Sometimes the stars align just so, and something magical happens. This may just be one of those times in my life.
Almost a year ago, tickets went on sale for the 2013 D23 Expo. Since I’m planning on writing a lot more about the Expo over the next 3 weeks, I won’t go into anything about it here, other than to say buying the tickets put a stake in the ground as far as my schedule … I knew exactly where I was going to be on August 9-11 of 2013.
I bought those Expo tickets while I was training for my first ever runDisney race, and my first run over 5K – the Tower of Terror 10 miler, in late September of 2012. That race led me to try another — the WDW Half Marathon in January 2013 — and that in turn led me to sign up for back-to-back races over the upcoming Labor Day weekend — the inaugural Disneyland 10K on August 31st, followed by the Disneyland Half Marathon on September 1st. (The two races together comprise the Dumbo Double Dare challenge, and doing the Disneyland Half during the same calendar year as the WDW Half earns me the Coast-to-Coast Challenge medal, so I’ll be sporting some serious bling come Labor Day. I hope I can stand up!
That’s another topic for future posts, but once again, I’ve got a firm schedule commitment, again in Anaheim, this time for Labor Day weekend.
Now, at the same time I’m making all these plans for Anaheim, I’m also thinking about a cross-country move — to get closer to family and friends, primarily. It’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for several years, but with real estate in the tank recently it wasn’t feasible to sell my house for enough to make it worthwhile. But recent recoveries in the market changed the equation … I talked to my Realtor and we decided to give it a shot. The house went on the market, and 8 days later it was under contract. The market was stronger than I realized.
I followed this up with a trip to Atlanta, I called it a house hunting trip but honestly I would have been satisfied just to eliminate a few areas from consideration and narrow the focus somewhat. Finding neighborhoods, and not necessarily “the” house, was my goal. But again, things went better than expected, and by the end of last week I was under contract on a house there.
Now is when the timing falls into place beautifully. I need to be out of my house here in early August, but the house I just purchased is under construction and will not be ready until mid-September. So I’m homeless for most of the month of August. But, I do have a few prior commitments in Anaheim … so you can probably see where this is going.
Early in August, the movers will come in, pack up my house, and roll away. I’ll board a flight for Anaheim and enjoy the D23 Expo. And then …. I’ll stay. My job affords me the luxury of working from anywhere I can get an internet connection, so it’s not (exactly) an extended vacation. I’m hoping to find a nice coffee shop or similar location to use as my office for nearly four weeks, while every evening is a chance to enjoy the Disneyland Resort at a leisurely pace I’ve never experienced. I’ll need to keep up my training … a lap around the resort perimeter is just about the length of my daily runs, anyway, so that shouldn’t present much of a problem. After the Dumbo Double Dare on Labor Day weekend, I’ll fly to Atlanta, where I’ll stay with family for the last couple of weeks before moving in to my new home.
I’m really looking forward to living — however briefly — in Anaheim. The Expo should be amazing, I’m hoping just to finish the races upright, and the time in between should be a great chance to get to know every little nook and cranny of the Disneyland resort.
So, Disneyland friends — any suggestions? Where’s a great place to set up with a laptop and get work done while still being part of the magic? What are the places to see and things to do when you’ve got more than just a couple of days to run through the parks? Anything else you’d recommend for a short-term Anaheim area resident to make sure not to miss?
This is one of those you-had-to-be there sessions; hearing is everything. It’s impossible to listen to Bill Farmer doing his most well-known Disney voice without breaking out into a big Goofy grin.
Bill Farmer
Bill Farmer does the voice of Goofy and also Pluto (and for Pluto, he not only does Pluto in English but in foreign languages as well … what range!). He talked about auditioning and winning the role of Goofy, and gave a dramatic reading of Goofy doing Romeo.
Lisa Davis voiced Anita in 101 Dalmatians. She had worked with Zsa-Zsa Gabor in (I’m not making this up) Queen of Outer Space, and had learned to do a pretty good Zsa-Zsa impersonation. Walt had heard this and wanted Lisa to do the voice of Cruella De Vil, who he pictured as being Zsa-Zsa like. During the audition, during which Walt read the Anita part to Lisa’s Cruella, Lisa felt she just wasn’t right for the character, and asked if she could try Anita. They tried it that way, and Lisa won the part.
David Frankham did the voice of Sgt. Tibbs (the cat) in 101 Dalmatians.
