Research Report Update

[alissa08]

I thought maybe someone would want to read that research report I was telling you about. Now, don't totally critique it.:] There might be a fact wrong. So dont get all worked up. Thank you. :]

Technological Sophistication
The founder of the Disney Company was Walter Elias Disney, who was born in Chicago on December 5, 1901. Walt Disney started his career at a Kansas City commercial art studio at the age of 18 since he had a great enthusiasm for the theatre and the arts. He created his company after learning and creating animation. The Disney Company has made a major impact on many aspects of technology.
Disneyland is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, and it became a national phenomenon overnight. ?It had a sense of structure and continuity which was new to this kind of enterprise, and it capitalized fully on the established Disney image. Everything had been thoughtfully considered and imaginatively developed? (Finch 392). On July 17, 1955, Disneyland Park was opened to the thirty thousand people who swarmed the park as television crews recorded the opening ceremonies and festivities. During the first year, almost four million people walked through the front gates. That was fifty years ago, and now the 50th anniversary is being celebrated as ?The Happiest Homecoming on Earth.?
Walt Disney World was opened on October 1, 1971, in Florida and contains four different theme parks including: The Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney?s MGM Studios, and Disney?s Animal Kingdom. The Magic Kingdom is a copy of Disneyland Park in California. EPCOT was meant to be a futuristic living place, but this did not become a reality. It is a park that showcases many technologies that have developed through the years. Disney?s MGM Studios is a display of motion pictures, movie sets, and many other movie industry subjects. Disney?s Animal Kingdom is a safari park filled with exotic animals. Walt Disney World also has two water parks within the resort.
Walt Disney had a deep appreciation and interest in animation. Walt Disney said, ?Animation offers a medium of storytelling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world? (Walt Disney Quotes). Walt Disney gained pieces of formal art instruction when his father registered him in the Kansas City Art Institute. He was extremely fascinated by Charley Chaplin and used this theatrical style in the creations of Mickey Mouse. ?He took a marginal branch of the entertainment industry, transformed it into an art form, and then went on to make a major contribution to the History or the cinema? (Finch 124).
?The Disney Theme Parks exploit all kinds of technological novelties- from the Audio-Animatronic figures to a 360-degree wrap around cinema screen?? (Finch 421). Animatronics are the techniques of making and operating lifelike robots. The Tiki Room at Disneyland was the first attraction to use Audio-Animatronics. Mr. Lincoln in the attraction Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln was the first human Audio-Animatronic figure. This technology is used to bring pirates, dogs, and donkeys to life in the attraction Pirates of the Caribbean that opened in 1967, at Disneyland Park. ?As Life Magazine reported in 1967, POTC [Pirates of the Caribbean] was ?the costliest and most technologically sophisticated? adventure ever conceived as a permanent entertainment attraction? (Beginnings). Audio-Animatronics have become widely used in many Disneyland rides such as Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, and The Haunted Mansion. The Disney Company has become very advanced in illusional technology in the attraction The Haunted Mansion. Illusions such as Madame Leota?s crystal ball for instance, are stimulations created through substrates and projections. Audio-Animatronics are used quite differently in The Haunted Mansion. Projections are created using mirrors to reflect images of animatronics into a large room. This gives a ghostly affect. The Animatronics appear and disappear into the room through these unique technologies.
The attraction Indiana Jones Adventure uses simple Animatronics. The attraction opened in Disneyland on March 3, 1995, and uses Enhanced Motor Vehicle (EMV) transport cars that have fully synchronized onboard sound-systems that give full stereo sound to each and every rider. Enhanced Motor Vehicles are electromagnetic vehicles that have been used in many Disney Attractions. There is never the same adventure twice on these cars. There are nearly 160,000 possible combinations of show programming. Hydraulics are used on these EMV vehicles to give impressions of bumps, sharp corners, and uncontrollable steering while the vehicle is actually staying calm and in control against the ground.
Disney Parks have 3-D features that add sights, smells, sounds, and even motion to seats. An example of this different kind of technology is in the attraction Honey, I Shrunk The Audience. This had never been used by any other company before. A 3-D screen is used to give different illusions coming towards the guest. Smells are ejected around the theatre while the seat uses mechanical massage techniques to give different feelings. All of the systems are systematically organized and synchronized with the video.
The park?s transportation systems illustrate many different types and eras. They also use many environmentally safe transportation systems. Disneyland had the first monorail in the western hemisphere. The Peoplemover system was also developed in Disney Land. The Peoplemover opened in Disneyland in 1967. The vehicles did not have motors on the vehicles, but on the tracks. This transportation system is used in an airport in Houston, Texas. ??The Peoplemover that runs through Tomorrowland is a silent, electrically powered product that belongs entirely to the second half of the twentieth century??(Finch 415).
An attraction at Disneyland Park called Innoventions is a showcase of technologies and is an innovation in itself. It is the largest revolving building. Innoventions is the home to many breakthroughs in science and technology. It demonstrates exploratory medicine and personal global communications to the park guests. Innoventions houses ASIMO (Advanced Step In Innovation Mobility) the world?s most advanced humanoid robot. ASIMO can walk forward and backward, climb stairs, turn effortlessly, and maintain a sense of balance. ASIMO made its debut February 14, 2002.
The modern Rollercoaster was born when Disneyland?s Matterhorn bobsleds were designed. Wooden designs were used previous to the creation of steel tubular tracks. In this design, low-slung vehicles ride on polyurethane wheels over a tubular steel track. This kind of track gives a much smoother and more efficient ride. It does not take as much maintenance as wooden coasters and is more reliable. Steel tubing roller coasters are now used all over the world.
Walt Disneyland World Park not only is advanced in attraction technologies, but is also advanced in the workings of itself. The Disney Company has worked hard in creating significant items that minimize pollution in all its forms. There is an Underground Pneumatic Tube Network that devours waste instantaneously. Almost all suspended solids are removed by a sewage treatment plant. Wastewater is filtered by a living farm of trees and plants after the water leaves the sewage treatment plants. Half the power of Walt Disney World is generated by a gas turbine in an energy plant. The waste heat is altered into chilled water that is used to cool many of the buildings at the park. The park uses a Service-and-Utility Basement that had never been used in the United States before. The entire park is constructed on top of this basement. Utilidoors is another system of tunnels that runs underneath Walt Disney World. A system of computers called the DAC system controls all the operations of the whole entire park at one central location. ?All these systems are electronically supervised by a ?total network? information-communications network that ties all of Walt Disney World together by means of computers, closed-circuit TV, and telephones. It is a truly astonishing urban monitor unequaled anywhere in the world? (Finch 443). It is the most sophisticated operating system used outside of the government.
Other examples of technology are within the attractions featured in the park. Disney created the first ever solar powered daily operating attraction vehicles at The Universe of Energy in EPCOT. Disney teamed up with NASA and HP in 2003, to create Mission: Space. This ride gives the intense feeling of an actual take off on a spaceship headed towards Mars. The ride is so sophisticated that is gives off the realistic feeling of an actual takeoff. The Walt Disney World Pirates of The Caribbean has 125 Audio-Animatronic figures. There are 65 pirates and 60 animals and birds. Audio spotlight technology is exhibited at Innoventions. The technology exhibits a state of the art vehicle with a sound system that has four Audio spotlight discs. These discs allow each passenger to hear their own sound without hearing anyone else?s.
The Disney Studio has definitely made advancements through the years. Disney artists developed a more efficient and flexible way of animating called Keypose. Disney Studios were the first to develop storyboards. This important innovation is still in use today, and it is used by animation studios and action film productions. The Leica Reel was created by Disney to perceive how the movie would look in the end. Disney created the cartoon ?Flowers and Trees? which was the first cartoon to be made completely in color. This was the spark of color technology. ?His third film, Steamboat Willie, for which Walt provided the rodent's high-pitched voice, was the first cartoon to synchronize sound and motion? (Grover). In 1960, Disney used the Xerox camera to get a more linear and graphic look. This system worked well in the studio by saving money and presenting the animation in a fresh way that could not be achieved in the past. Disney used the ability to create a full illusion of depth using the multiplane camera in the picture Pinocchio. Disney Studios? ?Chicken Little? became the first fully Digital animated Disney film.
Another important technology that was created by Walt Disney was Fantasound. Fantasound was a stereophonic sound system used in a few of the first run theatres showing Walt Disney?s ?Fantasia.? Fantasound would later become surround sound. The Disney Corporation is very interested in working against the causes of pollution. ??The South Coast Air Quality Management District announced last Friday that Disney is actively working on technology to cut down the amount of smoke generated by its fireworks? (Park Updates).
Disney has gained knowledge and experience from imaginatively creating strategies in making entertainment the best it can be through the marvels of technology. The firm created the wonders of Audio-Animatronics, transportation systems, and animation techniques. The Parks have used the technologies of hydraulics and stereophonic and expanded on them. Walt Disney said, ?Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world? (Walt Disney Quotes). The Park will keep growing and so will the technology.
The Walt Disney Company has created technologies in such areas as animation, entertainment, Motion Pictures, transportation, and items that help the world. The Corporation has certainly opened many doors for other companies to grow and expand from what has been created. Disney has made many original techniques in creating distinctive entertainment. From the creation of different ride vehicles and the development of Technicolor and cameras, the Disney Company has come a long way. What is so significant about the company is the technology that went into it, continues to go into it, and will go into it for many years to come. All of the technologies created by the Disney Company have influenced many different technologies throughout the entertainment industry and the world as a whole.

