A day in the studios

Following the release of his first few cartoons, which left audiences around America delighted, Disney began to explore other ways of animating that would push the boundaries of his craft into a whole new dimension.  In 1937, this inevitably led him to the multiplane camera, which was first used in a Silly Symphony called The Old Mill. The multiplane camera essentially allowed layered scenes to give a three-dimensional effect.  Parts of the artwork of one layer are left blank, to allow other layers to be seen behind them.  These layers could then be moved independent of each other, and in varying distance from the camera, creating the illusion of motion and depth.  It was a break-through moment in animation, famously used in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and employed subsequently for the next fifty years in Disney classics, all the way up until the 1989 film, The Little Mermaid, after which time computer systems began to take over.  Nowadays, only three Disney multiplane cameras survive – one of these is housed at Walt Disney Studios, at Disneyland, Paris.  It’s a great artefact to start a day in Walt Disney Studio park, and a real piece of history so pertinent to all of this, for without it there really would have been no Toy Story, no Monsters Inc, and no Frozen. 

The Disney multiplane camera (Source: WaltDisney.org)

Walt Disney studios is a celebration of modern Disney, and all the techniques that have brought its bulging back-catalogue into the 21^st century.  The computer may have superseded the pencil, but there’s still a decent nod to the past around this place – a statue of Walt sharing a joke with Mickey Mouse stands centre stage, whilst family favourites such as Jiminy Cricket are scattered around the site, intermingled with the modern-day heroes like Buzz Lightyear.  The whole mixup sort of works; where else would 1928's Steamboat Willy so easily and seamlessly encounter 2014's Frozen heroine, Elsa?

So what is Walt Disney Studio Parks all about?  There are studios devoted to Disney animation history, stage shows, stomach-churning rides, and special effects left, right and centre.  My favourite spot on our chilly visit is inside Studio One, packed full of Americana, where the restaurants and cafes sit on a fake boulevard, a vintage car is serviced at a redundant gas station, all under the watchful eye of a slowly setting Beverly Hills sun.  The gaping doors of the studio open to reveal the bright lights of Hollywood, sky scrapers giving way to that famous hilltop sign.  It's fake, but at the same time it feels like an utterly romanticised reality - which is, I suppose, the genius of film-makers.

Studio One

Hollywood at Walt Disney Studios, Paris

Once we've sat through the obligatory Art of Disney Animation presentation, the Animagique spectacular stage show (in which Donald Duck steals Mickey Mouse's key to the animation vault and unleashes the fun onto everyone in an all-singing, all-dancing, mad, magical adventure - yes, it's exactly as it sounds) and the flying carpets of Agrabah (talk about disappointing - our carpet never got off the ground) you can still take a tour around earthquake-stricken London, be first on the scene at a mining disaster, and take a turn around a hidden Parisian square.  And if that's not enough to float your boat, you can join virtually every other visitor in watching one of the park's famous stunt shows, which plays out live-action car acrobatics, guns, explosions, and people being set on fire.  It does offer something of a wow factor, and the slick one-minute film produced at the end of the show - using actual footage from the performance - makes for gripping viewing.

Quake-stricken London

A gripping stunt show

Our day at the studios complete, we head for the exit and make for the Disney Village, a complex of shops and restaurants sitting outside the park bounds, and open late into the night.  Its the usual energetic mix of bright lights and good times, as hotel residents and day trippers unwind from their hectic days with a burger, beer or cocktail.  For us, it's some light browsing at the World of Disney flagship store, followed by dinner at Billy Bob's Wild West Tex Mex, and then a gentle stroll through the village, out past the lake, slowly meandering home amongst exhausted parents, and children with big Minnie Mouse balloons.  The skyline of the Disney Village itself appears like a film set from across the water and the peace, after such a loud and bustling day, is a as magnificent as any movie score.

Evening scenes in the Disney Village

An American in Paris - Walt's magical world

Disneyland Paris sits in the new town of Marne-la-Vallée, about 20 miles to the east of the French capital.  Not that you'd know it, for in many ways, it's worlds away from the boulevard cafes and artistic backstreets.  This is a small piece of America, which just happens to sit in France, and you'd be totally forgiven for thinking you're spending dollars, and not euros.  For the short-haul visitor, it's a unique kind of culture shock; should I try speaking French to the shop assistant?  Is it a betrayal if I order a burger and fries?  Lizzie tries a bit with the French, but gets a decidedly English response, and so the matter is settled.