Kathryn Beaumont was Alice in Alice in Wonderland, and also Wendy Darling in Peter Pan. She shared stories of working directly with Walt. She was cast, she says, because her voice was English enough to fit the role, but not so much so as to sound too foreign to American audiences.
Kathryn Beaumont
Chris Sanders was the director of Lilo and Stitch. Frequently during the animation process, animators or others working on a film will do temp voice tracks to use during early cuts of the film, when animation is in storyboard or pencil test form. Chris did the Stitch voice fully intending that it would be replaced with a real actor at some point. Even when no better voice was found, he was very hesitant, telling his co-director that if his track wasn’t great, there would be no hard feelings about tossing it. But he obviously nailed it.
Bruce Reitherman is the son of Disney Legend and animator Woolie Reitherman. He did the voice of Christopher Robin in the first Winnie the Pooh featurette, and also Mowgli in The Jungle Book.
Snow White: Still the Fairest of Them All
Since the theme of the weekend was “Celebrating 75 Years of Disney Feature Animation”, it was only fitting that a segment be devoted to the one that started it all, Disney’s first full-length animated motion picture. Tim O’Day was again the host, joined this time by musicologist and historian Alex Rannie. and special guest Marge Champion.
Marge was the original live-action reference model for Snow White. She’s 93 years young and can tell great stories about how certain scenes were staged for the reference (for example, ropes hanging from clotheslines were used to simulate the forest Snow White runs through).
Marge ChampionMarge Champion as Snow White
An Evening with Alan Menken
Once again, the evening was capped off by a concert. Dick Van Dyke set the bar pretty high, but I’d have to say the performance by 8-time Oscar winner Alan Menken was even better. Other than the opening and closing numbers, the evening progressed chronologically through Alan’s career. Because of the sheer volume of things he’s worked on, most movies and shows were represented by just brief excerpts of songs, rather than full numbers. I think this was a great choice so that more material could be included.
There were a number of songs featured that did not make it into the movies or shows, for whatever reason. Songs written for Little Shop of Horrors back when they were still trying to find the right tone for the musical; songs dropped from Aladdin when the story was extensively reworked, even a song from a Roger Rabbit prequel that was never made.
The evening opened with Prince Ali, from Aladdin. Then we heard selections from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; Little Shop of Horrors; The Little Mermaid; Beauty and the Beast; Aladdin; Newsies; Pocohontas; Hercules; Hunchback of Notre Dame; Tangled; Enhanted, and several others. The evening concluded with Proud of Your Boy, an Ashman-Menken collaboration that was dropped from the Aladdin film, but is being used in the upcoming Broadway production.
Alan Menken
This really ended things on a high note, and the weekend was a fantastic tribute to the long storied history of Disney Animation.
When you ask animation buffs to describe the style of Disney animation, you’ll hear that the drawings are lifelike, the overall style realistic, the stories moving, the characters memorable. Other studios like Warner Brothers and Fleischer get the adjectives funny, wild, zany, and of course looney.
But in the long history of Disney animation, there have been many wild and crazy bits of animation, and this morning’s session set out to provide that Disney can be just as wild and wacky as any animation department.
The evidence:
A clip of deleted material from Steamboat Willie, described as NSFW, and definitely NSF PETA members. Mickey engages in various forms of animal abuse to create music.
Steamboat Willie deleted scene
A segment from The Barn Dance. Mickey and Minnie are dancing, and he keeps stepping on her feet. Oblivious, he walks on her feet, flattening them and then proceeding to her ankles and right up the leg, which is getting stretched out and starts being dragged across the floor behind them. Eventually her tortured leg gets so long that she has to tie a knot in it to shorten it back to length, and then cuts off the excess.
Mother Goose Goes to Hollywood, a caricature piece featuring many Hollywood notables (Katherine Hepburn as Little Bo Peep, the Marx Brothers, etc.)
Little Bo Peep
Thru the Mirror, in which Mickey Mouse has an Alice in Wonderland experience.
Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom, a history of musical instruments
The Fantasia Dance of the Hours segment, featuring dancing hippos and alligators.
The Fantasia 2000 Carnival of Animals segments, in which a flamingo masters the yo-yo (and asserts his individuality over the flock)
Flamingo with Yo-Yo
Pink Elephants on Parade, from Dumbo
“After You’re Gone” segment from Make Mine Music
“Blame it on the Samba” from Melody Time
A bit of early Genie animation. When Disney wanted to get Robin Williams to play the Genie, they wanted something to show him. So they used audio of Robin performing his stand-up act and animated the Genie to that as a demo.
