Posts
Disneyland Paris
Croydon brain tumour boy gets dream trip to Disneyland
A five-year-old boy with an inoperable brain tumour has been given a dream trip to Disneyland Paris, thanks to the Croydon Guardian.
Robert Haddad read about Sam Watson’s condition in last week’s newspaper and it brought back memories of his son James, who also suffered from a brain tumour.
He set up a trust in his son’s name after he passed away in 2002, and decided to use the charity funds to pay for the Watsons, who he has met, to go on a family holiday.
James’ plight touched the hearts of Croydon Guardian readers who donated thousands of pounds to his appeal fund.
Mum Julie said: “I was gobsmacked when Robert called me and said he would like to pay for the trip.
“I’ll be going with the two boys, Sam and his brother Joseph.
“Sam is very excited, hopefully it is something they will remember and get the benefit from.”
Mr Haddad said: “We want to pay for the family to stay at the best hotel in Euro Disney for three nights and four days.
“One of the objectives of our trust is to support families like the Watsons.
“We know what they are going through.”
Friends of the family have rallied around to try and raise funds for a series of holidays and weekend breaks, so the family can spend a good amount of time together.
They have organised a fun day which is due to be held on Warlingham Green on Saturday, May 23, from 10am to 6pm.
Organiser Rebecca Haynes, who is donating some of the funds she raised running the London Marathon to Sam’s cause, is hoping families will go and enjoy the variety of rides, stalls, games, live music and entertainment.
Disneyland
Neil Patrick Harris is out of the closet... as a Haunted Mansion fan
by Jeff Baham
In a recent fundraiser for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, actor Neil Patrick Harris ("Dr. Horrible's Singing Blog", "How I Met Your Mother") demonstrated his inner fanboy by taking visting patrons on a tour of his home in the Studio City Hills. Among other works from contemporary artists of note, Harris' office contains a virtual shrine to the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.
"Best. Office. Ever," claimed Gendy Alimuring, a columnist for LA Weekly. According to Alimuring, Harris' office holds an original plaque from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, and a changing portrait of Medusa which is also found in the Mansion. He even has a bride doll with a heart that glows red with each beat on display. "Dark and spooky, but kinda silly," Alimuring said.
Authoritative reports hold that the plaques currently installed outside the Mansion are the original ones, but there were a couple spare bronze plaques cast alongside the originals as the attraction was developed. Mysteriously, one disappeared from a Disneyland Staff Shop sometime in the '90s, around the same time that resin replicas of the plaque started to appear on the black market. So it is entirely possible that Harris' plaque is indeed original and from the park.
Guests of the DoomBuggies Swinging Wake held at Disneyland in February 2008 would not be surprised to hear that Harris is a Haunted Mansion fan, since he was seen as a guest at the event as well. The Swinging Wake, an event in which Haunted Mansion fans joined to listen to stories from four Imagineers who worked with Walt Disney in the creation of the Mansion, was a private glimpse into the mysterious history of the ride. Harris, an amateur magician and lover of stage arts, was overheard chatting about his practice on the trapese with Imagineer Bob Gurr before the event. The event concluded with an opportunity to have a photo taken with the Mansion's famous "Hitchhiking Ghosts," for which Harris waited giddily in line with the rest of the Mansion fans in attendance.
The Haunted Mansion has many other celebrity fans, including writer Cory Doctorow, who has written an entire novel about Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion, titled Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
Walt Disney World-Orlando
LOS ANGELES — Barack Obama was standing on a riser inside a warehouse here, delivering an inspirational speech about the blessings of freedom, when his left index finger began to twitch uncontrollably, unnerving his aides.
The nation’s 44th president was in obvious distress. At least it looked like him. But with silicone skin and a tangled nest of wires for veins, this Obama was a 21st-century reproduction.
