Below are all the links to my posts covering the D23 Expo in 2011.
Lots of photos and video included in each post, so make sure you check them out if you missed any.
Showing posts with label D23 Expo 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label D23 Expo 2011. Show all posts
A Detailed Look Inside Cars Land
Monday, September 12, 2011
During the D23 Expo I had the privilege of sitting in the Radiator Springs Reality: Imagineering Cars Land for Disney California Adventure panel. Out of all the panels during the 3 day expo, this was the one I was most excited about.
As a mother of a boy who is just crazy about Cars (okay I am probably just slightly more obsessed), to say we are excited about Cars Land is a big understatement.
From left to right we heard from Dave Fisher (the moderator), Kathy Mangum, John Lasseter, Jennifer Mok, Kevin Rafferty, and Roger Gould.
On July 8, 2009 construction on Cars Land began with John Lasseter being the first to break ground as seen in the picture below.
A camera was set up on the 8th floor balcony of Tower of Terror to document the progress of the 12 acres below which we now know as Cars Land.
Inside we will find three new attractions, the first being Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.
In A Bug's Land, Ladybug Boogie moves around in a figure-8. With Mater's Junkyard Jamboree they have taken the same idea but doubled the size of it, and you will be whipped around in a trailer by a baby tractor feeling the sense of a crazy ride through Mater's Junkyard.
This is the turntable which will be covered, but at the end of each spoke is where a baby tractor will be.
Baby Tractor on display at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Carousel of Projects during D23 Expo
Here is a video of John Lasseter testing out the ride with a regular tractor.
This is an inside view of Cars Land Route 66, standing at the four corners of Radiator Springs.
On the right is Ramone's House of Body Art (a merchandise location) , on the left with tire finials is Luigi's Flying Tires, and at the end with the white frame will be the courthouse.
Here we see a giant wing-nut to go on top of the rotunda of Flo's V-8 Cafe.
A flagstone wall on the side of Flo's V-8 Cafe, which will have a beautiful view of the mountain. Kathy Mangum joked that they will need a fastpass for the restaurant because no one will ever want to leave.
A view from the top of Luigi's Flying Tires floor.
This is the tire vehicle. If you are wondering what brand of tire they are, John Lasseter let us know they are Luigi's brand of tires... Fettuccine. Whitewalls are called Alfredo, the thinner white ones are Lattes, and Blackwalls are Espressos. "It's all Italian stuff, it's really fun", said Lasseter.
John Lasseter describes how the tires work saying,"So the way these work is, it’s such clever engineering that uses the air to inflate the tire. Around the edge it’s nylon, very good nylon, and it inflates and it’s a cushion. It’s like a bumper car thing but you know, that there is all sorts of rules for impacts, and stuff these days that we have to adhere to and so this became. It worked out fantastic, and they’re really fun. One thing we’ve added to it that the flying saucers didn’t have is the, see the little kind of gear shift, that looks like the nozzle where you’d put the air into the tire?
It’s a lever that you push one way or the other way, and it vents the air into this outlet that causes you to spin. So you can choose to go out there, and it’s like the teacups without turning. This will turn on its own, and it’s really fun to go either direction."
Luigi's Flying Tires is based off one of John Lasseter's favorite rides as a kid, the Disneyland Flying Saucers from the 1960s.
Lasseter at the test facility giving the tire a "spin". He describes it as a "gigantic air hockey table".
Luigi's Casa Della Tires will be the entrance that you queue through to go out back to the tire yard.
Ramone's House of Body Art
Car hoods on display at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Carousel of Projects Pavilion at the D23 Expo.
Cars Land is 12 acres and the E Ticket ride Radiator Springs Racers is 6 acres of that. This will be the biggest ride Disney has ever created. John Lasseter explained how he wanted a dark storytelling ride that combined thrill with it. When he went to Florida during the beginning development of the Cars movie, he thought that Test Track was it. It was so exciting for him, but with all the mechanical errors the Imagineers kept telling him no, until one day they figured out a way to fix it. Lasseter felt this would be the greatest ride system because you would get both storytelling and thrill.
