Disney, movie producers create animation firm

Walt Disney Co. started a new company with the producers of “Polar Express” to make animated films based in part on the movements of actors.

Producer-director Robert Zemeckis, with Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey, will make films that Disney will market and distribute, the Burbank-based company said.

With the deal, Chief Executive Robert Iger adds motion-capture technology, in which computer-animated characters’ movements are based on those of an actor, to the types of three-dimensional films Disney can make.