I remember going to my first Disney movie, The Lion King, when I was three years old. My mom had decided that I was going to be able to handle myself in a public setting for more than 30 minutes. She figured that I would sit still.

Honestly, I didn’t, at least not until the film started. Once the music begin and the animated sun rose on the screen, I was instantly mesmerized. I didn’t move a muscle and neither did my older sister.

When we left, Mom listened to us chatter about the film. My sister talked about the storyline while I prattled on about how impressive it was in the visual sense. Because of our reactions, our childhood was filled with Disney. We own nearly every single film on VHS. I couldn’t imagine a childhood without them. I loved everything about them especially the animation style.

There was something spectacular and personal about 2D. The characters were more authentic in their expressions and less calculated. With computer animation, I feel that we’ve lost the charm of hand-drawn characters.

Now, there is nothing wrong with computer animation. I do like it. I bought the film Tangled and authentically enjoyed it. I simply missed the classic style of 2D.

But, this past weekend, while I was browsing the internet, I saw an article about a short film called Hullabaloo on Indiegogo, a crowd-funding website. After clicking on the link, I first saw the drawn picture of a woman resembling the style of Disney. As I scrolled down, the beginning sentence launched at me: “Hullabaloo is a 2D (hand-drawn) animated steampunk film that hopes to help preserve the dying art of 2D animation.”

And who was the person who created the idea? It was James Lopez, “a veteran Disney animator who has been working as a professional in the animation industry for 25 years. His credits include The Lion King and Pocahontas. Backing uphis idea are several animators, including Bruce Smith, who was the Supervising Animator on Tarzan.

However, the film is going to do something I haven’t seen in the animated films I grew up with. “In addition to helping save 2D animation, Hullabaloo aims to encourage girls to explore science and adventure. The film’s two protagonists are both young women and both scientists who use their intellect, wits, and courage to fight greed and corruption. We hope that Veronica Daring and her friend Jules will serve as positive role models for girls of all ages and encourage them to get excited about science, engineering, and sci-fi.”

Excited by this, I looked around and saw that they were asking for $80,000 to make the short film. Because of crowdfunding, it has reached $225,238 and the campaign for it opened August 27. With 282 percent of the funding covered, I can only imagine how much higher that number will be when the campaign closes on Oct. 1.

Ladies and gentlemen, 2D is returning. For more information on the project, check out more information at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hullabaloo-steampunk-animated-film.