Disneyland was invented on July 17 1955 when Walt himself, having personally supervised its construction, opened Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.  On that morning, Disney spoke to the crowds, saying: "To all who come to this happy place: Welcome.  Disneyland is your land.  Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savour the challenge and promise of the future.  Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world."  Over the next 60 years, that inspiration has seen parks spring up in Florida, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and of course Paris.  There's a four-ship strong Disney cruise line, a points-based Disney vacation club, and a Disney resort and spa in Hawaii.  Disneyland Paris arrived in 1992, to a mixed response from the locals, many of whom worried that the park would introduce American consumerism to France.  I can't imagine why.

Walt presents his dream (source: Remembering Disney)

A wander down Main Street USA, as discussed previously, is an assault on the senses, and by the time you make it to the end of the street, you've been transported to a whole other world.  The centrepiece of the park, known the world over, is of course the Disneyland Castle.  Wannabe princes and princesses run around with boundless energy, enchanted at the prospect of seeing Sleeping Beauty awake from her timeless sleep.  For me, there's something even better to discover here - the sword in the stone, from one of my favourite films.  Unlike Arthur in the depths of Dark Age London, I'm unable to pull it from its anvil, but it does make for a good photo op, and is surely one to tick off the childhood dreams list. 

 "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England..."

The iconic Disney castle

Disney, rightly so, is unashamed of its identity, and through the park it pays homage to the many famous moments and characters brought to life by animation.  The cats from the Aristocats; the Mad Hatter's tea party; Aladdin's magic carpet ride; round every corner is another reminder, a further celebration.  With this in mind, the major attractions sort of play second-fiddle to the act of simply being in Disneyland, and our favourite rides are not the fast or the furious ones.  A cute little buggy takes you through the story of Pinocchio; a hanging pirate ship flies you over the rooftops of London with Peter Pan; a spiralled hedge maze brings you face-to-face with the Cheshire Cat.  This is what Disneyland means to us - it's the reconnection of the famous old stories from childhood, and in that respect it renders many of the scary rides somewhat out-of-place.

The Aristocats in making merry music

This way or that?  Lost in a hedge maze

The landscaping around the Disneyland park is superb.  One moment we're in the deepest Wild West, the next we're in the thick of an Arabian street market.  The good people in the props department really do a number on Disneyland, leaving no patch of ground vacant in their attempt to give you the real deal.  There are four 'lands' within the park, with piratical Adventure Land conjuring up a Peter Pan world, landscaped to perfection, and our favourite place to linger.  Adventure Land is also the home of the ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, the famous inspiration behind the international film series starring Johnny Depp.  Total fantasy and good old romantic imagery ensue, as our little water boat is bumped along a dusky island coast, past an 18th century Spanish fortress, and into the lives of rum-drinking, sword-wielding pirates, all to the memorable tune of yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me.  

Adventureland, home of pirates

If there's one thing besides rides and attractions that every single person seems to do in Disneyland, it's shop.  There are shops everywhere, hawking every conceivable thing that will fit a mouse motif.  Cuddly toys, crockery, clothes, porcelain figures, badges, baseball caps, sweets, biscuits...  the list, truly, is endless.  My impression of the shopping in Disneyland is that they simply saturate you until you buy something, for most of the emporiums sell identical wares.  However, this doesn't stop each and every premises from maintaining presentable, inviting properties, in keeping with the usual Disney image.  In an evening where the night closed in, the wind blew up and the rain poured, flitting from shop-to-shop became our lifeline against the elements, and we enjoyed each-and-every carefully-designed window display.  Created with care, delivered to perfection - the Disney way.

Shop windows along Main Street USA

The Disney imagination

"On a site bigger than Manchester, a spread of swamp and woodland eighty times the size of Hyde Park, they’re building a fantasy for £125 million.  This is the house the Mouse built.  The two million pound centerpiece of the Walt Disney World, the biggest thing to hit Florida since Sunshine. Cinderella’s castle, a fiberglass inspiration that looks real from any distance, should this be your idea of reality.  On October 1 Mickey Mouse, aged 43, opens his billion dollar business here, an improbable dream of Disney imagineers, to cater for 10,000 visitors an hour, fifty thousand a day, ten million a year, and so solve many Americans’ worries about expanding leisure time, and surplus cash."
Alan Whicker, Pixie Dust on Goody-Goody Land, 1971

It’s amazing, the impact that that three little circles can make on the world.  From one humble little sketch of a mouse, Walt Disney and his legacy have charmed and delighted people for eight decades.  Surely some of the twentieth century's most enduring creations, Walt's animated heroes have seen him go down in history as the man who brought magic, wonder and laughter to so many children.  I was one of the millions who was brought up with Disney, and remember fondly the hours of joy given to me by those famous cartoons.  Now at 30-years-old, the innocence may have faded, but a definite place still remains for the myriad characters of all shapes and sizes that comprise the Disney repertoire.  Recently, a long-held childhood dream was realised as, 20 years late, we finally took a trip to Disneyland.  The Paris version, obviously.

