Category: Disney

  • D23 Expo 2013: Art and Imagination (Part I: Pixar)

    The 2013 D23 Expo kicked off with a presentation of upcoming animated feature releases from the various Disney studios.

    We were welcomed by Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company.   (Bob was here live this year; two years ago his introduction was taped).   He mentioned that since the last Expo, Disney has acquired LucasFilm, but that we wouldn’t be getting details of Star Wars Episode VII during the Expo.   He also said this Expo was the biggest yet.

    Bob then turned the floor over to Bob Lasseter, who was the host for the remainder of the 3-hour presentation.   John is the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar, Disneytoon, and Walt Disney Animation Studios, as well as the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering (in other words, he has ALL the best jobs at Disney).

    The presentation was divided by studios, so I’ll divide the blog posts accordingly.   First up:  Pixar.

    We first heard about the success of Monsters University, currently in theaters.   John mentioned that one of the break-out characters from the film that really surprised them was the slug.   And then John was joined on stage by SNL alum Bil Hader, the voice of the slug.   They had a brief bit of banter before John announced the first D23 Exclusive of the day:  we were shown a new Monsters University short film, Party Central.   This was a really cute short film  that will be released theatrically in front of The Good Dinosaur.

    And that lead us in to a discussion of The Good Dinosaur, Pixar’s next film.   The premise here is: what if the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs missed the Earth?   director Pete Sohn and producer Denise Ream came on stage to discuss the film.   The first clip shown was of the dinosaurs engaged in farming activities.   This was a very lovely, pastoral scene that was different in tone from the funnier scenes that followed.    The animation style (particularly the character design) is more cartoony, and less photo-realistic, than I had anticipated based on what I heard previously.

    The voice cast includes John Lithgow, Frances McDormand, Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, Judy Green, and Lucas Neff.    Bill and Lucas came out to talk a bit about the film, they both play siblings in the featured dino family.   We then saw another clip of the film, where Arlo (Luca’s character) meets a human for the first time.

    The Good Dinosaur will be in theaters in 2014.

    The next film presented was Inside Out.   (Announced at the 2011 Expo as The Untitled Pixar Film That Takes You Inside the Mind, but for some reason they chose not to stick with that title).    I can’t help but think of this as Cranium Command: The Movie — fans of that shuttered Epcot attraction will recognize the story line similarity.

    The movie as about 11 year old Riley, a young girl whose family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco.   As she adjusts to her new surroundings, we see her emotions personified as characters in her head.   The voice cast features Lewis Black as Anger; Mindy Kaling as Disgust; Bill Hader as Fear, Amy Poehler as Joy, and Phyllis Smith as Sadness.

    Phyllis Smith (The Office) and Bill “I’m not Dwight” Hader then came out to talk about the film.   Phyllis certainly nailed the Sadness role as she was in character throughout.

    The film takes us various places inside the brain, from HeadQuarters (the command center) to Long Term Memory, Imagination Central, Abstract Thought, and Dream Production.   All these areas are connected by the Train of Thought.

    We saw a story reel (essentially storyboards plus temp voice tracks) showing how a family dinner goes with the family — we get to see the inner emotions of the Mom and Dad as well as Riley, and the hilarious scene went over very well with the audience.   This looks like a gem.

    Next:  Finding Dory.   Director Andrew Stanton and producer Lindsey Collins set up the film, which takes place about a year after Finding Nemo.   Dory’s homing instinct kicks in and she takes off to search for her original family; her new family then has to search for her.   Voice cast includes returning Albert Brooks (Marlin) and Ellen DeGeneres (Dory), plus Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy as Dory’s parents, Ty Burrell, and more voice cast to be announced later.    At this point Bill Hader came on stage dressed as a Sea Cucumber to beg to be cast in the movie … with 3 Pixar films in a row under his belt, if he could just get one more, he could become Pixar’s “Lucky Charm”.

    Well, that comment just could not be allowed to stand.   At this point Pixar’s reigning lucky charm, John Ratzenberger, came onto stage accompanied by a full brass band that punctuated his every joke with a rim shot or appropriate flourish.    We saw a slideshow of all 14 of the characters John has voiced in Pixar films.    I don’t think Bill will be unseating John anytime soon.

