franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
On November 13, there was a studio tour event going on and we were lucky enough to sign up for it. We arrived early about 10:40AM for the 11:00 event. Though they said no one would be let in before 11:00, we were welcomed and checked in. Then they let us loose in the studio store. Fran bought quite a bit of stuff, more watches, pins, a hoodie, her third Mickey Director plush, not exactly sure what else. I got the last pairs of Frozen earrings (Fran always like to buy me two pairs in case I lose one, I still have another set.) And I got a cute Mickey top.
I took our loot out to the car in the parking lot and then came back to join Fran and some of our friends.
Because we started so early we were done well before time for the next event so we just sat around talking with some of our friends and enjoying the beautiful day. This is the Commissary where we would be having lunch later.
Eventually we were led to a private function room at the commissary where a prepared lunch was waiting for us.
I had the turkey sandwich and caprese sandwich. There was also a chicken sandwich but it had Chipotle mayo and me and chipotle don't get along. There were two salads, I tried the arugula, edamame, quinoa and olive oil and it was pretty bland. But it sounded better than the broccolini, fig, walnut, and tarragon dressing. All in all the potato chips were the best part of the lunch. They also had some fruit and desserts available at another station. I'm glad we got everything all at once the desserts disappeared pretty quickly.
After lunch we were escorted to the main theatre for a presentation by
Dave Bossert
Randy Thornton
Russell Merrit
On the Silly Symphonies. They started off by showing us The Old Mill and then an 8 minute documentary that I think was recorded for the D23 Expo last summer. It featured the gentlemen giving the presentation as well as a few others. They talked about the process of restoring these classic films and what they meant to the company in general.
Evidently one of the things that was so monumental about these films was the precision with which the sound was synced up to the video. It's something that today we take for granted. Back then when a movie was shipped off to a theatre the movie reel was accompanied by a set of sheet music. The "house orchestra" which could have been a single pianist or an entire group of musicians, would play the sound track to the movie reel. Like the pirate code, the soundtrack was "merely a guideline." However for Walt this wasn't good enough. He wanted the music to be precise with the video. A perfect example of this is The Skeleton Dance. The movement of the skeletons is very precise to the sound of the marimba, and the use of the marimba is to simulate the sound of clacking on the bones of the skeletons.
One conductor that Walt worked with thought he could do exactly what was needed on his own and after two unsuccessful takes he reluctantly agreed to use a device that Walt had urged him to use to begin with. Today studio musicians regard the "click track" as a regular part of the job. When I was in music school, we got to participate in a mock studio recording and we were able to play with a cartoon on screen and we stayed in sync using the click track in our headphones.
There were two main in house composers of the silly symphonies and this came about because Walt became more and more frustrated with the process of trying to license songs and popular music of the day. The studio had its first big hit with the three little pigs and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Dave Bossert told us that if we thought "Let it Go" was huge, that was nothing compared to this tune. With America stuck in the Great Depression the Big Bad Wolf was personified as all things bad in society and the nation rallied behind the song feverishly.
About 3-4 years into production of the Silly Symphonies they began to experiment with Technicolor and then the multiplane camera. You can see the progression of the techniques as they are improved upon with every new short. The material for the symphonies was taken from fables, folklore and allegories. They panelists joked that Walt must have been working through all kinds of issues and resolving inner conflict as he and the animators told these stories. They said you could probably teach an entire semester of psychology analyzing these shorts.
We were told that we would be given this record set of the remastered Silly Symphony Soundtracks for Three Little Pigs and Skeleton Dance.
There was a brief Q&A before they sent us on to the next part of our day.
We were divided into four groups and we were going to visit various areas of the studio. Our first stop was the ADR studio. Fran made a joke about Advanced Dining Reservations and got a chuckle out of a few people. Actually it stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. This is the location at the studio where actors go to rerecord segments of dialog which may have been obscured by a plane flying over the filming location, when a suit of armor is so thick the mic couldn't pick up what was said or any other situation where the dialog on the original film is inaudible.
We got to do some dialogue from Inside Out. About five of us got a chance to do it individually and then we did a group scene with one man and a bunch of ladies.
I did one on my own and it was actually a lot harder than I thought.
The first couple times, I didn't speak the words fast enough, and the "director" sort of chastised me, but the gal standing next to me said, "He's just giving you constructive criticism like he would any actor in here,"
In the Q&A our host talked about how he can't watch any show where the dialogue is off from the lips. They explained an number of situations why that could happen ie they actually change the words or just bad sync of dialogue. However that's why the timing is so important in the room. As long as you say it as fast as the lips do, they can move it around on the computer screens and put it in the right place. Timing is everything.