Now this is where John Lasster really describes what riding the Radiator Springs Racers will be like. He tell us, "You start with that drive with Sally where you go up by a waterfall, and you drive through the trees and stuff and then it takes you into Radiator Springs. Now this is where all the cars are alive and you’ve seen downstairs in the Imagineering section, Red... a full-size Red with his eyes moving, and it’s just fantastic. So you come in and you’re coming into town and the sheriff slows you down, and then he tells Mater to escort you into town and everybody’s real friendly but Mater wants to take you tractor-tipping first, so you go tractor-tipping and he says, “Watch out for Frank.” But Frank comes and scares you, and you drive really fast to get away from Frank and it brings you to into town and all of the townspeople are there to welcome you. Sally and McQueen are there and the car in front of you will go into, one car goes into Ramone’s to get a new paint job, and there’s a really great effect for that, and your car will go into Luigi’s to get new tires. So it’s kind of fun because you know, in one ride you might go into Ramone’s and in one ride you might go into Luigi’s, but what that does is as you come out you’re side by side with the car ahead of you, and then Doc is giving you pointers and then Luigi and Guido say, “Go!” and you take off and we’re gonna go about 40 mph and you’ll see later in the photographs, these banks are really steep and there’s these great camel humps. The thrill of this thing is unbelievable. Test Track goes about 60, but we’ve got the real steep banks and camel humps and it’s side by side which is really, really, fun."
They took the basic Test Track vehicles and turned them into two different styles of cars, a Ferrari-like car and a convertible. Each style will be in four different colors, with some being female and some being male, each having individual personalities with smiles.
They want it to be as varied as possible, so you're not all riding in the same car.
View of Radiator Cap and Cadillac fins in the distance. Each scaffolding is 8 feet by 8 feet topping out at 125 feet to give you an idea of how big this mountain is.
This is a 1962 Cadillac fin. Each fin you see will represent a different year model starting with 1959. They are inspired by Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo, Texas.
This is the waterfall and bridge we will be driving by at the beginning of Radiator Spring Racers with Sally.
Stanley's Oasis, a covered queue for Radiator Springs Racers.
This is a newer bridge that you will find on Route 66, where they leave the old bridge beside it instead of taking it down. Lasseter describes, "There’s two different bridges because you go under both parts of the track, and so we decided to do a sense of history because you find this out on Route 66 where there’s the older part, the alignment of the road, and then they’ve kind of fixed it up and built the newer bridge and right next to it you’ll see the old bridge. So this is kind of the newer bridge, and next to it is gonna be an older wooden bridge, and that’s the other part of the track".
One of the banks with two slots in the road, where the vehicles will be racing.
"The G-forces are really going to be fun", said Lasseter.
This is in the last show scene called "Taillight Caverns", where all the taillights will be glowing from classic cars.
We can look forward to seeing the entire town in Cars Land.
Here is a sneak peek of Red at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Pavilion during the D23 Expo.
Here is Lightning McQueen from the D23 Expo 2009, that at the time we didn't get to hear audio but now do. It shows the technology they are able to use to bring McQueen to life.
Mack was the first figure installed in Radiator Springs.
So as you can see, we have a whole lot to look forward to.
Which part of Cars Land are you most excited to see now that you have a little more detail on what to expect?
Wordless Wednesday: Perry the Platy-Bus at the D23 Expo
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Inside Perry the Platy-Bus at the D23 Expo, a place to play interactive games.
The Pizza Planet Truck in BRAVE? Find Out!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
At "A Conversation With the Pixar Creative Team" during the D23 Expo, the last portion of the panel was spent answering questions from fans.
One fan asked if we could expect to see the famous Pizza Planet Truck in BRAVE.
©Disney
The Pizza Planet Truck has appeared in every Pixar film except The Incredibles, so will we see it in the Highlands of Scotland?
Watch the video below to find out!
BRAVE will be released in theaters June 2012.
I'll be going more in depth about this panel along with photos soon.
The Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives at the D23 Expo
Monday, August 29, 2011
One of my favorite things to see at the D23 Expo besides the two panels I saw with John Lasseter (which I will talk about soon in another post), was The Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives.
