Digital projection on a three dimensional object started out as a cool art project by making a building appear to crumble or become a canvas for swimming fish. Disney’s Imagineers were quick to harness the technology and bring it to the parks.
It’s currently in use at the Magic Kingdom as part of the Celebrate the Magic castle show and during Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween party in Hallowishes and the Villain’s stage show. There’s also a car in the queue of Test Track at EPCOT that’s gets a digital projection treatment. You can also find it in Disneyland Paris as part of the Disney Dreams show, which I hear is fantastic.
The latest use of digital 3d mapping and projection takes it down to the small scale – a wedding cake. Which as cool as it is, is only available to the few guests who can afford the more expensive wedding packages.
So, I started to think where else could Disney make us of digital projection. They did try something once on Spaceship Earth using Mike Wazowski to announce the “Monstrous Summer” promotion in 2013. I’d love to see that idea expanded upon with more night shows on Spaceship Earth.
Of course, Disney might be able to do something cool using their hotels as a canvas. The Contemporary Resort has a giant facade and so do the Swan & Dolphin hotels
In the parks, I would love to see Fantasmic! at Disney’s Hollywood Studios remade in such a way that the focus of the stage isn’t an ugly brown mountain, but something that they can project digitally on to tell fantastic stories.
Time to put on your Imagineer’s thinking cap. Where else could you see Digital 3d mapping and projection being put to good use in the parks?
Love the idea of using projected digital mapping on the Fantasmic backdrop. It’s one of our favorite shows, but it desperately needs to be updated and freshened. I would bet this technology will be used in the new light show at AK.
I would love to see how the HToT was damaged. It could start out with just storm effects lighting, rain ,flying debris (this could include all manner of things is anyone thinking Dumbo? Haha) , and the finale naturally would be how the burn marks got on the building . The building is so large and mostly flat I think it’s a natural for this effect.
Brilliant
I’m wondering if this is the technology they’ll be implementing to make the Tree of Life look more Pandora-esc. I’m also reminded of the end-scene in Beauty and the Beast where the wave of golden magic washes over the castle and all the creepy gothic stuff becomes nice and sparkly. That’s definitely something the projection could work for, in either direction I suppose. They could also rip out everything in Ellen’s Energy Adventure and create a complete set for digitally mapped projections and make the set anything they want. That would be brilliant, I feel, because it would allow for the attraction to change regularly and be a very dynamic show-piece.
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