He also brought out a $12,000 microphone like Frank Sinatra used to like to use.
The mics on the boom stand in the pictures where I was dubbing dialogue were only about $6000 and $3500 each.
After that we went on to out next segment which was the studio lot tour. Our tour guide was named Drew and he was quite friendly and knowledgeable. He talked about this sign which was installed for The Reluctant Dragon and just never taken down.
Notice in this picture, the round circular building underneath the word “Dopey”. This is The Rotunda, where we would be having dinner that night. Evidently it is a very special place and only people at “Director” level in the studios can reserve dining experiences there. Our guide Drew seemed very impressed when some of us mentioned that was where we would be having dinner.
There is a fire hydrant on this corner and soon the employees began referring to it as Pluto's Corner so a couple years ago it was officially named and these paw prints were put in the cement.
Notice there are only three pawprints as the fourth is, shall we say busy?
We walked down Mickey Blvd to the original Animation building. He explained the hierarchy that Walt designed the building in an H so that most everyone had a window and natural light in their offices. The directors were on the top or third floor, story boarding took place on the second floor and the actual animators were on the ground floor.
There is a tunnel in the basement which leads to the Ink and paint building so that drawings could be carried there without the potential for damage by weather. There must not have been a drought back then. Drew said we could take pictures inside the building, as long as we didn’t post them online, so what would be the point?
We walked through the tunnel to the other building and our guide told us a story of how Roy Disney (not sure which one, perhaps the one still living) told him how they would slide down the steep slope of the tunnel on the used cells from the pictures. Nothing like a several thousand dollar sled. The slope was so steep, Fran's scooter konked out on the ride up. I had to put it in neutral and push it up the hill and then reset the circuit. It was a bit unnerving as it had brand new batteries!
He pointed out Walt's office. It took up the whole floor as he had an apartment up there, a formal office and a working office. The piano was also up there and that's where Richard Sherman would go on Fridays and Walt would say, "Play it for me" And he meant "Feed the Birds". He also pointed out Roy's office across the way on the second floor. Not sure if there was merit to the saying but they used to say, "Walt could look down on Roy, but Roy couldn't look up and see Walt."
We passed this building on our way to our next stop, but didn’t go in. I had done that on a previous tour though.
And here’s another look at the Rotunda.
That concluded our studio lot tour and we were handed off to tour Soundstage #6 & 7 where the Muppets film. I'll have details on that and the rest of the tour in the next update!
I took our loot out to the car in the parking lot and then came back to join Fran and some of our friends.
Because we started so early we were done well before time for the next event so we just sat around talking with some of our friends and enjoying the beautiful day. This is the Commissary where we would be having lunch later.
Eventually we were led to a private function room at the commissary where a prepared lunch was waiting for us.
I had the turkey sandwich and caprese sandwich. There was also a chicken sandwich but it had Chipotle mayo and me and chipotle don't get along. There were two salads, I tried the arugula, edamame, quinoa and olive oil and it was pretty bland. But it sounded better than the broccolini, fig, walnut, and tarragon dressing. All in all the potato chips were the best part of the lunch. They also had some fruit and desserts available at another station. I'm glad we got everything all at once the desserts disappeared pretty quickly.
After lunch we were escorted to the main theatre for a presentation by
Dave Bossert
Randy Thornton
Russell Merrit
On the Silly Symphonies. They started off by showing us The Old Mill and then an 8 minute documentary that I think was recorded for the D23 Expo last summer. It featured the gentlemen giving the presentation as well as a few others. They talked about the process of restoring these classic films and what they meant to the company in general.
Evidently one of the things that was so monumental about these films was the precision with which the sound was synced up to the video. It's something that today we take for granted. Back then when a movie was shipped off to a theatre the movie reel was accompanied by a set of sheet music. The "house orchestra" which could have been a single pianist or an entire group of musicians, would play the sound track to the movie reel. Like the pirate code, the soundtrack was "merely a guideline." However for Walt this wasn't good enough. He wanted the music to be precise with the video. A perfect example of this is The Skeleton Dance. The movement of the skeletons is very precise to the sound of the marimba, and the use of the marimba is to simulate the sound of clacking on the bones of the skeletons.
One conductor that Walt worked with thought he could do exactly what was needed on his own and after two unsuccessful takes he reluctantly agreed to use a device that Walt had urged him to use to begin with. Today studio musicians regard the "click track" as a regular part of the job. When I was in music school, we got to participate in a mock studio recording and we were able to play with a cartoon on screen and we stayed in sync using the click track in our headphones.