[Mortimer]

Your report turned out wonderfully Alissa08. And it included several things I'd never heard of before. I'll have to look up Keypose and the Leica Reel to learn more about them. It makes a lot of great points about Disney's technology and gives a terrific overview of the developments that were made.

[Ezra]

I enjoy searching the internet when I'm curious about something.

I just searched for KeyPose and found an illustrated article at Animation World magazine. An animator would draw certain key poses, and then draw all the steps in between to make the animation. I linked to page with a graphic that I thought illustrated the idea nicely: Putting on clothes in keyposes

I also looked up the Leica reel. Keyposes were arranged in a storyboard layout and then each keypose photographed with a 35mm still camera. (The first brand of 35mm camera was made by a company called Leica, thus the name Leica reel.) The stills were printed just like regular photographs and then photographed with the rostrum movie camera the same way that the animation will be later. It's timed to match the film's sound track so that the result is a rough first test of what the animation will look like.

The next test reel would be a pencil test, where all the drawings in between each keypose are drawn in pencil and photographed with the rostrum camera. And if that's acceptable, then the pencil drawings are cleaned up and inked by the animators, and then go to Ink & Paint for transfer to transparent cells.

[alissa08]

Thank you Mortimer. It was really fun to write. I thought the Indiana Jones info was interesting.