    John Lasseter then explained that Pixar has been thinking about TV specials even before they did the first Toy Story, but now have finally created their first.   Toy Story of Terror will debut this Halloween, and we were treated to the first 10 minutes of the special.

    That concludes the Pixar portion of the animation presentation … the next post will pick up with the Disneytoon Studios project calendar.

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  • D23 Expo 2013: Broadway and Beyond

    A fun evening took place in Stage 23 last evening as Disney Theatrical Productions put on a special one-time showing, “Broadway and Beyond”, featuring musical selections from many current, previous, and even future Broadway productions.

    The show opened with a selection of songs from Beauty and the Beast — appropriate since that show was Disney’s first foray onto the Broadway stage.   We first heard “Be Our Guest”, done by all five performers, then “Beauty and the Best” by Heidi and “If I Can’t Love Her” by Alton.

    After this opening, Thomas Schumacher, President and Producer at Disney Theatrical Productions, came out to make introductory remarks.    He shared that there are currently 17 productions playing around the world under the Disney Theatrical Productions banner.   He introduced the 5-piece orchestra (can you be an orchestra with only 5 pieces?  I think yes if one of them is a violin) and the performers.    All of the performers remained onstage throughout the show — so whoever wasn’t currently performing was a back-up singer, or, frequently, just an enthusiastic spectator.    Clearly they all enjoyed each other’s performances and it was always fun to watch everyone, not just whoever was currently in the spotlight.

    The performers were:

    • Heidi Blickenstaff.   Played Ursula in The Little Mermaid
    • Ashley Brown.  Originated the role of Mary Poppins in the stage version, previously played Belle in Beauty and the Beast.   Non-Disney roles include Laurey in Oklahoma and Maria in The Sound of Music.
    • Merle Dandridge.   Played Kala in Tarzan and Aida in Aida.   Also in Broadway productions of Rent, Spamalot, and Jesus Christ Superstar
    • Josh Strickland.   Originated the role of Tarzan.
    • Alton Fitzgerald White.   Mufasa in The Lion King.   Also in Broadway productions of The Color Purple, Ragtime, The Who’s Tommy, and Miss Saigon.

    Photography wasn’t allowed during tonight’s performance, and words just can’t do it justice … so I’ll have to settle for providing the set list.   It was truly a fantastic evening.

    And we had a few special guests in the audience — Alan Menken and Richard Sherman, both of whom will be performing tomorrow night, and between them responsible for well over half of the music we heard tonight.

    The second featured musical was The Lion King.   We were treated to “Hakuna Mutata” (Alton and Josh), “Shadowland” (Merle), and “They Live in You” (Alton).    (By the way, if your only exposure to these stories is from the movies, many song titles will be unfamiliar as in the process of taking these stories to Broadway, the book and score are both expanded — usually with the original composer providing additional songs.

    Next was a song from the German production Der Glockner Von Notre Dame.   This production will probably be reworked into an English-language version at some point, and the song performed by Josh, “Made of Stone”, was in English suggesting this may already be underway.

    Next up were a few songs from Aida.  “Easy as Life” was performed by the original Aida, Merle, then Josh did a fun and funny interpretation of a spoiled, fashion-obsession princess in “My Strongest Suit”.

    Tarzan was well represented with the original Tarzan (Josh) and Kala (Merle).   The two of them sang a duet of “You’ll be in my Heart”, and then Josh performed “For the First Time” with Ashley (performing Jane).

    Another musical where we had an original lead was Mary Poppins.   Ashley first performed “Practically Perfect in Every Way”, one of the songs added for the stage.   Then Alton and Ashley gave us “Jolly Holiday” and “Chim Chim Cheree”.   Then, perhaps the most moving moment of the evening, Ashley gave a goosebump-inducing version of “Feed the Birds”.    This received an enthusiastic standing ovation from the crowd and reportedly brought Richard Sherman to tears; it was Walt’s favorite song and after tonight I suspect it will be a favorite of quite a few more attendees.