There were two main in house composers of the silly symphonies and this came about because Walt became more and more frustrated with the process of trying to license songs and popular music of the day. The studio had its first big hit with the three little pigs and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Dave Bossert told us that if we thought "Let it Go" was huge, that was nothing compared to this tune. With America stuck in the Great Depression the Big Bad Wolf was personified as all things bad in society and the nation rallied behind the song feverishly.
About 3-4 years into production of the Silly Symphonies they began to experiment with Technicolor and then the multiplane camera. You can see the progression of the techniques as they are improved upon with every new short. The material for the symphonies was taken from fables, folklore and allegories. They panelists joked that Walt must have been working through all kinds of issues and resolving inner conflict as he and the animators told these stories. They said you could probably teach an entire semester of psychology analyzing these shorts.
We were told that we would be given this record set of the remastered Silly Symphony Soundtracks for Three Little Pigs and Skeleton Dance.
There was a brief Q&A before they sent us on to the next part of our day.
We were divided into four groups and we were going to visit various areas of the studio. Our first stop was the ADR studio. Fran made a joke about Advanced Dining Reservations and got a chuckle out of a few people. Actually it stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. This is the location at the studio where actors go to rerecord segments of dialog which may have been obscured by a plane flying over the filming location, when a suit of armor is so thick the mic couldn't pick up what was said or any other situation where the dialog on the original film is inaudible.
We got to do some dialogue from Inside Out. About five of us got a chance to do it individually and then we did a group scene with one man and a bunch of ladies.
I did one on my own and it was actually a lot harder than I thought.
The first couple times, I didn't speak the words fast enough, and the "director" sort of chastised me, but the gal standing next to me said, "He's just giving you constructive criticism like he would any actor in here,"
In the Q&A our host talked about how he can't watch any show where the dialogue is off from the lips. They explained an number of situations why that could happen ie they actually change the words or just bad sync of dialogue. However that's why the timing is so important in the room. As long as you say it as fast as the lips do, they can move it around on the computer screens and put it in the right place. Timing is everything.
He also brought out a $12,000 microphone like Frank Sinatra used to like to use.
The mics on the boom stand in the pictures where I was dubbing dialogue were only about $6000 and $3500 each.
After that we went on to out next segment which was the studio lot tour. Our tour guide was named Drew and he was quite friendly and knowledgeable. He talked about this sign which was installed for The Reluctant Dragon and just never taken down.
Notice in this picture, the round circular building underneath the word “Dopey”. This is The Rotunda, where we would be having dinner that night. Evidently it is a very special place and only people at “Director” level in the studios can reserve dining experiences there. Our guide Drew seemed very impressed when some of us mentioned that was where we would be having dinner.
There is a fire hydrant on this corner and soon the employees began referring to it as Pluto's Corner so a couple years ago it was officially named and these paw prints were put in the cement.
Notice there are only three pawprints as the fourth is, shall we say busy?
We walked down Mickey Blvd to the original Animation building. He explained the hierarchy that Walt designed the building in an H so that most everyone had a window and natural light in their offices. The directors were on the top or third floor, story boarding took place on the second floor and the actual animators were on the ground floor.
There is a tunnel in the basement which leads to the Ink and paint building so that drawings could be carried there without the potential for damage by weather. There must not have been a drought back then. Drew said we could take pictures inside the building, as long as we didn’t post them online, so what would be the point?
We walked through the tunnel to the other building and our guide told us a story of how Roy Disney (not sure which one, perhaps the one still living) told him how they would slide down the steep slope of the tunnel on the used cells from the pictures. Nothing like a several thousand dollar sled. The slope was so steep, Fran's scooter konked out on the ride up. I had to put it in neutral and push it up the hill and then reset the circuit. It was a bit unnerving as it had brand new batteries!
He pointed out Walt's office. It took up the whole floor as he had an apartment up there, a formal office and a working office. The piano was also up there and that's where Richard Sherman would go on Fridays and Walt would say, "Play it for me" And he meant "Feed the Birds". He also pointed out Roy's office across the way on the second floor. Not sure if there was merit to the saying but they used to say, "Walt could look down on Roy, but Roy couldn't look up and see Walt."
We passed this building on our way to our next stop, but didn’t go in. I had done that on a previous tour though.
And here’s another look at the Rotunda.
That concluded our studio lot tour and we were handed off to tour Soundstage #6 & 7 where the Muppets film. I'll have details on that and the rest of the tour in the next update!
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