(Pictured left: Captain Jack Sparrow Uploaded by ankneyd on 27 Apr 07, 8.19PM PDT. CC Some rights reserved.)
Disney wanted us to tone Jack down, so they put us through an acting class to discover reasons why Jack walks and talks the way he does. Obviously he is based on Keith Richards, who’s always messed up, which is why they came up with the class. “Don’t be flirtatious,” they told us. “See women as trouble.” And they said as far as alcohol goes, don’t even mention drinking. But the Pirates of the Caribbean song is all about drinking, and they’re drinking all along the ride. So I eventually broke that rule, because it would have taken me out of character. When parents took pictures, I’d say, “Everyone say ‘rum,’ ” and the parents loved it. The kids would just ask, “What’s rum?”
The Disneyland Resort Paris music site is offering free downloads of music from the park. The songs are available for two weeks and then rotated.
I’ll be interested if they offer any music from the attractions themselves or just area music. Awhile ago I started searching for some Pirates of the Caribbean music, but so far my search has been unsuccessful. Hopefully I’ll be able to find it here. (By the way, if you’re reading this in the archives and notice that they’ve now got Pirate music available, please leave a comment so that I’ll remember to go back and get it).
Remember that you’ll have to unzip the files and enter the password they give you (www.dlrpmusic.com) but the downloads are free. You can also find more downloads in the bonus section.
Oh, and a word of warning, they have background music that plays automatically, ala webdesign 1996, but at least there is a stop button to turn it off.
Rumours abound that Disney is buying up property to build another theme park next to Disneyland. It seems more likely the company just wants to build more hotels, but if they did build another park… I would love it!
The [Disney] company has slowly but steadily amassed 460 acres in Anaheim, including a prime chunk of strawberry fields down Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland that is the designated site of a third park.
And someone is approaching the field’s neighboring landowners, trying to buy up land. Corona del Mar resident Benjamin Kraut, 81, said Disney offered to buy his 5 acres several years ago. Then, six months ago, a suitor Kraut declined to name offered him $14.5 million for the land where he co-owns a 90-unit apartment complex. He said it is not for sale.
Disney hasn’t unveiled plans for the Disney Resort—those typically come amid fanfare and orchestration—but top executives have hinted at expanding existing markets and increasing its time-share offerings.
It’s fun to think about a new Disney theme park, but I think it’s safe to say that even if considerations for a new park are being thrown around, it will still be a good 25 years before anything comes to fruition. Disney’s California Adventure still needs more E-ticket attractions for one thing, and certainly in Disneyland itself they’ll want to see how the revamping of the old Submarine Voyage into a Finding Nemo attraction performs.
Last summer, Ray Keim of Haunted Dimensions released an extremely cool paper model of the Disneyland Haunted Mansion in New Orleans Square. My brother and I started working on it as a summer project, but since he was only here for one afternoon, we didn’t get very far. Lately he’s been back visiting and it got me back working on it again. Today, it’s finally finished and it looks great!
I really enjoyed reading CNN Money’s interview with Pixar’s John Lasseter. The piece has the most extensive comments I’ve seen from Lasseter regarding the Pixar/Disney negotiations. My favourite quote is the comparison of Pixar taking over Disney Feature Animation being like Nemo swallowing a whale.
The French site pixarroom.free.fr (oui, il est en français) overlaps slightly with the article but it’s also worth checking out if you are interested in Pixar, Disney, or animation in general. Scroll down for the video interviews of John at the Cars Premiere in France (don’t worry the questions are translated into English).
I came across this great editorial in the New York Times about the Disney-Pixar deal. One thing I’ve learned recently about the deal is that the company is purging itself of most of the middle management that isn’t directly involved in creating the artwork. What they are doing is recreating the old Disney studio from the 1930’s when Walt was in charge and story was king.
In the end, Disney is doing something that perhaps no other corporation of this size has ever done: actively de-corporatizing itself. It is reassigning authority from the bureaucracy to a small group of creative individuals. It is, in short, trying to resurrect Walt Disney and his early hands-on management style. Running the company out of his own head was a difficult enough task for Walt Disney himself. Whether the new crew can pull it off is anyone’s guess. But if they do, it will reverse the dynamics of the entire entertainment industry by empowering the putative visionaries over the suits.
It has only been a short time since Disney’s all stock buy-out of Pixar and already some big changes are under way. The Los Angeles Times (silly registration or bugmenot) reports that with this deal comes an end to quarrel over Pixar sequels.
In remarks made during a Tuesday conference call with analysts, Iger and Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs implied what other sources confirmed Wednesday: that Disney’s 150-plus-person Pixar sequels unit which is housed in a Glendale warehouse and is already at work on “Toy Story 3″ will soon be no more.
“We feel very strongly that if the sequels are going to be made, we want the people who were involved in the original films involved in the sequels,” Jobs said.
Iger sounded the same note.
“It was really important to me that the people who made the films originally, who had the vision, who knew the characters and the essence of these films get a shot at making any films that were derivative,” the Disney chief said.
“While Disney might have been able to make them, Pixar making them is just so much different,” Iger added. “Not to take away from the talent of other people who might have been picked to make them.”
