Well, now that you've stuck with me through weeks of sometimes sporadic updates and even occasional postings on my pre-trip report comes the moment that you've all been waiting for, but of course what trip report would be complete without some sort of moment of truth and/or crisis, which you're about to hear about next.
Well, as everybody knows, Disney has billed 2007 and 2008 as the Year(s) of a Million Dreams. When looking at all the dream prizes being awarded, I can say that many of them don't strike me as a dream. Sure there are some fun prizes in the there, but I can honestly say that I wouldn't trade any of the year of a million dream prizes, for what I will see today. Yes, today is the day that I get to tour the backlot of the Walt Disney Studios the very place where so many of my favorite movies were created. You see of all the places in the world where I would love to someday visit the Walt Disney Studios are at the very top of the list, right ahead of Lucasfilm/ILM, and Pixar Animation Studios. On my many trips through southern California on my way to
Disneyland, I would often wonder just where the Walt Disney Studios were in Burbank. I never ultimately really wanted to know though because of how badly I wanted to go there. Better not knowing just how close I was, while still being so very far away.
And yet now the day has come. In the months leading up to this trip, I'd been very quiet about. I guess I was afraid of somehow jinxing it. I told my family, but that was about it. I didn't tell any of my friends until about a week before the trip when I knew it was happening. It's unique experience waking up the morning of something you've dreamed about all your life, but never actually believed it would happen. This morning was nothing like the excitement and anticipation of visiting Disneyland or Walt Disney World simply because this opportunity will likely never come again.
With our tour beginning at 10:30, we left Anaheim at 8:00am giving ourselves plenty of time to deal with rush hour traffic through L.A. Well, as it turns out, we didn't leave nearly early enough for on this morning the traffic was beyond horrible. It moved v e r y , v e r y s l o w l y. It was horrendous. As the minutes grew into hours, the fear began to mount. In short, there was too little time until our tour started and we were still too far away. In those anxious and fearful moments I began to fear that my dream was about to die in the horrendous traffic of Los Angeles. I don't think I've ever hated and loathed traffic as I did in those anxious hours. And yet from this I would learn a lesson.
You see I'm a very religious person. I served a mission for my church in Moscow, Russia for two years, beginning to learn Russian only after I accepted the call to serve. And now another piece of the puzzle becomes clear. Looking back on my life, I realized that God was preparing me to live amongst the Russian people through the films of Walt Disney. Why? It's already quite apparent that I've loved
Sleeping Beauty since I was a little boy. Where did the music in the film come from? Piotr Ilych Tchaikovksy, the Russian composer. I also have very clear memories of
Fantasia and the short
Peter and the Wolf, which both featured extensive use of, you guessed it, Russian classical music. So, growing up in the end of the Cold War, I was exposed to the Russian culture in a small way through the films of Walt Disney. Long before I went to Russia, I had an appreciation for Russian culture. I clearly remember buying an old audio cassette(that seems like forever ago) in Moscow of music from the Sleeping Beauty ballet because I knew that the Sleeping Beauty waltz contained the music for Once Upon A Dream.
And so fearing that my dream was about to die, I began to pray, that someway, somehow, we would make it on time to the Walt Disney Studios. Well, we didn't, but through the wonder of cell phones we were able to call others in our group and let them know that we'd be a little late. To make matters even crazier and more stressful, we had been given bad directions to the Studios once we arrived in Burbank, so the stress mounted. So close and yet so far. Well, in the end we arrived. We were finally here. And in looking back, I realized that in spite of the incredible fear and stress of that nightmare of a morning, I had a sense of peace. God may not have helped us arrive on time, but he did grant me a sense of calm and serenity to deal with the stress.
But now the long nightmare of a morning's drive through Los Angeles had ended. I was actually at the Walt Disney Studios. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw the Sorcerers' Hat by the new animation building. I couldn't quite believe that I was actually seeing it for myself, live and in person. As we left the parking structure, we noticed the large stained glass windows the parking structure building. I suspect that all parking structures have elevators, and some even have stained glass windows in them, but I somehow doubt that those stained glass windows have portraits of Goofy, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Daisy.