A few clips of never completed Alice in Wonderland scenes
The soup eating scene from Snow White (this is a bonus feature on one of the DVDs)
Donald’s dream sequence from Three Caballeros.
The verdict: Disney can indeed be pretty wild and wacky.
Drawing with Personality
This was great to watch, and a write-up just won’t be able to do it justice because it was so visual.
Animator Andreas Deja brought a number of pencil drawings of well-known Disney characters drawn by top animators. His comments were insightful, pointing out where certain poses really showed strength of line, or pointing out various things that make a drawing “work”, but that a non-artist would not likely notice. (One thing that comes across again and again in all these presentations is the tremendous respect that the current animators have for those that preceded them … there is just such a legacy there, and it seems they never lose sight of that and are incredibly respectful of it).
Seeing so many great drawings from the archives was interesting, but the presentation really took off for me when Andreas picked up a marker and began drawing some of the characters he was the supervising animator for.
Frankly, going in this was a session I was not really interested in … Tinker Bell isn’t a favorite of mine, and knowing that at least some of the talk was covering “modern” Tink (3D graphics and she talks! The horror!) I was tempted to duck out and take in a few rides. I’m glad I stayed … although it wasn’t my favorite talk of the weekend, it was very well researched, contained some surprises, and was worthwhile.
The presenter, Mindy Johnson, is author of an upcoming book from which most of this presentation was drawn. (The book, Tinker Bell: An Evolution, will be coming out in fall of 2013 so don’t go looking for it yet).
The presentation started with the earliest ideas about Tink in J. M. Barrie’s writing and early stage adaptations of his works. Tinker Bell was represented on stage by just a light effect and the sound of a bell. (Specifically a bell such as would be used on a tinker’s wagon to alert customers, not unlike an ice cream truck’s music or horns). The character, originally called Tippy Toe, thus became Tinker Bell.
We saw early concept art of Disney’s Tinker Bell as a redhead before Marc Davis drew the character we know today. We heard from Margaret Kerry, who was the live action reference model for Tinker Bell, and also from Ginny Mack, an ink and paint girl who was recruited as the facial model for Tink.
Moving on to the modern era, we also heard from Mae Whitman, who has voiced Tinker Bell in recent releases, and director Peggy Holmes, director of Secret of the Rings, the next film in the Tinker Bell series.
That was it for the morning panels … come back tomorrow to hear about the afternoon panels.
(for coverage of the Saturday morning presentations see here)
Inside Walt Disney Animation Studios Today
Based on the title, I thought we might be getting some insight into how the animation department works today (how CG and hand-drawn animation departments compete or co-operate, and similarly for Disney and Pixar animation groups). Instead, this was really a look at upcoming animated features and shorts.
Frozen
The first feature that we heard about was Frozen. This is a Holiday 2013 release. I had not heard anything about this feature prior to Destination D, so it was exciting to get a look at something completely new.
The presenter was CG animator Darrin Butters (Prep & Landing, Bolt, Fantasia 2000, and others).
Frozen is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. We saw a number of story sketches here; no finished animation was previewed.
The story focuses on two sisters, younger Anna (Kristen Bell) and older Elsa (Idina Menzel from Wicked, Rent, and Enchanted). Few plot details were given other than it involves a curse, some prophecy, and snowmen sidekicks.
Songs will be provided by Bobby Lopez & Kristen Anderson Lopez (Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, Winnie the Pooh). We heard one song from the movie, “Let it Go”, performed live for us on stage to close out the presentation.
Paperman
The short film Paperman will play in front of Wreck-it Ralph coming this November. We were shown this delightful film in its entirety, and were the first non-industry audience to see it.
The presentation prior to showing the film described the unique animation style that is a blend of hand-drawn and computer generated. The idea is to preserve the animators original sketch lines (which usually get cleaned up) all the way to final animation. The technique was interesting but it was really the story that made this stand out.
Paperman is the story of a chance encounter; boy meets girl on subway platform, then they are separated. While at work, he spots her in a building across the street, and tries desperately to reach her with a paper airplane. Then another. Then another. You’ll have to see the film to find whether it all works out in the end.
Wreck-it Ralph
The final film discussed in this presentation was Wreck-it Ralph, coming in November. We were shown about 10 minutes of footage from the movie. I think most of the information that was shared with us (casting, plot details) was already known, so I’ll just recap briefly.
Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the villain in the 80s style arcade video game Fix-it Felix Jr. (Felix is Jack McBrayer). But Ralph doesn’t want to be a bad guy anymore. So he leaves his game in search of a place he can be the hero. (The premise here is that the power cord for the game leads to a ‘Game Central Station’ — a power strip where all the games are plugged in — allowing characters to come and go, and enter other games.
Ralph’s adventures will take him to the Sugar Rush game (think Mario Cart) where he’ll meet Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) and Hero’s Duty (similar to Call of Duty or any first-person shooter) where he’ll encounter Sgt. Calhoun (Jane Lynch).
The different games have very different visual styles which definitely makes things interesting to look at. There are many, many cameos by game characters dating from classics such as Pac-Man and QBert right up to present day.
The Greatest Disney Animation You Never Saw
This sounded like it would be a fun presentation, and it certainly was. This was a presentation of Disney rarities — I probably had seen close to half of what was presented here, and given the Disney Geek quality of the audience I was probably not unusual in this respect. But the animation that was shown has been in the vault for a long time, so it’s certainly hard-to-find, rare footage that it was fun to see again, or for the first time, as the case may be.
Don Hahn and Dave Bossert were the hosts. The format was to alternate film snippets (or in some case complete shorts) with commercials; it was very entertaining to get a look back at a time when Disney was more than willing to have their characters used in ads for all sorts of products.
The playlist:
Back to Neverland. I absolutely loved seeing this again — it was the original introductory film to the Animation Tour at the Disney-MGM Studios park. The film features Robin Williams and Walter Cronkite and is vastly superior to the current film with Eddie Murphy’s Mushu character from Mulan. Can we bring this one back, please? Also, we were told that Robin’s performance here led to his being approached for the role of the Genie in Aladdin.
A 1950’s “I Like Ike” commercial produced by Roy O. Disney (Walt’s brother, Roy E.’s dad)
The Roger Rabbit short “Tummy Trouble” (1989).
A commercial for American Motors featuring Jiminy Cricket (for the 1955 Nash Ambassador).
The pre-show film from Cranium Command at EPCOT’s Wonders of Life pavilion. Directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale who would go on to do Beauty and the Beast.
A commercial for Peter Pan peanut butter featuring Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and Captain Hook
Film of Walt performing Mickey’s voice for “Mr. Mouse Steps Out”
A commercial for Jell-O featuring Alice and the Cheshire Cat.
An extended deleted sequence from Who Framed Roger Rabbit where Eddie is “tooned” (has a pig’s face painted on his head).
Roger Rabbit advertising Diet Coke
Early pencil animation for a very different version of the Fantasia 2000 Pomp and Circumstance segment. In this one, we get a parade of all of the Disney princesses and many other characters both major and minor. At the end of the segment, a flock of storks, led by Dumbo, deliver babies to each of the princesses. A true what-were-they-thinking moment that had the audience unsure whether to laugh or cringe.
An ad for Disney Magix cereal, from the 1990s, featuring Mickey.
A sequence pitch for a never-produced Hiawatha movie.
Another Peter Pan ad, this one with a cowboy and a spaceman. (Definitely not Woody and Buzz, but maybe this was inspiration)
and finally, the Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah segment from Song of the South.
This whole presentation was just wonderful; kudos to whoever curated the content as it was a great mix of historically significant pieces, just-for-laughs segments, and great nostalgia for bygone attractions.
Animating the Disney Parks
Like some of the morning sessions, this was a session that focused very much on personalities rather than technical aspects. Essentially there are three individuals whose contributions to the parks were featured, although a lot of other imagineers and animators were mentioned along the way.
Claude Coats was the first to be featured. Tony Baxter (Sr. VP, Imagineering and future Disney Legend) who worked with Claude, did this part of the presentation. Claude did the show design for some of Disneylands’s most memorable attractions, including the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Alice in Wonderland, and Mr. Toad. At EPCOT he contributed to Horizons, World of Motion, Universe of Energy, and several others. On several projects he collaborated with Mary Blair.
Claude Coats with Mary Blair
The next Imagineer to be featured was Herb Ryman. If you’ve ever seen concept art for Disneyland or EPCOT, it was most likely Herb’s work. The original concept drawing for Disneyland, shown to investors to help line up financing for the park, is a Herb Ryman piece.