    Things then got more upbeat with selections from The Little Mermaid.   The entire ensemble performed “She’s in Love”.   Then Heidi gave a subtle, nuanced interpretation (not!) of “Poor, Unfortunate Souls”, and Ashley concluded the segment with “Part of Your World’.

    From here we continued to Newsies.   “Carrying the Banner” was performed by the quintet, then Ashley sang “Watch What Happens” and was followed by Josh and “Santa Fe”.

    We then got to hear a couple of selection from the rarely-performed King David.   Heidi gave us “Never Again”, Alton was joined by the others in “The Long Long Day’.

    To wrap up the evening, we got to hear a new song from an under-development Aladdin musical.   Alton (as the Genie) and Josh (as Aladdin) performed the buddy song “Somebody’s Got Your Back”, supported by the other performers.

    It was a very entertaining evening; D23 has really been on a roll with the evening performances since the Destination: D Animation event, and I hope they continue to provide these wonderful nightcaps at future events.

  • D23 Expo: Sorcerer Swag

    Today we checked in for our “Sorcerer Day” at the D23 Expo and picked up our “swag bag”, the goodies provided by various divisions of the Disney company for the Sorcerer attendees.     I know this was one of the things I was very curious about coming in, and I imagine others may also be wondering what the contents were going to be in this year’s bag.

    First of all, the bag itself is very interesting.   During the Expo (and I’m sure for some time leading up to it), the lamp posts all around the Disneyland Resort are decorated with banners promoting the Expo, as seen in this photo:

    Banners outside the convention center
    Banners outside the convention center

    The banner design changes every year, so once this year’s expo is done, the banners are not usable.   So the Sorcerer bags from this year were made from the recycled banners from 2011 — a very clever idea, making each bag unique and collectible.   Here are the bags we got, but each one is different.

    Bags made from recycled D23 Expo 2011 Banners
    Bags made from recycled D23 Expo 2011 Banners

    Now, as to what was in the bag … quite a bit of stuff!    Let’s just get to the pictures.

    A lithograph of artwork used in promoting the 2013 Expo
    A lithograph of artwork used in promoting the 2013 Expo
    A pin .. the Halloween party flyer was apparently just used as something to stick the pin to. Two of the possible designs shown.
    A pin .. the Halloween party flyer was apparently just used as something to stick the pin to. Two of the possible designs shown.
    Keychains with different Vinylmation designs; two of the possibilities are shown.
    Keychains with different Vinylmation designs; two of the possibilities are shown.
    Spa goodies (body scrub and lotion)
    Spa goodies (body scrub and lotion)
    Another vinylmation, available in several colors -- we both got gold.
    Another vinylmation, available in several colors — we both got gold.
    Another pin, this one quite large and features D23 Expo promotional art again
    Another pin, this one quite large and features D23 Expo promotional art again
    The Disney Legends book
    The Disney Legends book
    A hardbound book of the program guide for the Disney Legends induction (to be held Saturday)
    A hardbound book of the program guide for the Disney Legends induction (to be held Saturday)
    A journal -- embossed D23 design on cover is hard to make out in this photo. I'll be taking notes in this all weekend.
    A journal — embossed D23 design on cover is hard to make out in this photo. I’ll be taking notes in this all weekend.
    A collectible figurine; we both got Scuttle so I'm not sure if everyone got the same or if there were other possibilities here.
    A collectible figurine; we both got Scuttle so I’m not sure if everyone got the same or if there were other possibilities here.
    A set of Disney Collector Cards. Not sure if these are unique to the Expo or are copies of already released cards.
    A set of Disney Collector Cards. Not sure if these are unique to the Expo or are copies of already released cards.
    A $15 gift card for the Disney Music store
    A $15 gift card for the Disney Music store
    Very nice - a decanter and tumbler with the Disney Legends logo etched on the decanter.
    Very nice – a decanter and tumbler with the Disney Legends logo etched on the decanter.
    A personalized Sorcerer Guest name bade.
    A personalized Sorcerer Guest name badge.

