Imagineering Theory: You're Just Projecting

I am not a big fan of digital projections and similar technology in theme parks.

It's not that it's not cool stuff in itself. I can definitely appreciate the accomplishments of computing and optics required for it to work, and some of its applications are downright stunning. It's thanks to digital projection that we can actually look into the eyes of Mara:

The Buzz Lightyear animatronic in the queue of his ride is pretty sharp, and his mobile face is achieved via LED screen technology:

So this family of technologies definitely has its place. What I dislike about it is the way it seems to be...taking over. Nearly every new attraction being built these days uses screens and/or digital projections in some way, and they have been added to several attractions that didn't previously use them. This would be fine enough if it were a reliable way of improving an attraction, but in practice the results are quite mixed, ranging all the way from “Wow, awesome!” to “Okay, um, why?” and hitting pretty much every point inbetween.

The thing is, there isn't just one reason why these types of effects can be underwhelming. It's actually a tricky realm to navigate, and I hope Imagineering treads carefully in the future so as to avoid the pitfalls and show off their new toy at its best.

As for what those pitfalls are? Read on...

After-Action Report: Mickey's Soundsational Parade

Good evening! Can everyone in the back hear me okay?

Welcome to the first annual presentation of the Marchie Awards! Our purpose tonight is to honor excellence in the art of theme park parades. By an outlandish coincidence, all of our nominees for this ceremony are units in the same parade: Mickey's Soundsational Parade at Disneyland Park, Anaheim, California! Let's meet them! In order of appearance:

See Ya Real Soon: Fantasmic!

Here at the Disneyland Dilettante, I like to categorize my posts. Among numerous others, I have After-Action Reports for discussing currently available attractions and Sentimental Paleontology for my reminiscences about extinct ones. And now, with the Jungle Cruise closed for refurbishment and the Star Wars area under construction, which in turn is causing an 18+ month shutdown of the Rivers of America and the Disneyland Railroad, it seems like a good time to introduce See Ya Real Soon, for all those attractions and features that—for one reason or another—aren't open this week, but will be in the foreseeable future. And what better first example than the prize we got for our patience the last time the river underwent massive changes...the fabulous, the fearsome, the phantasmagorical Fantasmic!?

Buckle up, readers, because it's about to get...personal...

Armchair Imagineering: Bambi’s

(This piece was originally written in 2009 as my entry for an amateur Imagineering contest on deviantART. I've done my best to update it to reflect the current state of California Adventure, but if anything seems awkward...that's why.)

Disneyland Resort offers its guests a broad variety of lunch and dining options, from the fine cuisine and full table service of the Blue Bayou and Ariel’s Grotto to the everyday fare at the Village Haus and Flo's Diner. However, one thing that is so far lacking is a vegetarian restaurant. Vegetarian options exist at most resort eateries, but why should guests who don’t eat meat have to scour every menu in order to find something to their tastes? How can a park resort located in California, and catering primarily to local visitors, lack something as basic to California culture as a vegetarian restaurant?

To fill this gap, I propose Bambi’s, an outdoor, meat-free eatery that not only provides vegetarian guests a place where every menu item is “safe,” but charms its patrons with immersive theming evoking one of Disney’s beloved classic films that, strangely enough, has never been prominently featured in the parks. In short, it fills two gaps at once.

The Second Sense/Armchair Imagineering: Updating the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique Music Loop

Some Disneyland background music loops are custom-recorded just for the park, painstakingly planned and executed to be something entirely unique. Some are what we call “needle-drop”—assembled from existing pieces in a particular style or genre that supports the theme of the area, shop, or restaurant where they are played. Needle-drop loops often make use of edits and cross-fades in order to avoid sounding too much like an amateur mix tape and omit portions, usually vocals, that might be distracting or intrusive.

And sometimes, the sound engineers just cheat, and use songs and music straight from Disney's own library of soundtracks. It's certainly not bad music, but it's so obvious. Lazy, even—how much thought or effort can it possibly take to devise a playlist for a location in Disneyland that uses nothing but the soundtrack versions of well-known Disney songs?

My case in point here will be the background music loop that plays in the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, and has since this location was known as Once Upon a Time...A Princess Shoppe.* As you might guess, this loop consists entirely of songs, and a few instrumental pieces, from some of Disney's animated “Princess movies”...specifically, the first six such movies, which constituted the entirety of the Disney Princess brand when it was first launched and when the shop first assumed that identity in 2002. (Previously, it had been the Tinker Bell Toy Shoppe.)

So far, so predictable. If you're going to sell Princess merch, you might as well do it with songs sung by and about your star characters playing in the background. A while back, as a service to my fellow Disney theme park music archivists at Mousebits, I spent some time in the shop just jotting down the playlist and noting any edits made to the tracks. At home, I looked over my notes and assigned a logical “beginning point” for the loop, and wound up with this:

After-Action Report: Matterhorn Bobsleds

The Matterhorn has come up several times since I started this blog. I've examined its role in the sub-themes of Fantasyland, pegged its 1978 upgrades as an important Disneyland milestone, unraveled (some of) the secrets of the heraldic shields in its queue area, and even suggested a tongue-in-cheek idea for a holiday overlay. The one thing I haven't done yet is devote an entire post to the ride itself. With large swaths of the country currently resembling the Matterhorn's upper slopes, now seems like a good time!

First things first: I love the Matterhorn Bobsleds. It was the first roller coaster I, as a small child, ever mustered the courage to ride, and it might be my favorite coaster in Disneyland to this day, thanks to its fanciful theming. For some reason—probably the rarity of my encounters with the real thing—I have always found snowscapes and ice crystals absolutely enthralling.

But my quirks aside, there's definitely a lot that's special about the majestic Matterhorn.

Armchair Imagineering: PVC Figurines

(Tip of the hat to fellow-blogger and commenter Cory Gross, whose recent post about his kitbashed Disney board game Talismouse started a conversation which led to this post.)

This is going to be a bit of a different Armchair Imagineering post than the usual. Instead of sharing my grand ideas for rides, attractions, and holiday overlays, this one is about...souvenirs. Merchandise. Swag.

Souvenirs are obviously a big part of Disneyland, but most of the ones available seem to revolve around Disney's film and television IPs. It's not difficult to see why this is: It's easier to sell people stuff they recognize than stuff that might be brand-new to them. Tourists are having a terrific time at the park, to be sure, but they might not be falling in love with the individual attraction characters to the extent that they're willing to blow their memorabilia budget on Hitchhiking Ghosts when that Winnie the Pooh plush is right there, promising to make them feel like a kid again. So there's a lot more of the latter than the former lining the shelves.

Then, too, most of the merchandise that specifically references the park treats Disneyland* like a holistic entity, with little attention paid to its individual components. If you had only tee-shirts and picture frames to go by, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the place consisted only of a castle with animated characters cavorting around it:

Celebrating 60 Years of Painfully Generic Branding

More specific items exist, of course...but the execution is inconsistent. There are pins, if you're into that sort of thing, and the odd plush toy. Beyond that, things start to get pretty pricey. At the low end, a handful of the popular Ear Hat Ornaments are based on rides, but they're twenty-five bucks a pop, making it a daunting task to build a collection. That, and they're Christmas tree ornaments based on Mickey Mouse ear beanies, meaning that the rides in question are not being allowed to stand on their own as souvenirs. The “purer” the attraction merchandise gets, the more expensive it gets. If you love more than one ride for its own sake, but you're not rich, it can be all but impossible to express your love via knickknacks.