Everybody loves a good parade; this is especially true at Walt Disney World in Orlando, where four new parades are strutting their stuff as part of a special 15-month 100 Years of Magic celebration that launched in October 2001 and runs through December 31, 2002. The "100 years" stacks up as a big birthday salute to Walt Disney himself, the man behind the magic, who was born on December 5, 1901.
"We're doing an event based around the birth of Walt Disney and what he stood for," says John Haupt, managing producer for Walt Disney Entertainment. "The parades are an extension of Walt's incredible creativity, and are designed to honor his legacy. As we did early research for the parades, we looked at all the areas that Walt worked in during his lifetime, from animation and live-action films to television and theme parks. Each parade represents a different aspect of his work, and mark the key milestones in his career."
The parades take place throughout Disney World, from Share a Dream Come True in the Magic Kingdom and Tapestry of Dreams at Epcot to Disney Stars and Motor Cars at Disney-MGM Studios and Mickey's Jammin' Jungle at Animal Kingdom. Each of the parades captures the flavor of Disney, while testing new technology and design techniques, from Disney characters inside giant snow globes made of strong acrylic (as used for fighter jet windshields) to a large networked audio system with over 400 speakers along Epcot's parade route.
The parades travel through time, from the first days of Walt Disney the animator and the early versions of his world-famous mouse to collecting dreams for the future. "Like Walt," says Haupt. "He always had one foot in the past and one in the future."
TAPESTRY OF DREAMS
A revised version of Epcot's millennium parade Tapestry of Nations, the new Tapestry of Dreams is based on the concept of dream seekers collecting children's dreams and having them come to life. "The idea is that the dream seekers collect dreams for the future in dream nets during the parade," explains Lynn Holloway, a freelance art director and scenic designer based in Charlotte, NC who designed the scenic elements for the original parade in collaboration with puppet designer Michael Curry and Disney's in-house costume designer Marilyn Sotto.
The basic scenic elements are rolling dream-catcher units, which replace some of the rolling percussion units from the original parade. The new units are designed with a metal armature that Holloway describes as "a Victrola horn, yet open like a spider's web, reaching straight up into the sky. Hanging from it are 900 wind chimes all tuned to the key of `C,'" he notes. "They create a soft, pleasant sound."
The rolling units are also decorated with acrylic cut-outs that represent what a dream might look like, a rather ethereal design concept. "There are colored beads and ribbons," says Holloway. "The key was to keep it all light with lots of textures, colors, and patterns, yet not in any specific style. It's more like my idea of what dreams look like, with squiggles, curves, and celestial shapes."
Spandex panels with holographic treatment on the surface, backed with colors ranging from blue and aqua to purple, fill in some of the openings in the metal armature. The fabrics mimic those used by Curry on the oversize puppets that "people" the parade, to coordinate the design of the puppets and the floats. Holloway also added fabric sails on the "tuggers" that pull the dream-catcher units. "There is also a medallion at the base of each unit with fabric pennants pulled up toward the acrylic dream images to pull it all together," he notes.
In the center of each of these dream catchers is what Holloway calls "a great mass of feathers in hot colors, such as yellows, pinks, and oranges, like the tail of a big bird. The feathers arch toward the rear of the unit and spread to open like a peacock's tail. There is a Jules Verne-style wheel to articulate the spread of the feathers." The feathers are attached to eight metal arms made of carbon-fiber rods with movement arcs that originate in the armature. "They undulate and blow in the wind. They look very alive," says Holloway.
The large puppets in the show are the same ones Curry designed for Tapestry of Nations, yet refurbished with bells and chimes added. The puppets are as tall as 18' in height and are "worn"by actors with special backpack harnesses and control systems.
The costumes for the non-puppet characters in the parade were once again designed by Sotto. "We worked rather independently, although Marilyn sent me samples of her fabrics which helped inspire what we used, and it all magically worked together," says Holloway.
"The costumes for Tapestry of Dreams are an extension of Tapestry of Nations," says Sotto. The lead character for the new parade is Leonardo Columbus, who arrives on a float surrounded by Cosmo and Elfin. "The Dream Catcher is a combination of Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, and Christopher Columbus, with a shock of white hair like Franz Liszt or rock star Billy Idol," Sotto adds. This adds up to a vaguely period character who wears a large mantle a la Henry VIII made of clear sheets of custom-designed bendable plastic developed by fabric designer Jean Teten in San Francisco.
The Dream Seekers who walk along the parade route interact with the guests to collect their dreams. Their costumes have a silver-spangled space-age look with large plastic ears to hear the dreams and headpieces made with crystals and iridescent plastic. Elfin wears a brightly colored leotard in pink and aqua with a combination of earthy elements and leaves mixed with glitzy delicate fabrics and rhinestones. This elf-like character also activates special "magical moment" pins worn by guests along the parade route. Many of the characters are adorned with what Sotto refers to as "the all-seeing eye," or eye of wisdom, a custom-made jewel that looks like a moonstone, yet is made of plastic resin.
The audio for Tapestry of Dreams utilizes a large, networked system that covers Epcot's World Showcase Promenade, where double parade units float along, one on each side of the lake. Technically, the sound system is the same one used for Tapestry of Nations, with the audio crew making sure all of the equipment was working properly. The biggest changes were in the parade music, with new elements by Jonathan Barr added to the original score by Gavin Greenaway.
The loudspeakers are hidden in torches (12" two-way custom EVI boxes) in the Epcot lake as well as pageant poles along the parade route. Some of the pole-mounted and are required to cover a 360 [degrees] area as guests tend to cluster around the poles. In these situations, additional 12" coaxial speakers from EVI are used. In fact, most of the speakers along the route are by EVI. "Maintenance is easy with just one company to deal with," says Joe Knapp, audio design director for Walt Disney Entertainment. "We don't have to stock a lot of different spare components."
The top of each pole has a triangular structure wrapped with black mesh and dressed with banners so that the speakers (as well as lights and other show technology) are hidden from sight. Inside each of these structures are two 12" custom EVI units and a dual 12" EVI subwoofer.
The audio control booth is atop the Mexico pavilion, where two AKAI DR16 playback units are located. The AKAI decks (one primary, one backup) are slaved to SMPTE timecode to run the show. "If either deck fails it switches to the other," says Knapp. "On heavy days we can have 30 to 50 thousand people in the park. We want to make sure they aren't disappointed."
The show uses two channels. "Stereo is all we need," says Knapp, who explains that he goes from consistency rather than tricks. A Midas XL88 mixer splits the audio signal; it is then digitally routed from the control room via fiber optics to each of 14 electronic equipment rooms (there is also an analog backup system). Knapp refers to this as a "very fault-tolerant system that can solve its own problems using redundant fibers or sending the signal in another direction."
Each equipment room is equipped with a Peavey MediaMatrix which sends the signal to QSC CX1202V amps, then to the loudspeakers. "These amps work well in a lot of situations, and can drive 8ohm, 4ohm, or 70V loads," notes Knapp. A QSC control system monitors the amps, and can power them up or down and check for faults. The same system runs Illuminations--Reflections of Earth at Epcot as well as background music and a parkwide emergency public-address system. "It has been running 24/7 for two years with very few failures," says Knapp.
"We don't want the sound to differ from area to area," adds Knapp. "We are looking for consistency. That's why it's good to be able to place subwoofers in the poles and torches, so that high and low frequencies reach you at the same time and everybody hears the parade music at its best."
ELG
SHARE A DREAM COME TRUE