    So, that’s how our day started.     Then most of the rest of the day’s activities were about providing us with a way to add to the haul … a preview opportunity in the Dream Store, a chance to shop at the pop-up Disney Store, and a chance to preview and bid on items in the Silent Auction.   I picked up a few additional items … I think the folks at the UPS store are going to get to know me very well before this trip ends.

    Oh, and a few other items I didn’t get pictures of — a coupon for a massage at the Sorcerer Lounge.  I think that may be very welcome after hauling bags all of the place for several days.   And a couple of coupons for Mickey’s of Glendale, the Imagineering store .. one for a Sorcerer member exclusive pin, and the other 40% off on any item.   If they have the same jackets on sale that were available in 2011 I know what I’ll be using my 40% on.

    Much more Expo news to come … it was a long day (and not a sedentary one, either, FitBit shows 24060 steps taken today).    Tomorrow the Expo proper kicks off with the Animation presentation in the morning; I’ll be cracking open that new D23 journal (as no cameras or recording devices of any type are permitted in the arena for this presentation).

    Keep checking back … I’m not sure when I’ll transcribe and post notes made over the weekend so new posts can pop up any time.

  • D23 Expo Preview: Panels and Performances

    Really tough choices in picking what to see and do at the D23 Expo.

    To some degree, I’m being guided this year by what things blew me away in 2011.   So the Legends ceremony in 2011 was incredible, and as a result I’m planning to do Legends this year even though it’s got some tough competition in the timeslot.

    This might change between now and show time, but as it stands now here are the things I plan to attend.

    Saturday:

    • Art and Imagination:  A preview of upcoming Disney and Pixar animated features.
    • Undiscovered Disneyland:  stories, film, and photos from the construction and early years in the park.
    • Marty Sklar:  Dream It, Do It.    Walt’s right-hand man for theme parks, one of several presentations Marty will be involved in this week
    • The Art and Artistry of Aulani – Disney Vacation Club’s Hawaiian resort
    • Broadway and Beyond – live performances from cast members of Disney’s various Broadway productions

    Saturday

    • Let the Adventures Begin:  A preview of upcoming Disney, Marvel, and LucasFilm live action features.
    • Once Upon a Time panel – a look at the ABC TV series
    • Disney Legends Ceremony – inducting this year’s newly named Legends
    • Crash Course in the Force:  Star Wars 101.   Curious to see if we’ll learn anything new about the upcoming features.
    • Richard Sherman and Alan Menken in concert — the Disney Songbook.

    Sunday

    • Working With Walt — an incredible panel of Disney Legends featuring Marty Sklar, X Atencio, Alice Davis, and Bob Gurr
    • To Infinity and Beyond:  Disney Interactive.   Need to finally figure out what this Disney Infinity thing really is.
    • Leading a Legacy –  Disney Imagineering panel
    • Leave ’em Laughing – Disney Imagineering panel

    I’m happy with those choices — but so many great-sounding presentations didn’t make it onto my final list, including

    • Behind the Scenes of Mary Poppins, with Dave Smith
    • Mayhem, Mischief, and Monkeys – the Mystic Manor attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland
    • Inside the Ice — a look at the upcoming Frozen animated feature
    • Voices of the Parks — the voices you hear throughout Disney theme parks share stories
    • The Art of the Good Dinosaur – a look at the upcoming Pixar feature
    • The DNA of Innovation – another Disney Imagineering presentation
    • Women of Pixar – the write-up on this doesn’t list the panelists, so not sure if they are primarily animators, executives, or a mix.
    • Craft of Creativity – another Disney Imagineering presentation

    I hope to hear from others who are attending these sessions so I can get a recap of what I missed.

    Panels and presentations are only a portion of what goes on at the Expo — there are also meet-and-greets, lots of shopping opportunities, artists, podcasters, and of course just meeting and hanging out with fellow fans.    More on all those things as the Expo gets underway, starting with the Sorcerer Preview day on Thursday August 8th.

    See ya real soon!

  • D23 Expo Preview: Sorcerer Activities

    The D23 Expo runs from Friday August 9th through Sunday August 11th, but for the guests that signed up for the Sorcerer package, the activities begin on Thursday August 8th.

