The Magic, The Memories and You! in miniature

Hello folks,
After finishing the Fantasmic! in miniature project some months ago I decided it was about time to start working on a new one. During the past months I animated, draw and built this short-lived project called The Magic, The Memories and You in miniature. The idea was building the It's a Small World attraction facade in cardboard and projecting the complete computer re-drown Disneyland show.

The first part was about looking for images of the entire facade and re-drawing it. This task took about one and a half week. These are two images from the final result:

Segment of the facade.

Front are of the facade.

The second task was to start drawing each of the facades/segments on which the show is divided. This was the hardest part of the entire project, because it is very time consuming and one has to look for a lot of small details. It took me about three weeks to draw an 80% of the show. Here are some:

Second facade, the lines and shapes start to glow into various colors.

The third facade turns into a dark blue, waiting for the white clouds and the sun coming from the It's a Small World clock.

The fourth one makes all the figures look very colorful, different from the real daylight attraction facade.

After an spinning of the past facade, the eight one is dedicated to the It's a Small World characters.

In a crossover transition from the past facade to fifteen one, some strings coming out of the figures and the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious text jumps around.

The eighteen facade. Not completed yet. It has some pastel colors again and appears after the Pirates segment of the show. Need to add the roses and the roman columns.

The third step was animating. Now, if you have some knowledge and experience with animations you must know what a daunting task this is. Hours and hours of analyzing videos from the real show. Dividing scenes into workable sub-projects and then animating each of them. Some of the scenes do not require major animations, and even others are heavy loaded most are doable with some perseverance and hard work. These are a couple of test videos I made while I was working on the animations:

 

 

 

The almost final part of the project (after building the facade in cardboard) is mapping it and tweaking the video around so that it fitted to the physical scale model. 

Projection mapping process. Facade part being mapped.

For the 4th of July holiday I designed a small segment of the show using the music from the World of Color independence pre-show, drawing it with commemorative backgrounds and using a part of the video "Welcome: Portraits of America". Here is the video and I hope you have enjoyed this little updated of the  Magic, Memories and You! in miniature.

Thanks for watching!

Miniature vs Disneyland

Hello all!

This video shows the entire Fantasmic! in miniature  show during the night we presented it. Also, on the right side of the video, there is a full video of the real show at Disneyland California. Hope you like it!

Fantasmic! Highlights

Hi guys!

This is a short 5 minute video with the highlights of the Fantasmic! in miniature project. I hope you enjoy and comment on it. 

Thanks!

Interesting note: The day we presented the show, the weather wasn’t very good. Some wind gusts of 30mph gave us a hard time with pyro and the water screen. Even with those issues, guests and family loved the show! We had lots of fun. I thank all of you who have supported and helped me along this journey.

Rehearsal Gallery

Hello folks!

Some of you may have noticed some not, but last Thursday was the premiere show of the Fantasmic! in miniature project. Some days before Thursday we had some rehearsals with lights, fountains, and character barges. Here are some photos of what we tested:

King Louie and Monkeys

First intro sequences with dancing fountains and Mickey (He was resting that day)

Misters/Foggers test.

Columbia Sailing Ship test during daytime.

 

I hope you enjoyed the little update. As of the premiere of the show; yes we did recorded some videos and I will do a final edit of them with photos of the show also in mid February. Thanks for following!

Happy Holidays to all of you!

Hi and welcome to today’s quite small update of Fantasmic! in miniature show. 

In the past two weeks I have been working on the show and now fishing up all the decoration details from the main scenery, the water area, fountains, and the Main Island Stage. Also I have worked on the Columbia Sailing Ship and the Mark Twain Riverboat. Hopefully and as final date of the premiere of the show I am very happy to announce that the show will debut January 5^th, 2012 at night. We will be doing lots of rehearsals and I will let you all know the progress on it. Here are various photos of this week show’s progress:

Main Island Stage and Cider Mill building.

Maleficent vs Brave Little Tailor Mickey "sequence".

The rising of Maleficent.

Pinocchio scene: You may take a look that Pinocchio himself has small dots over his arms and legs. These "dots" will help me move the character from downstage.

 And to end today's small update here's a small animation of Traditional Mickey's sequence scene. I hope you all enjoy it, it was lots of fun making it. In the next days (after Christmas) I will post videos from the rehearsals as well as some other Water Screen tests. Thanks for checking and happy holidays!

A sparkling, twinkling presence can be seen and a magical sound begins to grow, as Tinker Bell appears.

Hello everyone!
Its sure is a great evening and we have awesome surprises and updates for all of you. Let's gets started! I am going to talk about the Characters first: In the past week we have completed the elements and props for the sequences of Maleficent, The Jungle book water barges, Pinocchio (most of it) and the Peter Pan scene.