More specifically, it was an audio-animatronic representation of the president, as imagined by the Walt Disney Company, and assembled with the direct involvement of the White House staff — and of Mr. Obama himself. The president supplied not just his measurements, but he also recorded that speech (which was initially drafted by a Disney writer) — and yet another recitation of the oath of office, this one in Disney high-definition sound.
In that Hollywood building here, the life-size, three-dimensional figure was being put through its final tune-up, its chin rising and hands gesturing in response to technicians, in preparation for shipment to the Hall of Presidents exhibit at Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
Disney officials declined to say how much it cost to build an Obama. They have cloaked the project with a blanket of secrecy befitting the Secret Service, permitting this reporter to be the only journalist thus far to view the figure up close but allowing only a Disney photographer to take its picture.
Mr. Obama has seen renderings of the figure, telling a Disney employee, Pamela Fisher, “that we had made him better-looking than he was.”
Mr. Obama is not the first president to send his voice, or inseam, to Disney World; George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were also given speaking roles in the exhibit during their terms and assisted Disney’s “imagineers” in the creation of their likenesses. But the Obama figure is assuredly the most lifelike of them all.
The public is to get its first glimpse of “Robobama,” as it is known among some handlers, on July 4. The unveiling will be in a Disney World theater, alongside animatronic figures of every other president. As in the past, the program will end with each president nodding or turning toward the audience during a roll call, as if Mount Rushmore had suddenly come alive.
“Young children watch this, and you want them to feel a sense of identification with the president,” said Doris Kearns Goodwin, a presidential historian, who was recruited by Disney two years ago to write a Hollywood-style treatment about the presidents, which became the basis for a 20-minute documentary made for the exhibit. “This makes the president someone not so far removed from them.”
The exhibit opened in the early 1970s and has resulted in countless middle school term papers about the presidents. It has been closed since Election Day as it receives the biggest face-lift in its history.
The company has much riding on the exhibit, with visitors’ spending at Disney World having dipped sharply in the midst of the economic downturn.
The exhibit will open with the new film, narrated by the actor Morgan Freeman. At a certain point, the Abraham Lincoln figure will rise and speak to the audience, as it always has, but now it will deliver the Gettysburg Address in its entirety.
“And this is the first time George Washington will have a speaking role,” said Kathy Rogers, a senior show producer for Walt Disney Imagineering, the unit that oversees the creative side of the theme parks.
But the emotional high point is intended to be the introduction of the Obama figure, who will yet again be heard taking the oath.
Mr. Obama recorded this version on March 4 in the White House Map Room — the same room where he retook the oath after a minor flub on Inauguration Day — to accommodate the Disney World theater’s new sound system. At that time, Mr. Obama also read aloud a short speech to be delivered by the figure, one that ultimately passed through the computer of Jon Favreau, a presidential speechwriter.
“That speech took a village,” said Ms. Fisher, the senior Disney writer on the project who along with Ms. Rogers traveled to Washington in March to guide the president through his role.
The Obama figure’s closest forefather is not Lincoln but a modern-day Capt. Jack Sparrow. Assisted by Johnny Depp, who played the captain in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, Disney recently installed an animatronic version of the Sparrow character in the Orlando theme park.
The Obama figure is the result of attention to minute details by Disney sculptors, animators, engineers and even anatomists who pored over presidential photographs and video of him and then drew on the latest advances in robotic technology.
Thus the audio-animatronic Obama purses its lips to pronounce its b’s and p’s in a way frighteningly evocative of the real one, and raises its hands, open-palmed, while shrugging its shoulders, in a way that can only be described as Obamaesque. Even the president’s wedding ring, with its braided design, has been recreated.
After their work was done with the president, Ms. Fisher and Ms. Rogers said they were given a special tour of the White House.
For Ms. Fisher, there was a sense of déjà vu. She had traveled to the White House on Disney’s behalf in 2001 to capture the voice of Mr. Bush. After he had finished his “take,” she said, he stiffened his arms and “started acting like he was an animatronic figure.”
“He’s got a sense of humor,” she added.
0 comments:
Post a Comment