    D23 has now announced the activities for Sorcerer Guests during the 4-day Expo event.   Here’s a look at the Sorcerer activities (look for an upcoming post on the main Expo schedule activities I’m planning to attend).

    Thursday gives us a chance to shop at some of the Expo stores before the show officially opens.  Since some of the merchandise is in limited quantities and will sell out, this is a real advantage for collectors of some of the scarcer items.   Since I think my souvenir shopping is going to be mostly of the T-Shirt variety, I may not be taking maximum advantage of this.   (Then again, once I get there and see the merchandise I may find myself unable to resist).

    Shopping opportunities:

    • D23 Expo Dream Store (10 am to 6:30 pm)
    • Dream Store Silent Auction Preview (10 am to 6:30 pm)
    • Disney Store (2pm to 5:30 pm)

    Other Thursday activities:

    • Access to exclusive Sorcerer Lounge (9 am to 6 pm)
    • Exclusive Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives Tours (10 am to 6:00 pm)
    • Private Show Floor Tours (10 am to 6:30 pm)
    • Dessert Reception and Fireworks viewing (8:45 pm to 10 pm)

    During the main expo days, there are also a few Sorcerer events

    • Access to exclusive Sorcerer Lounge each day during Expo hours
    • Exclusive Walt Disney Imagineering reception, Friday 5pm – 6pm
    • Farewell reception, Sunday 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

    The special Sorcerer exclusives are a nice bonus, but the real benefit to the Sorcerer package is reserved seating for any of the panels and presentations … I’ve been making the tough schedule choices over the past couple of days and will share the choices I’ve made for my Expo experience in my next post.

  • Expo Anticipation

    This year I’ll be attending my second D23 Expo … for the first expo in 2009, there wasn’t a whole lot of information released ahead of time, and I decided to take a pass.    When I saw updates from the Expo as it was happening, I realized I’d made a bad call … there was some amazing stuff going on, and I was missing out!

    So for the 2011 Expo I was there for all 3 days.  I absolutely loved what I saw — but what I saw was only a small fraction of what I wanted to see.    Unlike most of the other D23 events, where a ticket guarantees you a seat at every presentation, an Expo ticket only grants you the right to stand in line to get into the presentations.   Many of the most popular presentations filled up well ahead of their starting time, so anyone showing up a few minutes before a presentation was not going to find a seat.    So, if you wanted to see a 2 pm presentation, you pretty much had to forgo any presentations at 1 pm and start lining up between noon and 1 pm for the 2 o’clock.   For the main arena presentations, typically held first thing in the morning, lining up outside the convention center 2 hours ahead of doors opening was pretty much the minimum … for a while on Saturday we actually believed we were going to be the very last people admitted to the Studios presentation (they cut off the line behind us, but later let through about 100 more people).

    So, this year I wanted to maximize my chances to see as much as I could … which means Sorcerer.   A very limited number of Sorcerer tickets are sold, and each ticket guarantees a seat at any presentation (it appears we will be asked to register for the presentations we plan to attend just before the expo, so that they’ll have an exact count of how many seats to set aside in each presentation).     It’s a pricey indulgence, but for a once-every-two-years event, with a lot of content that will never be repeated anywhere at any price, I thought it would be worth it.   I hope they prove me right.

    So I’m watching the schedule as it fills in on the web site (D23 doesn’t announce everything at once, but trickles out the content in the weeks leading up to the Expo).    Already I see some tough choices … Friday morning at 10 am is the Animation presentation, with John Lassiter, covering all the upcoming Disney and Pixar animated features.    I have to be there for that … but that means I’ll miss Dave Smith (Disney Archivist Emeritus) discussing the making of Mary Poppins, and the Imagineers discussing the Mystic Manor attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland.     If only I had a few clones to send to those other presentations!

    Things got a little more real this week when the Expo credentials arrived … it’s very exciting to have my tickets in hand, but seriously … couldn’t they have run this through a spell checker and found the correct spelling of Sorcerer?