The announcement isn’t a complete surprise since Disney making Pixar sequels (or not making them) was a major factor during negotiations. Still it’s nice to see that Disney will no longer be destroying classics as they have done in the past. And because Pixar is taking over for Walt Disney Feature Animation, I guess this also means no more Dumbo 2? (Yes, they really were thinking about it.)
I’ve been hearing rumours about Disney buying Pixar in an all-stock deal for a couple of days. Here is the lowdown:
The Telegraph article was the first one that I heard of announcing the deal.
Today the New York Times reports that Disney may announce their acquisition of Pixar as early as tomorrow. According to the Times, “the deal would combine Pixar with Disney’s animation unit and give Mr. Jobs a seat on Disney’s board.”
Harry Mccracken has a collection of interesting questions about the Disney-Pixar merger on his blog posting, “Disney+Pixar=?“.
Update: Over at Cartoon Brew they have a copy of an email from Walt Disney Feature Animation President David Stainton as he prepares to hand over the position to John Lasseter. Especially interesting is the comment from an anonymous Disney director.
It is a low-key way to end a 21-year career that was both brilliant and controversial and during which Mr. Eisner, 63, became the face of Disney for the generation whose parents grew up with the founder, Walt Disney.
I’ve been engrossed in a myriad of new animation and art blogs that seem to have sprung up like mushrooms in the last month.
I found this little gem of an entry tonight that relates how Rob Clements & John Musker quit Walt Disney Feature Animation over what happened to Fraidy Cat.
(… Ron Clements & John Musker are the writers / directors of such Disney animated hits as “The Great Mouse Detective,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” “Hercules” and “Treasure Planet.” Over the past 20 years, these gifted filmmakers are personally responsible for billions of dollars pouring into Disney’s corporate coffers.)
It’s so disappointing that number one, we’ll never get to see Fraidy Cat, and number two, Walt Disney Feature Animation has lost two tremendously talented individuals.
The new theme park had a trial opening on Sunday September 4th, and discovered that filling it to near capacity was not a good idea. At 311 acres Hong Kong Disneyland is less than half the size of the original Disneyland in California. A spokesman for the company admitted that the more than 29,000 visitors to the theme park had suffered when it was almost filled to its daily capacity of 30,000 during the charity trial run a week ago, ahead of its grand opening today.
Capacity problems aside, getting the park into the communist country has not been easy. There have been many problems along the way and the media loves to find fault in any company with such a reputation as Disney’s.
Shark Fin Soup on the wedding banquet menu was criticized for being wasteful and cruel to sharks by animal rights activists. The activists complain that shark’s fins are harvested inhumanely by fishermen who brutally hack the fin from sharks and toss the bodies back into the sea to die, a practice known as “finning.” Shark Fin Soup is a Chinese delicacy and is adored by the masses, so making a balance between cultural sensitivities and conservation can be tricky. In the end, the company said that it had made the decision to remove the controversial item from its menu because it was “not able to identify an environmentally sustainable fishing source” that could make sure the fins used for the soup were not the product of large-scale butchering of sharks in open seas.
The government of China has also had its share of rebuke for giving up too much in its negotiations with Disney. People have expressed concern over the high-profile union between two major forces in their lives: big business and government. With the government investing over $3 billion US another concern is over Disney opening an additional theme park, this time in mainland China, within only a few years - which would damage profits. Disney has announced that a new park in Shanghai could be under construction as early as 2010 if talks go smoothly.
Critics denounced Disney for euthanizing dozens of stray dogs that had lived in the area during construction. Around 40 dogs, some of which were used as unofficial guard dogs by construction workers, are believed to have been given lethal injections after being caught by government dog catchers.
The park has also been criticized for its fireworks shows adding smog to an already polluted environment.
A group of activists put a large stuffed Mickey Mouse in a cage at the entrance to the Hong Kong Disneyland on Sunday in a symbolic protest against labour exploitation.
But despite all the criticisms and logistical problems, Hong Kong Disneyland opens today and, for this Disney fan, it’s hard not to feel the magic.
A recently discovered old comic strip set from the 1930’s shows Mickey Mouse repeatedly attempting to end his own life when it appears Minnie has fallen for another mouse.
As any long term readers of my blog know, I’m a pretty big fan of Disneyland. However, I have to say my love of the park is slowly diminishing with all the bad news coming out of Disney theme parks lately. For instance there was a low speed collision on Disney’s California Adventure’s Screamin’ rollercoaster yesterday. No one was killed but about 15 people have minor injuries. What is going on with the maintenance lately that there have been so many theme park accidents? From NBC News 4:
Fire crews, ambulances and other emergency vehicles were at the California Screamin’ ride, which features a 108-foot drop. Crews received the report at about 6:40 p.m.
City spokesman John Nicoletti said 15 of the 48 people on the ride were hospitalized for treatment of minor injuries.
…
The slow-speed collision occurred on a flat portion of the roller coaster. Officials were attempting to determine a cause.
It was the second accident in four months at a Disneyland Resort park in Anaheim.
No flirting, no facial hair, and no mention of alcohol: a former Disney cast member shares life on the ocean blue as the famous Jack Sparrow working in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square.
