Report from an article (alex-travelpics.blogspot.com/2008/07/disney-reconnat-enfin-ses-fans-grce-au.html) :
"As many of you know it already, I used to be a redactor for the first information website related to Disneyland Resort Paris and the world of Disney some years ago. It lasted two years, during which I was writting at least two articles a day. This full time job was of mine made me become quite well known among the community of the Disney fans, which is made of several thousands people. Every day, DLRP.fr (today closed and replaced by some other commercial website in order to make some last dollars out of my work) was attracting almost 10.000 uniques visitors, many of which were part of a Disney discussion board.
These online forums have always been a lot. Almost every day, a new fan would create his own forum, but not many have actually emerged. The most famous and active is still Disney Central Plaza. Still, we decided at that time to "attack" the number one and create our own forum, constituted of readers of DLRP.fr. Many of the forum members who were active on other forums quickly joined us, and new members arrived thanks to our good visibility on the internet. Unfortunately, when I stopped working on this website, the forum closed with the site itself.
Thanks to the passion of some of our former members, the forum has been saved from deletion and moved to a new server. It was then renamed Disney Gazette, and some of the most active members of the DLRP.fr forum came to the head of this new online community. It was last summer, in 2007. Today, this forum has found its place in the Disney online world, and is home to more than 3100 members, not to mention the people who read the forum without being registered. They're almost 1000 to connect to Disney Gazette every day, which is a good evidence of the popularity of this new project.
Many of the Disney Gazette members are particularly skilled in many things. Sometimes, that's because of their job (a graphic designer who is also a member made the design of the Disney Gazette forum for free) or simply because of their passion (amateur photographers take pictures for the forum for the pleasure of sharing). A particular group of friends, almost all members of Disney Gazette, are amazing at organizing special events, parties and games. After organizing a giant Cluedo and a life-size version of the Monopoly at Disneyland Resort Paris for the fans, they suddenly came up with a crazy idea : a Disney lipdub!
What is a lipdub? That's easy, the video down this paragraph is pretty clear. It's a group of people who sing a song in playback each at a time, and in which the camera is flying from singer to singer in a single shot. This project needs a lot of work and synchronicity from the performers and the cameraman. Many groups of people, friends or colleagues have already tried to make their own lipdub. Not all of them have the same quality, but the one made by Disney Gazette is just amazing! Judge by yourself :
The song used here is called "Just like we dreamed it". It's the official anthem of Disneyland Paris' 15th birthday, a celebration started in April 2007 and which will end in March 2009. Throughout this celebration, Disneyland Resort Paris has inaugurated more new attractions than at any time of its 15 years long history. Among them are the Crush's Coaster, Cars Race Rally, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Stitch Live, as well as two new parades.
Now what is really amazing is that this video was uploaded yesterday night by Disney Gazette. And surpringly, it has been reported by the official blog of Disneyland Paris! What is so amazing? That's simple : Disney has never really admitted the existence of the online fan community. It's actually afraid of it, since the fans want to know everything about everything, including the future projects, whose revelation could influence the value of EuroDisney shares on the financial places, and obviously how it all works. And what does Disney sell to its clients? Some dream, some magic... they want you to be imerged into a universe created by their Imagineers for their parks. When a fan wants to know how it looks backstage, and puts the result of his investigations online, that suddenly breaks the magic for hundreds of clients who will, as a consequence, be less prone to buy the Disneyland product by visiting the resort.
For the first time, what the fans made is magical enough to please Disney's executives. Still, they haven't put on their official blog the real uncut video that you can see on Disney Gazette. Indeed, they hid the address of the forum, so that no one could know where it comes from. The lambda visitor who comes on Disney's website shouldn't know about the existence of online fan communities, but that's fine if they see that some people are fan enough to spend so much of their time to do something great. That's a first, but we aren't there yet. There is still much work to do before Disney completely accepts what it can't control : its own fans!
Congratulations to all the 45 Disney Gazette members who took part in the making of this great video. I hope you enjoyed it!"