Herb Ryman’s Disneyland concept art
Next we hear about Marc Davis. As an animator, Marc worked on Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan (Tinkerbell), and others. He drew some of the definitive Disney villains including Maleficient and Cruella de Vil. As an Imagineer he worked on it’s a small world, the Jungle Cruise, the Tiki Room, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and others.
An Evening with Dick Van Dyke
After a day full of presentations, after dinner we had a fabulous performance by Dick Van Dyke and his a capella group, the Vantastix. They opened with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and continued with selections from Bye Bye Birdie. Mary Poppins (of course!), Jungle Book, Dumbo and quite few others. It was a magical evening of music and laughter, if you ever have the chance to see this group perform, don’t miss it. (Buy their CD here)
On August 11th and 12th 2012, D23 (The Official Disney Fan Club) presented the third Destination D event. The theme of this one was “Celebrating 75 Years of Disney Feature Animation.
The event was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Disneyland Hotel.
I’ll be recapping the event over the next several blog entries — in this first post, I’ll cover the two Saturday morning presentations, which covered different eras in the history of Disney animated features.
Walt and the First Golden Age of Disney Animation
The first presentation of the day covered the earliest days of feature animation. This panel was hosted by Disney Archives director Becky Cline, and included panelists:
Disney Legend, animator, writer, storyboard artist, and director Burney Mattinson
Documentary filmmaker Ted Thomas, son of Disney Legend Frank Thomas
Becky Cline, Ted Thomas, Joe Hale, Burny Mattinson. In background, the Nine Old Men
The discussion started off with anecdotes about working with Walt and generally what it was like to be working in animation during that era. Then the discussion focused on each of the nine old men, with anecdotes about working with them, and discussions of specific films and scenes that each man was responsible for.
Anyone who has an interest in animation is familiar with how storyboards are used to present ideas for the story; we were treated to a video of Burny doing a story pitch using storyboards for the “Eeyore loses his tail” segment of the new Winnie the Pooh movie.
Overall the panel was very informative and did a great job of setting up the history of the animation studio.
Roy and the Second Golden Age of Disney Animation
The second panel of the morning moved on to the Second Golden Age of Disney Animation, a period that started with the Little Mermaid. This period of studio history is very well chronicled in Don Hahn’s Waking Sleeping Beauty.
The panel was led by Tim O’Day and included panelists
Roy Patrick Disney, son of Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney, who was head of animation.
Don Hahn, director (Waking Sleeping Beauty) and producer (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King)
John Musker and Ron Clements, directing team of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, and The Princess and the Frog
(No photos were allowed during this session so I can’t show the panel)
The panel opened with a film called “Mickey’s Audition”. Although it wasn’t identified as such I’m pretty sure this used to play as part of the Backlot Tour at the Disney-MGM Studios park (as it was then called). Very entertaining with cameos by Angela Lansbury, Mel Brooks, and other stars. The significance here was that it featured the acting debut of Roy E. Disney, portraying Walt (and there is quite a resemblance).
The second panel was far more energetic and lively than the earlier one. Don Hahn is always entertaining, and moderator Tim O’Day kept things moving along and frequently injected a bit of humor (not that it was lacking otherwise). It seemed to be generally agreed among everyone, as Don Hahn stated, that Roy E. didn’t just save animation at Disney, he saved the company.
There was an amusing anecdote about a scene in a True Life Adventure where a scene of a duck sliding across the ice was cut short by the cameraman before the inevitable collision with another group of ducks just standing around. When Walt was shown the sequence, he insisted that they had to “find” the “missing” footage of the collision, but it didn’t exist — the cameraman had stopped filming. But Walt was insistent, so eventually Roy E. and a crew had to head back out and get the footage — bowling with ducks.
We also got to see, courtesy of Roy P., some candid family photos of the Disney family. A favorite was a shot of him and his siblings standing in front of a nondescript pile of dirt — a pile of dirt in the spot where Cinderella Castle would soon be built.
Overall, this was less of an animation history lesson and more of a tribute to Roy E., and that seemed an appropriate and fitting way to conclude our first morning.
Would love to hear from other attendees in the comments — what were your favorites in the morning sessions?
Now that the new blog is up and operational, I’m looking forward to some of the things that I’ll be blogging about here in the months to come.
June and July will probably be light, but things will begin to pick up after that.
In August, I’ll be attending Destination:D, Celebrating 75 Years of Disney Feature Animation, at the Disneyland Resort. So in mid-August I’ll be blogging about
Nodes and Edges 