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Disney World debuts new castle projection show
Walt Disney World's marketing push for 2011 is all about making memories, and the theme park behemoth put more than 500 of them on display on its most famous icon, Cinderella Castle, Tuesday night.
A new nighttime show, called "The Magic, The Memories and You" was previewed for media at the Magic Kingdom near Orlando, Florida.
The show features images captured daily by Disney's PhotoPass photographers - those guys and gals who ask you to stop so they can take your picture - and projected on to Cinderella Castle in a show set to music. At least, that's what I was expecting. What I saw was way more elaborate than that.
Through the use of animation from 16 different projectors, the castle's turrets spin, vines wind up its walls, and flames engulf it, all while photos dance across the facade. It's visually stunning, dramatic, and, well, a bit trippy. One guest at the media preview said the show reminded him of performances of Pink Floyd's "The Wall."
"It's a heck of a lot more than a slideshow on a castle," said Alan Bruun, associate creative director for Walt Disney World Entertainment.The 10-minute show features familiar Disney tunes threaded around a new song named, aptly, "Let the Memories Begin."
Show producers started by digitally mapping the castle, to ensure a truly 3D projection on its facade. The castle projection show was then storyboarded as if it were a short film, Bruun said. Animators made the story boards come to life, creating slots for 500 photos from that day in the park.
The 500 photos are hand-selected and cropped, but a computer ultimately decides which photo goes into which slot in the show.
"It's an amazing and complex process," Bruun said. "But it involves just as much high-touch as it does high-tech, as individuals select those photograhs before the computer populates the castle with them."
While there are some large projections, many of the photos are used in photo-mosaic images, and are on the small side. So, you may not be able to pick yours out as they move quickly by. And if you're worried about photo privacy at Disney, you can opt out and keep your photo from being considered for the show.
"The Magic, The Memories and You" will be projected onto Cinderella Castle each night, twice a night when the park stays open late.
A similar projection show will debut at Disneyland in California on Jan. 27. It will be projected onto the facade of the It's a Small World ride.
Filed under: North America, United States, Theme Parks