This year the collection was not only impressive, but it was also much larger then the first D23 Expo in 2009.
If you were able to go to the first expo, you may remember seeing the collection in one small room. This year the archives were in the same room plus you had to walk across a hall into two other rooms.
Instead of posting a select few photos, I have made videos for each room.
The first room included props and costume from The Mickey Mouse Club, Hocus Pocus, Zorro, The Father of the Bride,Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, National Treasure, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Rocketeer, and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.
This door is the same door that Alice walks through in the movie.
The second room included props and costumes from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, the television show LOST, and costumes from the original Tron.
The third room was filled with Mickey Mouse memorabilia including items from Mickey's Toontown Fair in Walt Disney World and retro items and dolls.
Just when you thought you were done looking, there was a hallway dedicated to House of de Vil to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the film One Hundred and One Dalmatians with fan art too.
This 12,000 square-foot exhibit was a joy to look at, the only problem that arose was the long line to get into it each day.
One thing that was nice for those who didn't want to wait in the long line was the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides exhibit on the showroom floor. This was out in the open for anyone to walk up to and look at on their own pace without having to worry about a line.
Even a Jack Sparrow Voodoo Doll was included.
John Lasseter Announcement in Search of Jungle Cruise Photo from 1977-78 at D23 Expo
Thursday, August 25, 2011
During the "Radiator Springs Reality: Imagineering Cars Land for Disney California Adventure" panel at the D23 Expo, John Lasseter announced a contest called John of the Jungle.
“I was a Jungle Cruise skipper. It changed my life, and I mean it. It taught me about comic timing. It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. You know, I would still be a Jungle Cruise skipper if I didn’t get hired as an animator at Disney because I just absolutely loved it. In the 50th anniversary of Disneyland I was able to go and don my skipper outfit again. I have this great picture of me in 2005 at the 50th, it was so, so, special to me", said Lasseter.
John Lasseter went on about having a conversation at home with his sons about how much being a skipper at the Jungle Cruise meant to him. He told them he was going to get to put his jungle cruise skipper outfit back on, with his son questioning "It still fits?" "No, it's a different one", replied John with laughter throughout the room.
“The problem I have, is that I don’t have a picture of me in 1977 and 1978 when I was a Jungle Cruise skipper. So today we’re announcing a contest", said John Lasseter.
"This is very, very, special and very, very, important to me because this is such an important part of my life and I don’t have a record of it. I remember a lot of people taking pictures of me. So we are announcing a contest for you to dig through your old pictures and find a picture of me from 1977 or 1978 of me as a Jungle Cruise skipper. To be specific, I was trained in Thanksgiving of 1977. I worked Christmas, the holiday season of ’77. I worked Easter of ’78, grad nights of ’78, and part way through the summer of 1978, so it was really kind of a nine-month period.”
Lasseter gave a warning, “Now, Pixar invented digital compositing. We know a fake when we see it.”
“If someone out there sends one in, and it really is a picture of me as a Jungle Cruise skipper, they get to come to the opening of Cars Land as our guest. It’s going to be really, really, as a VIP guest.”
See video to hear John Lasseter announce the contest and how much the Jungle Cruise meant to him.
Visit www.johnofthejungle.com for more details.
Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives at the D23 Expo -Room 1
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
I put together a little video of the costumes featured in the first room of the Treasures of Walt Disney Archives at the D23 Expo.
This room includes costumes and props from The Mickey Mouse Club, Zorro, Hocus Pocus, The Father of the Bride, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, The Rocketeer, National Treasure, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
I'll have two more videos for you soon featuring the rest of the archives.
Getting Into Character at the D23 Expo
Monday, August 22, 2011
This past weekend the D23 Expo, the ultimate Disney fan event, was held at the Anaheim Convention Center.
During the 2009 D23 Expo we didn't see many people dress up for the event, but this year they came as their favorite princesses, villains, attraction, fairies, and action heros. The most popular costumes were Rapunzel, fairies including Tinker Bell, and UP. Here are just a few of the many costumes walking around by Disney fans attending the event.
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