Walt Disney and his creations on the cover of Life Magazine

Mickey Mouse (The Mouse) was born in 1928, Walt Disney’s replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character Disney lost in a 1927 dispute with film producer and distributor Charles Mintz.  Legend goes that, whilst drawing up new character ideas that included a cow, a horse, and even a frog, Walt Disney observed a tame mouse at his desk.  What followed was Mortimer Mouse, soon re-Christened Mickey Mouse.  Mickey was first piloted in the test screening of Plane Crazy on 15 May 1928; this was followed by The Gallopin’ Gaucho, but neither film was released due to low interest and a lack of a distributor.  Disney remained persistent and, on 18 November 1928, a third film was released - Steamboat Willie.  Disney’s use of sound in animation was a new technique, stealing a lead on other animators, to the delight of audiences.  Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho were both re-released in sound, and by the end of the 1920s, Mickey had become a household name.

Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie

The Mouse continued in his refinement into the 1930s, becoming a role model for children.  This Cinderella status made it difficult to write material for Mickey, as the jokes and situations he could be involved in were limited.  Thus, in 1933, an angry little duck entered the fray.  A tempestuous powder-keg, Donald Duck blew open the confines of Mickey’s idyllic little world.  It has been said that Walt Disney based the character on all the people he didn’t like, and Donald definitely offers a truer representation of humanity than his mouse companion.  Disney would get mileage out of Donald’s wild mood swings; a classic storyline would see Donald start off in a jovial mood, before something – anything – would spoil his day.  The weather.  Some chipmunks.  A dripping tap.  To Donald, Disney dealt the blows of life that somehow always passed over the head of ever-optimistic Mickey.  You find yourself naturally sympathising with Donald – you share in his plight, you understand his frustrations, and you admire his often-spiteful actions.  He is a genius creation by a genius animator.

Donald Duck

There’s obviously a lot more to the Disney franchise than Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but were it not for these two characters, there would almost certainly be no Disneyland to speak of today.  Off the back of the Mouse and Duck combo, and having won an exclusive contract with Technicolor to produce cartoons in colour, Walt Disney Productions Limited broke even more new ground, with a feature film, three-years-in-the-making, called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).  By 1939 it was the highest-grossing film of all time, and the profits generated paid for a new 51-acre studio complex in Burbank, California.  Countless classics followed through the decades – Pinocchio (1940,) Cinderella (1950,) Peter Pan (1953,) Sleeping Beauty (1959,) The Sword in the Stone (1963,) The Jungle Book (1967,) Robin Hood (1973,) The Little Mermaid (1989,) Beauty and the Beast (1992,) to name but a few of the many feature films produced in the next 76 years.  Not a bad legacy for a paper boy son of a farmer, and not a bad return for drawing those three little circles.

Most of Disney's films put a new spin on classic works of literature, such as Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book

All of which brings us to the outskirts of Paris in 2015, where a wander down Main Street USA infects you with the charm and innocence of that earlier age.  Main Street is billed in the visitor leaflet as a typical American street at the turn of the 20th century. I don't think anybody actually believes that, but nonetheless it has been brilliantly done, with well-maintained topiary, pastel-washed shop fronts, and a charming, old-fashioned, wholesome, idealised façade that is just Disney through-and-through.  The clean-cut image is superbly preserved here - everything is in the appropriate place, and there's not a hint of litter in sight.  Then there's the music, vintage family favourites wafting through the air from well-disguised speakers.  It's an experience that fills the visitor with a sense of childlike joy, for if you can genuinely believe that this artificial construct, built in 1994, is for real, then you'll get a lot more out of your visit.  And why not indulge yourself in this little piece of imagination?  Guests of all nationalities, and all ages, lap it up, and judging by the number of Minnie Mouse ears being worn by folk in their 30s, it certainly seems like an appropriate place to submerse yourself in fantasy.  