Maleficent
As you all know, the most evil villain comes to Mickey's dream to turn his wondrous adventure into a powerful nightmare. During this sequence she sends Mickey her spell and starts rising in the sky to become the outrageous and giant Dragon. For us to be able to rise her without having any complications in the show, we created a small wood tower that is lifted from downstage with the Maleficent puppet on it, simulating the very same effect as in the real Fantasmic! show. Here is the photo of her and the "riser".

"Now you will deal with me and all the powers of MY imagination!"

 

The Jungle Book Monkeys

In a few updates back we showed you all the King Louie's water barge, but the Character Barge that holds up these characters wasn't yet completed because the black ropes that surround the barge were there. Now all three character barges have them and they have been tested in water to see if they work nicely; which they do! All character barges have two floors: one is the black floor that is part of the barge as in decoration and a second thinner floor which hold the different characters that appear on them

Pinocchio

A very awaited scene for me since I find it very colorful and funny. The Fantasmic! in miniature Pinocchio scene will be exactly the same as in Disneyland with one exception. During this sequence at Fantasmic! they use some water fountains that also change in colors while the puppets are moving. In our case and due to the proximity of the Island Stage to the fountains we decided not to use the fountains because they could got we the electric cables that color-change during the scene. 

From the top of the prop there will also be some electric cables or strings that will change according to the sequence and music.

Pinocchio and the girls will be moved not from the upper part of this building but from downstage using a puppet technique.

Peter Pan

Ahoy there mates! This exciting sequence that is held on the Columbia Sailing Ship will be also used at the miniature version of Fantasmic! Even tho the characters on the boat wont move because there is no possible way of moving them without having to introduce our hands in the water and then in the boat we managed an interesting way to make the sequence more interesting. Here are some photos of the ship and all the crew aboard.

 

Mr Crocodile, do you like codfish? You do?

Special Surprise!

During the past weeks we have been talking and talking about the water screen system. Well today we wont say a word, but leave you a small video of what we have been developing in the last months. Please not that the system is not yet complete and in a few weeks we will have a definite working one. But for now we are very happy to show all of you...

Note: sorry for the quality of the video. It was taken with a good quiality but reduced on Youtube. We'll get some better in a few days. Thank you all for watching, reading the blog and following the process! We hope you have enjoyed our updates as much as we do love creating the magic! Please be sure to check Facebook to "like" the page and keep updated on the Fantasmic! in miniature project. Take care!

Returning back to work!

Hello everyone!

Finally I am able to return all days work time to Fantasmic! in miniature like I was I June and July. These last months have been very busy and now is the time to update as real to all of you.

First and foremost, the scheduled date for the premiere of the show is Saturday, December 3rd. We are managing to see if we could add the Live Stream video on this very night for all of you to watch the show. These are the updates I havent told you about in the past months:

Character Barges: 90% done. They now fully work in the water and each has its own trail in the water area. They have a design that's very similar to the one in Fantasmic! and the characters (ie: Monkeys and King Louie) are all set. One sad news: I wasn't able to get the Princess in figurines as I wanted to because of matter of time and money, but they will sure look very nice in the planned idea I have for them. Of course, they will also appear in the Water Barges.

Here is a picture of the King Louie barge with his pal monkeys around him.

Cider Mill: 90% done. In the past weeks, during free time I was able to almost finish the Cider Mill building that work as the main scenery in the back of the Island. I added some decorations such as windows, lamps, old rustic elements and a special details. Who of you can tell me what is it? The building isn't yet complete because we are working still on the Water Screen and the projections will eventually come from this building to the water. Here are some pics:

Main shot of Cider Mill. Some work being done.

You can notice that it also has a new chimney like the real Cider Mill.

What you can see on the sides are the tower lights that will change on various colors during the show same way as the ones in the real Fantasmic! show.

 

 Pyrotechnics: 95% done. The electric cables that should electrically ignite the pyro for the show are in place and have been tested. These cables work on a manual firing system that enables the pyrotechnician to light the fireworks in a choreographed way so that they ignite with the music. We are still doing some tests with them to have the correct time in the sequence and to ensure they all work as they should. These are two photos of the cables and the electric ignites downstage.

Cables attached to wood downstage.

These are the e-alligators that will connect to the pyro fuse and light it.

In an upcoming post this week, I will explain with details who will this system work.

The most important to work from now on is the Water Screen. We have tried a lot of methods to produce a similar effect to the one at Disneyland, but physics, water pressure and technical details are making this the hardest part of the show. We hope we can still arrange this and make the best of the show! Thanks for reading again and I hope to see all of you soon back in the blog.

As a reminder, the facebook page is always welcoming new comments and ideas. You can step by to "like" the project and tell your friends about it. Thanks! Take care!