt's release, I had the privilege of getting a glimpse of the unique ways in which a new and vibrant energy is not as much transforming Disney as it is enlivening the classic themes and ideologies for which the beloved studio has always stood.

The Disney-Pixar Partnership Comes to Life

It may be difficult to believe, but it has been nearly two years since Disney and Pixar announced that they would be joining forces. Greeted with skepticism, the move fueled predictions of continued conflict between the two entities that had rarely been known for getting along in the past. As fans and analysts alike saw it, either the Disney giant would destroy the younger, freer Pixar or the always-revolutionary Pixar would simply refuse to recognize Disney's leadership. But with the success of Pixar's first Disney/Pixar animated feature Wall-E and what looks to be another success with Disney's first Disney/Pixar animated feature in Bolt, all signs actually point to the Disney/Pixar partnership as one of the more successful in business history.

As part of the Disney/Pixar contract, one the first moves to affect both companies was the appointment of Pixar co-founder John Lasseter to the position of Chief Creative Officer of both studios. And as the first Disney animated feature to be helmed by Lasseter (the Executive Producer of the film), it has been no secret that Bolt would be a valuable marker by which to measure just how well the cooperating companies are doing.

"We all understood that this is John Lasseter's first Disney movie," says director Chris Williams. "We all understood that this had to be great, that this marks a new era now with John here. He's a very inspirational leader. I think everyone rallied around that idea of John being our boss."

As for what his leadership and his Pixar background have meant at Disney studios, "First of all, a studio's not its building, a studio's its people," says Lasseter. "The one thing we did bring from Pixar is the notion of making the studio a filmmaker-led, a filmmaker-driven studio. What that means is instead of an executive-led studio where the stories are thought up by a group of development executives and then a director's assigned to it, we instead go to the filmmakers, have faith in those filmmakers, and the stories come from them&ellips; So that philosophy has been kind of been brought over."

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