    IMG_3614

    I think the things I’m looking forward to most at this point are the evening concerts .. Friday night we get “Broadway and Beyond”, featuring current and previous cast members of Disney Theatrical Group’s Broadway productions.    Then on Saturday, Alan Menken and Richard Sherman take the stage together for the first time … I saw Menken perform at the Destination D: 75 Years of Disney Feature Animation event and it was a highlight.    I’m sure this will be an equally memorable evening.

    If you’re at the Expo this year, look for me and say hi … and comment below with what you’re most looking forward to at this year’s Expo.

  • The D23Expo apps are available

    The D23 Expo apps for iPhone and Android are available for download today from the respective app stores.

    Check the schedule and presenters, adding interesting presentations to your calendar.  Check out the vendors in the Collector’s Forum and other shopping opportunities (Dream Store, Mickey’s of Glendale, and more).   Maps of the facilities, FAQ, trivia, even a scavenger hunt.

    iPhone:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/d23-expo/id658929476?mt=8

    Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.disney.d23_goo

  • I love it when a plan comes together

    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?

  • An app is born

    In previous posts I’ve described my desire to do an iPhone app, and finally finding what seemed to be a worthwhile project.   All that was left was to take the idea and see how well I could translate it into an app.

    I started writing code in mid-January.   Sometime in late February the name came to me — The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.    It’s Mickey Mouse’s most famous role.   The ‘Sorcerer’ obviously also ties to the game’s name, Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.   And it can be shortened to The Sorcerer’s App —  “app” works as a shortened form of Apprentice or of Application, and I liked the duality of that.   Even though I was a ways off from having an app ready, I went into iTunes Connect (the software that developers use to publish to the App Store) to see if I could reserve the name.   It was not yet in use by any other app, so I grabbed it, as well as reserving thesorcerersapp.wordpress.com as a blog name where I would start writing about the app.

    Work on the app progressed, and functionality seemed to be falling into some well-defined “buckets”.    There is obviously the collecting of the cards used to play the game, and early on it was decided that this would be the focus of the first version of the app.    So I put together screens that would track cards the user had and the cards still needed.   I designed the database to hold all the card information.  Trading was originally going to wait until Version 2, but ultimately I decided there needed to be something in Version 1 — not a full-blown trading system where users can electronically trade with other app users, but at least something where a user standing in line at a game portal can show a list of cards needed and cards to trade to someone and check off the cards to make a trade.

    Being able to break down the app into smaller chunks felt crucial to me.   For one thing, remembering the experience of seeing other apps beat me to the app store before, I didn’t want to be working on an app for many months, only to have something else appear before I finished.    I felt it was important to get a release out there, and then build on it, rather than wait until I had an app with every feature I could think of.

    As I read more and more of the blogs online, the crowd-sourcing aspect became less important, and eventually disappeared.   It may reappear in a later release (or it may not), but it seems like basic game strategy is understood well enough to encapsulate it in a relatively small set of rules that will be built into the app.   (These game play features will be introduced in Version 2 of the app).

    Version 1 of the app, the digital checklist for card collectors and the trading manager for casual trading face-to-face, was completed early in March.   I recruited some beta testers to try things out, and went through a series of minor revisions.   I submitted the app to the app store.    The first submittal was rejected — not entirely unexpectedly — because it included pictures of all the cards, which are images copyrighted by Disney.    (I rationalized that the card images can be easily found on the web, so Disney appears not to have ordered them taken down — perhaps they wouldn’t object to their use in the app.   I never got to find out as Apple red-flagged that and made me pull the images out of the app.)

    Original "Card Detail" screen, when card images were included
    Original “Card Detail” screen, when card images were included

    After pulling the images, I resubmitted the app and then on April 1st, I got notice that the app had been approved for sale.   I decided that April Fool’s day was not the day I was going to announce the release — too easy to either be taken as a joke, or simply lost in the flood of bogus announcements coming from various sources.    So I waited until April 2nd to start posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and other sources announcing the app.