Yes!!! We finally made it! The Walt Disney Studios!
How cool is this for a parking garage?
And then off in the distance I see it. The famous Walt Disney Studios water tower. Again, I can't quite believe it. I'm here on the backlot of the Walt Disney Studios. See over there is Jiminy Cricket as well.
And so our tour begins as we walk past the soundstages, including the very famous Stage 2. Many, many years ago, Stage 2 was home to the rooftops of London where Mary Poppins came flying down into London to be a nanny for the Banks children.
Mary Poppins was filmed entirely in stage 2. Love to laugh, here's where it happened. The chimneys were swept here, the birds were fed, and yes even kites were flown here. But Mary Poppins isn't the only film you've seen that was filmed here. In more recent years, stage 2 was home to cursed Aztec gold and a fateful confrontation between one Captain Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa. Yes, the final battle scene from Pirates of the Carribean was filmed here. The swamps from Pirates of the Carribean 2 were also filmed here on stage 2.
More Disney history took place in the sound stages. I still remember growing up and watching old reruns of The Wonderful World of Disney and World of Color on The Disney Channel back in the days when the Disney Channel actually showed Disney programming as opposed to endless repeats of High School Musical: 25th Reunion or something like that. You know I miss the Disney Channel. I wish the channel bearing Walt's name would actually air programs featuring Walt and some of his wonderful characters as opposed to 24/7/365 tween hit of the day. Okay, enough of my rant about the channel bearing Walt's name(they don't even deserve it). Anyways, back when you could see programs that proved Walt Disney was a real person, and an amazing one at that, they would show footage from the classics. Even wondered why Sleeping Beauty and other classics looked so lifelike? Well, they would film live actors acting out scenes from the movie on these soundstages for the animators to study their performances and their movements. On a soundstage is where the old black and white footage of Phillip and Aurora meeting once upon a dream was filmed. Here on a soundstage, Phillip fought Maleficent to save the life of the girl of his dreams. So much history, and here I am, right in the middle of it.
Never before have I found some plain looking building so exciting.
And so having seen the soundstages we turn the corner and come to a very famous street sign. Mickey Avenue. If you've been to Disney's Hollywood Studios, you've seen a street called Mickey Ave., but this one right before is the real Mickey Ave. I can't believe I'm here. Some people have replicas of this sign hanging in their homes. I loved Mickey Mouse my entire life. I could spot him from a hundred yards away when I was little, and yet now, here I am, standing on Mickey Avenue itself, right underneath the sign. Look carefully and you'll also notice Pluto's Corner, and yes, it's right next to the fire hydrant.
Perpendicular to Mickey Avenue is another famous sign, this one paying homage to the film that quite literally built this place. Dopey Drive. Using the profits from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt and Roy Disney built the Walt Disney Studios. You know I think of all the Seven Dwarfs, Dopey is my favorite. And it's fitting and appropriate that we're on Dopey Drive now. For just down the street a little way is the original Legends Sidewalk. Here is where many of the Disney Legends put their hand prints in cement. Here you can find the signatures of the Nine Old Men, Peter Ellenshaw, Annette Funicello, Fess Parker, and Julie Andrews, among others.
It takes one to know one.
Some of the Nine Old Men and other famous Disney legends.
Marc Davis, the lead animator for such memorable characters as Tinker Bell, Cinderella, Maleficent, Cruella De Vil, and of course a certain princess with gold of sunshine in her hair and lips that shame the red, red rose. Davis also helped imagineer Disneyland's Pirates of the Carribean.