Main Street USA, Disneyland Paris

"A typical American street at the turn of the 20th century"

The reason for all of this is clear; Walt Disney, through his cartoons and feature films, strikes a chord with people across the globe.  As a child you are lassoed into his world, and what is fostered is a fondness that, for many people, continues into adulthood.  It may be the world's best marketing strategy, but cynicism doesn't seem to count within the bounds of Disneyland, and why should it?  Where else in this day-and-age can you really forget the world and all its problems?  To me, this is key to Disney's success, be it in a park or on the screen - it is escapism at its best, and that's appealing whether you're aged five or one hundred and five.  As the great animator himself penned: "Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever."

The beautiful renewal of life

I love Easter.  I love the sun shining brightly in the sky, the sweet scent of spring in the air, the birdsong curling through the trees all day long.  To me, Easter is the beginning of the good season; winter is a long-gone memory, our hemisphere is warming up, and life begins, once again, on its beautiful, perfect cycle.  For me, this means hitting the garden, which is especially exciting this year because it's the first spring in our new home.  The garden, it's fair to say, needs some work doing.  Neglected by the previous owners, it resembles, in places, a bit of a rubbish-site-come-rubble-dump.  But look a little deeper, and there's wild potential in this little corner of Newton Abbot.  The bees are dancing merrily around the heather, every upturn of stone reveals centipede and woodlouse, and our grounds, we now know, are home to frogs, toads, and slow worms.  Here are the signs of life, from an array of creatures that have survived the passing winter darkness, and hint at the delights that are to follow.  I didn't get any of the aforementioned creatures on camera, but I did get a quick snap at one of three peacock butterflies, arguably our most beautiful insect, as it settled to bask on a sun-kissed stone.

There is much hard work upon us and we will eventually turn the garden around into somewhere special, but we're both agreed that we'll be doing it with wildlife at the forefront of our minds.  About half way up the garden (for our garden is on a slope) is an old paved level, which I presume was once home to a greenhouse.  One immediate project is to turn this area into a hotbed of vegetables, for which I'll be using a variety of pots, troughs, and containers of all shapes and sizes.  This morning I sowed three old favourites - Swiss chard, perpetual spinach, and good old salad bowl lettuce - and there's more to follow; our lounge windowsill is currently home to a variety of seedlings, including kale, cucumbers, courgettes, lemon balm and oregano.  Talking of these latter two, herbs are going to play a big role in this year's garden, for as well as the appeal these hold for bees, I'll be using thyme, chives and rosemary to create something of a Mediterranean flavour to this corner of the plot.  Lizzie, meanwhile, has had her hands full planting up a large pot, reclaimed from the ramshackle potting shed, as well as scattering some wildflower seeds in the bare patches of the slope.  

Part of the joy of the long weekend at home, is getting the chance to see family.  Lizzie's parents, on a whistle-stop trip from Surrey, stayed with us last night, and this afternoon we dropped over to see Grandma, and then Mum and Terry.  Sharing some time with the ones you love, catching up on life and listening to each other's recent stories is perhaps the most special way to spend a Sunday like this.  Back home, and with the chicken finally defrosted, we settled down for a hearty Easter roast.  I conquered my first roast dinner at Christmas, and am now honing my skills with every passing foray into beef, gammon, or turkey.  We always pick the highest welfare meat we can afford, and were graced today with a good sized, free range chicken that was tender, succulent, full of flavour, and perfectly accompanied by roast potatoes, vegetables and lashings of gravy, all washed down with the first post-Lent beer.  Cheers!

Lent, of course, commemorates the period of forty days, in which Jesus retreated into the wilderness and was tempted by the devil.  At the end of this time, on what became known as Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem, ushering in Holy Week - the week that would see him arrested and crucified.  On Easter Sunday, Christians around the world celebrate Jesus' resurrection, and the symbol of hope that it represents.  To me, it's a story that is difficult to forget at this important time of year, for all around us is nature's own renewal of life, and a display of its hopes for the coming seasons.  It exists in each daffodil springing anew, in every bumblebee emerging from the ground, nature's balanced cycle on yet-another trip, upon which we are all passengers.  It's beautiful, it's perfect, and it's a reminder that home really is the only place I'd ever want to be on this miraculous, spiritual, weekend.

The Resurrection portrayed at a Lutheran Church, South Carolina (source: Wikipedia)