Copy it in Firefox : disneygazette.fr/lipdub
"As many of you know it already, I used to be a redactor for the first information website related to Disneyland Resort Paris and the world of Disney some years ago. It lasted two years, during which I was writting at least two articles a day. This full time job was of mine made me become quite well known among the community of the Disney fans, which is made of several thousands people. Every day, DLRP.fr (today closed and replaced by some other commercial website in order to make some last dollars out of my work) was attracting almost 10.000 uniques visitors, many of which were part of a Disney discussion board.
These online forums have always been a lot. Almost every day, a new fan would create his own forum, but not many have actually emerged. The most famous and active is still Disney Central Plaza. Still, we decided at that time to "attack" the number one and create our own forum, constituted of readers of DLRP.fr. Many of the forum members who were active on other forums quickly joined us, and new members arrived thanks to our good visibility on the internet. Unfortunately, when I stopped working on this website, the forum closed with the site itself.
Thanks to the passion of some of our former members, the forum has been saved from deletion and moved to a new server. It was then renamed Disney Gazette, and some of the most active members of the DLRP.fr forum came to the head of this new online community. It was last summer, in 2007. Today, this forum has found its place in the Disney online world, and is home to more than 3100 members, not to mention the people who read the forum without being registered. They're almost 1000 to connect to Disney Gazette every day, which is a good evidence of the popularity of this new project.
Many of the Disney Gazette members are particularly skilled in many things. Sometimes, that's because of their job (a graphic designer who is also a member made the design of the Disney Gazette forum for free) or simply because of their passion (amateur photographers take pictures for the forum for the pleasure of sharing). A particular group of friends, almost all members of Disney Gazette, are amazing at organizing special events, parties and games. After organizing a giant Cluedo and a life-size version of the Monopoly at Disneyland Resort Paris for the fans, they suddenly came up with a crazy idea : a Disney lipdub!
What is a lipdub? That's easy, the video down this paragraph is pretty clear. It's a group of people who sing a song in playback each at a time, and in which the camera is flying from singer to singer in a single shot. This project needs a lot of work and synchronicity from the performers and the cameraman. Many groups of people, friends or colleagues have already tried to make their own lipdub. Not all of them have the same quality, but the one made by Disney Gazette is just amazing! Judge by yourself :
The song used here is called "Just like we dreamed it". It's the official anthem of Disneyland Paris' 15th birthday, a celebration started in April 2007 and which will end in March 2009. Throughout this celebration, Disneyland Resort Paris has inaugurated more new attractions than at any time of its 15 years long history. Among them are the Crush's Coaster, Cars Race Rally, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Stitch Live, as well as two new parades.
Now what is really amazing is that this video was uploaded yesterday night by Disney Gazette. And surpringly, it has been reported by the official blog of Disneyland Paris! What is so amazing? That's simple : Disney has never really admitted the existence of the online fan community. It's actually afraid of it, since the fans want to know everything about everything, including the future projects, whose revelation could influence the value of EuroDisney shares on the financial places, and obviously how it all works. And what does Disney sell to its clients? Some dream, some magic... they want you to be imerged into a universe created by their Imagineers for their parks. When a fan wants to know how it looks backstage, and puts the result of his investigations online, that suddenly breaks the magic for hundreds of clients who will, as a consequence, be less prone to buy the Disneyland product by visiting the resort.
For the first time, what the fans made is magical enough to please Disney's executives. Still, they haven't put on their official blog the real uncut video that you can see on Disney Gazette. Indeed, they hid the address of the forum, so that no one could know where it comes from. The lambda visitor who comes on Disney's website shouldn't know about the existence of online fan communities, but that's fine if they see that some people are fan enough to spend so much of their time to do something great. That's a first, but we aren't there yet. There is still much work to do before Disney completely accepts what it can't control : its own fans!
Congratulations to all the 45 Disney Gazette members who took part in the making of this great video. I hope you enjoyed it!"
Copy it in Firefox : disneygazette.fr/lipdub