And right across the street from Legends Sidewalk is the place where legends are born, where dreams begin. For here, in this building is where Briar Rose first danced off the page and into my heart with Prince Phillip once upon a dream. In this building, Peter Pan first flew off to Neverland with Tinker Bell. In these hallways, Dumbo learned to fly, and Bambi became twitterpated. Here is where Cinderella first tried on the glass slipper, Lady and the Tramp shared that romantic kiss on a bella note, Pongo and Perdita ended up with 99 puppies, and Baloo taught Mowgli the Bare Necessities. In later years, here is where Ariel would take her first steps on land, Belle would learn to love a beast, the Genie would be freed so he could visit Disneyland, and Simba would become The Lion King. The Animation Building. Here, the nine old men became, well, the Nine Old Men.
Our tour guide telling us about the history of the animation building. He skipped the part about the history and process of hand drawn animation because he knew that we already knew how it was created. Yes, I'm a certifiable Disney geek.
In around 1995, the animation department moved to the new animation building with the Sorcerers' Hat, and the old animation building was turned into an office building. Today notables such as Jerry Bruckheimer and Terry Rossio(screenwriter for Pirates of the Carribean) work in this building. But as a tribute to the original purpose of this building, the walls of the first floor hallway are lined with various scenes and stills detailing the creation of an animated feature film or short and the process of how it leaps off the paper and comes to the silver screen.
It may have all started with a mouse, but this is the man who created the world's most famous mouse
And here's the mouse who started it all
A really neat thing about the layout on the walls of the old animation building. The drawings, sketches, and complete cels are grouped together by the part that each represents in the process of the drawing becoming the finished cels. For that reason, these pictures on the walls are not grouped together by film, but rather by what each one represents.
Concept art from Bambi
Rough animation and clean up animation on the Beast.
Sketches of Sorcerer Mickey from Fantasia
Eyvind Earle's background painting of King Stefan's throne room from Sleeping Beauty. This film is unique in that prior Disney films saw the characters drawn first, and the background made to fit them. With Sleeping Beauty, Walt had Eyvind Earle create the lush and detailed backgrounds and then made the characters fit the background. This is part of why Sleeping Beauty the film is so consistent in appearance throughout. Some have also argued that Sleeping Beauty is the most realistic of the Disney films as they were hoping to create a moving illustration.
Finished cels from assorted feature films and shorts. While I wanted Mickey to be clearly visible in this picture, you can also see Winnie the Pooh and The Jungle Book.
I interrupt your visual tour here to interject that we even got to visit the famous underground tunnels that connected the animation department to Ink and Paint. Back in the old days before all hand drawn animation was inked by computer, each drawing had to be hand inked. In order to protect the drawings and the newly inked cels from occasional bad weather even in sunny southern California, the tunnels were constructed. Legend has it that Disney animators even used the slope of the tunnels as a slide using * gasp * some of the hand inked cels from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs since they didn't fully realize what they had accomplished with that film.
The front and back of a painted cel featuring Flora from Sleeping Beauty. By the way, Flora is still wrong.
The construction of one of the most breathtaking animated scenes ever done, the ballroom scene from Beauty and the Beast.
A close up of the finished cel from Beauty and the Beast.
A finished cel from one of my other favorite Disney films, The Lion King.
Showing the process of effects animation from one of Disney's most famous visual effects scenes ever, the dragon transformation and battle from Sleeping Beauty. Most of the films then record $6 million cost was spent on this scene. Small wonder that some historians believe that Sleeping Beauty was highly influential on Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, and George Lucas.
To honor the past meeting the future, here are some scenes from Pixar's 2007 release Rataouille. It's worth noting that Pixar animators were heavily influenced by the Disney classics, with John Lasseter and Brad Bird having studied at Cal Arts. In Bird's films The Iron Giant and The Incredibles Frank and Ollie make an appearance. They're the gentlemen talking about how they did it old school at the end of The Incredibles.
Coming soon to a trip report near you(at least in this thread): Legends Plaza.
Better to be an educated consumer than an uneducated one. 
Very cool.
Either way I think you'll be very thrilled with it. 
