Friday, 22nd September 2006

It’s Halloween-lo-ween already?

With over 2 weeks to go until the season begins (and over 6 weeks until Halloween itself), two of the most major Halloween props have already arrived. First, the Giant Pumpkin on Central Plaza was completed just a few days ago. The huge temporary structure is home to the festival’s face painting workshops and has been a key icon of the season since 2003.

Over in Frontierland (or should that be “Halloweenland” already?), there’s an unexpected return for a controversial landmark – the huge paint mining tower. Despite being strongly rumoured not to return due to the Big Thunder Mountain refurbishment and supposed dislike from the new management, the towering metal structure is already in place, though not complete. Introduced in 2004, the “Téléfreak” (a pun on the french work for chairlift/cableway, téléphérique) is a large prop consisting of a moving cableway between the steel tower and the “Pumpkin Paint Mine” of Big Thunder Mountain. A large paint pot also connects to the tower with a pipe, to supposedly collect the orange paint being mined.

Many suggest it is unlikely the full system will return, since the large scale refurbishment at Big Thunder would make the cableway hard to install. It therefore seems likely that simply the mining tower and giant paint pot will return for 2006.

Thanks to Poppy the Monkey at magicforum for the 2006 installation photo.

Friday, 22nd September 2006

A little touch of Studio style

Curves are everywhere in Walt Disney Studios – from the arched entrance gate to the curving walls of Front Lot’s Fantasia Fountain, from the hub of Disney Bros. Plaza to the giant Sorcerer’s Hat. The trademark feature of Disney Studios 1, 2 and 3, setting them apart from the rough, industrial buildings of Backlot, is the arched roof and prominent soundstage number, and it’s this tiny little touch of style that has now made its way to the Crush’s Coaster construction site.

With the side walls at their full height and the roof in place, this week finally saw the front wall rise further with the raised placard feature similar to Disney Studio 1. Unlike Disney Studio 1, however, an identical raised section will not be found at the rear end of Studio 5. The smaller square building at the front will be integrated into the park with a large seascape backdrop and the blue rockwork currently under construction.

The final section of curved wall features a square centrepiece to house the large number “5” in the near future, and has taken what was previously a long, thin but very tall (and therefore rather unbalanced) showbuilding a step closer to being a real Disney Theme Park landmark. One small step for the builders… one giant leap for Walt Disney Studios!

Photos by Res at Disney Central Plaza forum.

Thursday, 21st September 2006

Disney unveils its MagicHalloween.com

The overall presentation of the website, with its Flash animations and introductions, perhaps gives us a glipse at what to expect from Stitch’s involvement in the season. The opening of the website involves Stitch climbing across Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant, whilst the mini-game sees him throw paint, tomatoes and toilet rolls across some of Disneyland Park’s memorable icons (transferred spectacularly well to the Flash animation). With Stitch popping up throughout the interrupt your browsing experience with paint splashes and ripping of the screen, does this tell us to prepare for an invasion similar to that recently seen at Tokyo Disneyland?

At the Tokyo park, Stitch took over with graffiti and mess across the park whilst the Cinderella Castle was being refurbishmed, whilst a similar stunt at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom saw him throw toilet roll across the Floridian castle for the opening of the Stitch’s Great Escape attraction. Only three details of Stitch’s Parisian invasion are currently known: his general meet ‘n’ greet presence throughout the park, his “CharacteriStitch Halloween Party” (similar to the 2006 Kids Carnival events) and his float in the Disney Villain Parade (the previous Pumpkinmen and current Snow White float).

The website gives away much more detail on the pages describing the Halloween Soirée event on 31st October, with the new Pirates theme being used as much as possible to feed of the success of Dead Man’s Chest. Jack Sparrow is confirmed to appear throughout the evening, and the special Halloween Night Fireworks will feature a soundtrack taken from the films. The website also introduces something new – a nighttime mini-parade in Adventureland. “The wizards and sorcerers, trolls, pirates, acrobats, dancers and percussionists stroll along in a ghost ship atmosphere”, it describes. The site also confirms the attractions scheduled to open during the event, which are:
(8.30pm to 1am) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain, Phantom Manor, Disneyland Railroad, Space Mountain: Mission 2, Orbitron, Star Tours, Honey I Shrunk the Audience;
(8.30pm to 12am) Sleeping Beauty Castle, Le Carrousel de Lancelot, Blanche Neige et les Sept Nains, Les Voyages de Pinocchio, Peter Pan’s Flight, “it’s a small world”, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups.

If you want to be a part of the Halloween frights already, click onto the “Funny Face Contest”, which lets you upload your best worst photo (does that make sense?) with the aim of inflicting terror upon countless unwitting web surfers. You can flick through Stitch’s photo album to see everyone who has enterted so far, and there’s a rather zippy search function too. If this is the future of the resort’s online presence, we’ve got a lot to look forward to.