    An interesting thing about this whole experience, to me, is that I kind of feel I almost missed it.  Since I abandoned my first app effort in 2009, it’s always been a goal to find another project and build an app.    It’s not something I obsessed over or thought about daily — but it is something that I came back to again and again, considering and rejecting a number of ideas that I either couldn’t come up with a good approach for, or thought were over-done, or required skills I didn’t have.   Yet for some reason it took several exposures to the SotMK game for me to make the connection — it seems very obvious in retrospect, but it did not come to me when I played the game in September, or even in January.   Only after the trip, reflecting back on it, did I make the connection.

    If you have a project you’ve wanted to kick off and are just waiting to find the right inspiration — make sure you haven’t missed it!    Do a mental review of  things that have recently caught your interest for more than just a passing moment.    Is there a connection that needs to be made?

    Download the app:  https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=607155560

    Read the blog:  http://thesorcerersapp.wordpress.com/

  • Finding Inspiration

    In my last post, I talked about the Baseball Scorecard app that never made it to launch.   That was in 2009, and ever since then, I’ve had it in the back of my mind that doing an iPhone app was going to happen — I just needed to find the right project.

    Maybe “in the back of my mind” isn’t quite right.   It was really a bucket list item for me … not something I thought about daily, but something that was more than just an idle thought.   I really did plan to act on it, but the ideas just weren’t coming.

    As a long-time Disney fan, doing something Disney related certainly had an appeal, so more than once I tried to think of a Disney-related app idea.  But there are already various tour guides, line estimating guides, etc. for all the parks — I didn’t really want to do a “me, too” app, I wanted to do something new — or at least something I felt like I could do better than anyone else was doing it.    Nothing came to me,  but I continued to believe it would eventually.

    During a WDW trip in September 2012 for the Tower of Terror race, I first played the game Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom (which had launched in February 2012).    It’s a neat little game and one which I was sure I’d play again on future visits to the park — but somehow the synapses didn’t fire, nothing connected telling me there was an app there waiting to be written.

    When I went back in January 2013 for the half marathon, I played again, and this time I did more than just play — I talked to other players, traded cards, and started to hear that there was more complexity to the game than first meets the eye.     The reason this is not readily apparent  is because if you play on the “Easy” difficulty (as I was doing), there is really no strategy required to win — it’s just a pleasant diversion and a chance to walk around the park and watch some entertaining videos, and follow along with the story line.   But if you play on medium and hard levels — then what you do matters.     You can’t just randomly play any cards and hope to defeat the villains trying to take over the Magic Kingdom.

    The game strategy has to be discovered, and it’s really something that one person is not likely to figure out on their own.   So online communities have developed, both for trading the SotMK (as the game is abbreviated) cards and for sharing strategy tips — what’s the best card combination to beat Cruella de Vil?   What cards should you absolutely avoid playing against Maleficient when she appears in dragon form?   How can you handle multiple cards at the portal without dropping your Dole Whip?

    After playing in the parks during each day of my trip, I was checking on the online forums at night for better strategies to use the next day.   Yep, they had hooked me and reeled me in — I needed to beat the game.

    It wasn’t until I was home from the trip that the light bulb went on.   There were too many card combinations for anyone to ever find the completely optimal strategy working alone.   What was needed was a crowdsourced solution.   And while this was happening online via blog postings and Facebook groups, the way to really kick that into high gear would be with an iPhone app.    I’d discovered the app that needed to be written.

    From this idea, I was quickly beginning to mock up what such an app might look like — drawing out the various screens on index cards and pinning them to a cork board to get the flow.    It really seemed to hit the sweet spot I was looking for — here was an app with enough to it that it wasn’t trivial or worthless, but not so large and complex that it was more than a one-person job.   The app could be compartmentalized nicely, meaning that it didn’t have to be done all at once — I could easily visual several versions of the app, each adding in a few new features.    (That was a big downside to the baseball app — you couldn’t do it in pieces.   You can’t release a version 1 that only does balls and strikes, and then a version 2 that handles other batter actions, and then a version 3 that handles baserunning — until you can do it all, you don’t have anything usable).

    Inspiration had finally come along; the idea was there.   Now it was just a mere matter of programming to take the idea and make it a reality.

    Index cards being used to mock up application screens
    Index cards being used to mock up application screens