This is the new golden age of animation and Canadian filmmaker Chris Williams -- an Oscar-nominated member of Walt Disney Studios -- is absolutely delighted.

"That is one of the reasons why I am most proud of the nomination -- because it is such an incredible time for animation," Williams tells Sun Media about seeing Bolt compete as best animated feature.

Bolt makes its DVD debut today -- both as a single-disc edition and as a two-disc Deluxe Edition with digital copy -- after making its Blu-ray debut on Sunday. That option is a three-disc effort that includes the DVD, with its good extras, as well as the enhanced Blu-ray version with even more extras and a high-def digital copy, all in the same box. The Blu-ray-DVD combo repeats what Disney did with Pinocchio earlier this month.

Williams, who grew up in Kitchener, Ont., and studied animation at Sheridan College before joining Disney 15 years ago, co-wrote and co-directed Bolt after it had failed under earlier director Chris Sanders of Lilo & Stitch fame.

Williams shared the Oscar nom with co-director Byron Howard. Both worked under the tutelage of Disney-Pixar guru John Lasseter, who resuscitated Bolt (when it was called American Dog) in the same manner he helped rescue the Oscar-winning Ratatouille when it was faltering at Pixar.

"If John feels that there is something that keeps the movie from being as good as it needs to be," Williams says from Los Angeles, "he'll do anything he can to get it to the place it needs to be. So there were creative differences there (with Sanders) and, once that was resolved, John asked if I would come onto the movie."

Bolt lost the Academy Award to Andrew Stanton's WALL-E, with Lasseter a driving force behind that Pixar project, too. No problem. Williams is still pumped about being nominated and about animation in general.

Pixar's Up opens the Cannes Film Festival in May. Animations now are seen as works of art and hit entertainments -- not just as cartoons.

"There are so many great animation films being made," Williams say, "and a lot of the credit has to go to Pixar, for raising the bar. But, I have to say, a lot of the other studios have really risen to that challenge. And people in all the animation studios are very passionate about what they do. I hope people really respect what we're doing or at least respect how hard we're working."

Bolt is the story of a Hollywood dog (voiced by John Travolta) who believes he has the superpowers invested in him in his fictional TV series. But he is suddenly separated from the series and his best friend Penny (Miley Cyrus). Stranded in New York, Bolt must make it home to Hollywood using only real dog powers. He takes the journey with a reluctant cat (Susie Essman) and an insane hampster (Mark Walton) who idiolizes Bolt.

"For me," Williams says of developing the Bolt story, "there was this core thing that I kept going back to, which was: This is a movie about a dog! We see lots of dog movies but the criticism, often, is that you just put a person in a dog suit and make a story. I really wanted to explore what a dog really is and I wanted to take that relationship between a dog and a person really seriously.

"Dogs are really defined by their loyalty and their love for their owner. It is absolute, and it is almost all that they are, and that is why we love them so much.

"So I really wanted to make a movie that celebrated that and maybe pointed out to us what is beautiful about dogs and how we can be a bit more like dogs. There is a central message to me and it is about trust."

Now he is happy to see Bolt on DVD and Blu-ray -- especially Blu-ray. "I know, for us, the better the picture, the happier we are."

Putting the standard DVD in the Blu-ray box is a nice compromise, he says.

"That sounds cool to me. That is a pretty good deal. It is probably good for encouraging people to look into Blu-ray and see the quality there."

Oscars a treat for Williams

Oscar night was a blast for Bolt co-director Chris Williams, the Canadian half of the creative team with American Byron Howard.

Not even losing the Academy Award to Andrew Stanton for WALL-E soured the mood.

"Certainly we were really excited for Andrew and Pixar and WALL-E -- and it is obviously a pretty incredible achievement," the Disney-based Williams tells Sun Media about his competition from Pixar. "They are our cousins now."

Williams, who grew up in Kitchener, Ont., went to the Oscars with his wife Astrid. It literally was a dream come true. "She said one of her dreams growing up as a little kid was to one day go to the Oscars," Williams says, adding he was "thrilled" to fulfill that for her.

"It's a fun thing because, working in animation, drawing cartoons, you really feel that you are something separate from the entertainment industry at large. So it does feel like a weird path to get to the Oscars through animation. It is an odd, surreal thing because you're really jammed in there with all these A-list celebrities. It was fun to have gotten a window into that world.

"But it's also nice in animation. You have the anonymity and you can always go back to the real world."

Williams is unconcerned that best animated feature is a separate category. Some in his industry feel the category is a ghetto and are frustrated that their films are not seriously considered for best picture.

"But I don't really concern myself with that," Williams says. "The challenge then is to raise the bar on animated movies so that people start to see these categories as equivalent."