Thursday, 21st September 2006

An enchanted harvest in Fantasyland

The “Enchanted Tree” itself has now sprouted up out of the ground and immediately filled the air with bright green leaves and colourful fruits of every kind. To the right of the hut, an old-fashioned wooden wheelbarrow has been carefully placed with baskets filled with the tree’s fruits, setting up an Imagineering story of a magical tree giving never-ending harvests.

The hut itself has also been given extra colours and themeing, with new painted murals showing fruits, the kiosk’s name and the sponsor of the location, The Coca-Cola Company’s Minute Maid brand.

More photos available at Photos Magiques »

Thursday, 21st September 2006

Visualising the Toons

So far only released in a small resolution on the official travel marketing tools website Extraordinet, the visuals mainly use elements of the movie posters for Finding Nemo and Cars, with the Cars Race Rally image appearing as little more than a slightly photoshopped version of its one-sheet.

The Crush’s Coaster image, on the other hand, is more original but perhaps confusing to those unfamiliar with the new family spinning coaster and dark ride. The visual shows a winding U-shaped track similar to that of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith, rather than the flatter design of the actual Maurer Söhne track. The corkscrew nature of the track, covered in quickly duplicated images of characters from the film, could also hint at inversions and a higher thrill level than the actual attraction. Despite this, the visual is fresh and colourful and, along with its Cars Race Rally friend, will likely do good work for the resort in advertising these two exciting attractions.

Both visuals feature the classic Disneyland Resort Paris logo (rather than the new 15th Anniversary version) on signposts themed to a harbour sign and billboard respectively. Strangely, they also both feature the castle, Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant, rather than the Earful Tower landmark of Walt Disney Studios.

The large black space in the Cars Race Rally visual hints at either a lack of creativity or a pre-designated space for the attraction logo. Indeed, after quickly adding logos to the two visuals they immediately become far more balanced and rather attention-grabbing…

Fans of Dory, the legendary Blue Regal Tang from Finding Nemo, should perhaps not smile too soon, though. After a total non-appearance in every single piece of concept art for the attraction, she has also failed to appear in this visual. Her popularity is so strong that, if she is featured in the attraction, you’d think they’d use her heavily on the advertisement too, right?

Thursday, 21st September 2006

Casting (and unveiling) the dream

Disneyland Resort Paris are certainly not just looking for parade dancers for their 15th Anniversary extravaganza, set to be a veritable circus of animation and entertainment, with the advertisement calling upon bungee acrobats, jugglers, flag artists, puppeteers and stilt walkers. The two casting calls are scheduled for Lyon and Montpellier on the 21st and 23rd September 2006 respectively, with the listing informing participants they should plan for the day with casual (sports) clothing, sneakers and a possible call-back in the afternoon. As usual, the casting has a height requirement of between 142cm and 193cm.

Rumours suggest the parade will only feature around 50 dancers (around 20-30 fewer than current parades in high season), since the balance will be shifted more towards character performers for the new parade. The silhouettes of the parade floats confirm most of what has already been rumoured about the design of the floats – here’s a full run-through of everything we can see:

Float 1: Dream of Imagination
We’ve seen this one aleady… Mickey and Minnie ride high above the clouds in a sun-stylled hot air balloon. You can see the full concept artwork here.
Float 2: Dream of Fun and Laughter
A traditional fairytale hut is featured at the centre of the float, used by Alice in Wonderland first and then Pinocchio at the rear. The Pinocchio section appears to feature “marionnette” bungee artists similar to those in Walt Disney’s Parade of Dreams at Disneyland California, bouncing on bungee ropes from supports high above.

Float 3: Dream of Friendship
Features Toy Story and Winnie the Pooh characters, with a giant storybook in the middle separating the two themes. The rear section appears to feature Winnie and friends, with lamps hanging on strings, whilst the front section isn’t too clear…

Float 4: Dream of Fantasy
The most obvious of all the designs, this very British float will feature a whimsically stylled Big Ben tower in the centre, with Peter Pan’s pirate ship at the front and Mary Poppins’ “jolly holiday” carousel and a fleet of kites at the rear. An interesting change of theme for Mary after the current chimneysweep theme, since the Disney Cinema Parade also currently uses the carousel theme.

Float 5: Dream of Power
The villains’ float isn’t too clear, but you can clearly see Fantasia villain Chernabog towering over it all and a serpent Jafar slithering along at the front.
Float 6: Dream of Adventure
Serving The Lion King and The Jungle Book, this one is bound to be popular. A giant tree towers out of the middle, with Simba on Pride Rock before it and Kong Louie and Baloo behind. You can see various animals from both films in the tree, including monkeys and giraffes. Rafiki is clinging to the tree behind Pride Rock and Timon and Pumbaa are likely featured below.

Float 7: Dream of Romance (Part 1)
The most difficult of all the artworks, float 7 is due to feature The Little Mermaid and Aladdin and Jasmine in an “enchanted garden” setting. Ariel seems to be featured at the rear, with Jasmine further forward.

Float 8: Dream of Romance (Part 2)
The grand finale to the entire parade, this float looks suitably huge and is due to feature not two but four princesses! The initial gazebo is likely for Beauty and the Beast, whilst the ornate fairytale bride is occupied by Snow White and her prince. On the hill before the giant castle stands Cinderella and Prince Charming. No sign of Sleeping Beauty yet, but the rumours of this float being articulated (split into two free-moving, joined sections) look to be quite possible.

Spotted something extra? Add a comment to this post!

With a double-character style similar to Walt Disney World’s Share a Dream Come True and an extravagant, classical float design similar to Disneyland’s 50th anniversary Parade of Dreams, the first all-new daytime parade in Paris for 5 years looks set to truly be a dream come true. You can find out more about the parade here.

Advertisement scanned by Sébastien Antunes for dlrp.fr.

Sunday, 10th September 2006

First rocks and a second logo

Also, more news about the attraction’s construction comes from the park itself…

Work on the attraction’s exterior continues as the first rocks have been shaped and received a first layer of paint!Photos Magiques has the latest construction photos here.

Wednesday, 6th September 2006

King of the pin frontier

The unique series has seen Stitch invade locations across the resort on special Limited Edition pins, and will come to an end with the 13th pin on this special Saturday. Also, for the first time in many years, shuttle buses will be running to Disney’s Davy Crockett Ranch for those without their own transport! Here is the full announcement:

Dear All,

Come and discover the final pin in the Stitch Invasion series at Disney’s Davy Crockett Ranch®

Saturday September 30th, 2006 from 2:00 pm onwards

En avant première : Stitch Invasion Pin N° 13 , 2007 Pin, Tinkerbell Autumn Pin , and the latest JUMBO Pin from Disneyland® Resort Paris.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

A discount of 30% will be offered for the reservation of a bungalow at Disney’s Davy Crockett Ranch® on this occasion * , including a special Barbecue offer at the Crockett’s Tavern restaurant in the Disney’s Davy Crockett Ranch®, (special offer limited to 4 persons and only valid for the arrival night, drinks not included. An additional Room Tax charge of 0.40€ will be applied to each additional person. Additional Guests may choose from the menu at Crockett’s Tavern (standard rates apply).

Special shuttle buses will be available from Marne la Vallée Chessy Train Station at 1.00pm and 1.45pm and from Disney’s Davy Crockett Ranch® at 6.15pm and 7.00pm on Saturday September 30th.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Reservations : 00.33.825.306.030.

*Available only for the night from Sept 29th to Sept 30th and/or from Sept 30th to Oct 1st 2006.

See you soon,
The Pin Trading Team

Sunday, 3rd September 2006

A different angle on the 15th

The alternate logo takes the newer resort logo design from the original 15th anniversary design, with the sans-serif “Resort Paris” and bold weighted “Paris”, and matches this simply with the specially-styled “15” and three stars. The original logo design (presented below), was far more graphical and complete, showing an illustration of the castle and tinkerbell, with the text on a banner. This new, supplementary logo is therefore a more linear alternative for occasions when the original logo is too bulky to be effective.

It is fairly unusual for the resort to produce two logos for the same event as different as these, showing they know in their market the easier you make it for people to advertise your product, the more advertising you get. And, with a year as important as 2007, they’ll need all the help they can get.

Sunday, 3rd September 2006

Summon the Kraken!

“Baptist the Pirate!” reports on Disney Central Plaza forum that the artwork surrounding the attraction’s on-ride photo has now been updated with a new design featuring a few not-so-subtle nods to the second movie. These include the mighty Kraken, the key to the Dead Man’s Chest, a hint of Cannibal Island and a pirate captain bearing a strong (but not completely accurate) resemblance to Jack Sparrow himself.

The previous photo artwork (featured below) was far less colourful, using mainly shades of blue on an image of a rough sea. This artwork was introduced in April 2004, when the attraction’s on-ride camera was moved to the second main flume, between the Burning Village and Dead Man’s Caves. When first introduced in early 2002, the camera was located in one of the eye sockets of the skull in the rockface of the first Dead Man’s Caves scene, producing some fairly un-animated photos of guests gently sailing by.

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