Whit Honea is the author of The Parents' Phrase Book. He lives in the L.A. area with his wife and two boys. You can find his writings and other works all over the Internets. Now available on Twitter.
Yes, that’s a ride. Photo credit: Paul Hiffmeyer/Disneyland Resort
I was standing right in front for the Cars Land Grand Opening event (just behind John Ratzenberger and Randy Newman, seriously), but my video isn’t nearly as good as this official release from Disney (below), so let’s use theirs! Read More »Cars Land Grand Opening Event – Video
As readers of this blog surely know, when Disney California Adventure Park opened almost 12 years ago as a second gate to Disneyland it wasn’t the hit that Disney or its fans hoped it would be. In fact, it was written off by many as a ridiculous concept done on the cheap. For the record, I’ve always enjoyed the park, but I understand what people were saying, it needed more everything: rides, shows, food, theming, and above all else, it needed more magic. It needed more Disney.
Hello, and welcome to DCA 2.0. Read More »Disney California Adventure Park’s Grand Reopening – Videos!
My boys and Merida strike a pose at Disney California Adventure (she’s usually in Disneyland, but she made a special appearance for Cars Land Media Day).
Pixar took some lumps after Cars 2 was released. There were more than a few people that believed that it was not up to Pixar’s standards. I was one of them (all is forgiven thanks to Cars Land!). Don’t worry, Brave (and La Luna) has Pixar back on the pedestal where it belongs.
Brave is set in Scotland, and it follows the contention between Princess Merida and her mother, Queen Elinor, over the fate of the former — and it wasn’t something pulled from a previously existing fairy tale, but rather the real experience of story creator Brenda Chapman (except she isn’t Scottish royalty). According to Brave Director Mark Andrews (pictured below), “Brenda Chapman came up with the storyline and the characters, and it came out of her being a parent and her trials and tribulations with her daughter.”Read More »Be Brave and See It
Let me just say that Cars Land at Disney California Adventure is exactly what you want it to be, except you would probably want more. That’s not to say it’s a small land (after all?). I attended the grand opening of DCA’s newest area, and it was much bigger than I had anticipated. However, it is so fun that it leaves you wanting more, which, if I’ve learned anything from television, is a good thing.Read More »A Cars Land Teaser
I have reviewed a lot of movies for a lot of different media outlets, including, but not limited to, the majority of Pixar films. However, I’ve never written a whole article about a Pixar short, and it is time that changed. La Luna is the reason.
La Luna was created, written, and directed by Enrico Casarosa, who had previously worked on Cars, Up, and Ratatouille, and it was nominated for an Academy Award (Best Short Film). It deserved it.
If you have ever wondered what it is like to be nominated for an Oscar, here is how Casarosa described it:
I woke up and I let all my family sleep, but I made myself a coffee and I was in the dark in the kitchen, trying to figure out where they would put it because they don’t really mention us little guys in the show. You have to go look for it. But once you find out…I love that moment of that quiet, personal moment of me and a cup of coffee. Then it turned into text and then it’s a mess, and emails of all these people kind of congratulating me.
So I really felt great, the feeling of a nomination feels wonderful, but, the thing I remember the most is just the outpouring from all over the place, people coming through the woodwork to say hi and congratulations, which is really great, and that kind of strange quiet moment.
It was not a bad day.
I bet.
The story of La Luna runs seven minutes and does not use any spoken language, aside from shrugs, looks, and some mumbling that only the characters can understand. It’s a family thing.
The film covers the first night on the job for a little boy entering the family business with his father and grandfather. The men do not get along and the boy is forever stuck between them.
Read More »A Short Post About the Short Film La Luna
On my recent visit to Pixar Studios I had the great pleasure of interviewing Katherine Sarafian, the producer of the highly anticipated film Brave. She shared some nuggets (seems like there should be a McNuggets joke in there somewhere) about working at Pixar and the story behind Brave, which, in case I haven’t made it clear, looks awesome.
On her career with Pixar:
Well, it has been a long road, but I think that Pixar is one of those places where you can work on lots of different films and have a different career on each film, so I try. On each film I grew into a new role. I started sort of entry level, at the bottom, and moved up. By the time I was on “A Bug’s Life” I was a first-time manager, and once I learned that I could manage people, and really enjoyed doing that, then there was a progression into marketing for a while.
… Pixar is very much about how you recover from your errors. Because I, you know, we, learned on the job. A lot of us did here.
You may recall that I took a trip to Pixar Studios to learn more about the upcoming film Brave, and you may also recall that the experience was awesome. In addition to learning about bagpipes, archery, and kilts, our wandering group of press and bloggers spent some quality time with the creative team behind the film. Emphasis on creative.
Louis Gonzales is a Story Artist at Pixar and was part of the team that traveled to Scotland for research (it’s all relative, they had to travel to the dump for Toy Story 3). It sounded amazing. He told this great story about a small, simple dinner they had one night while in Scotland, and how a woman had started singing a haunting, beautiful song that really touched him. He was so inspired that he created a scene with a similar song. His version wound up being a lullaby sang to Merida by her mother. There was a whole process that he had to go through in order to have the scene added to the film. It involved his having to sing falsetto in front of the Pixar bigwigs, and from the sample he played us it’s lucky he has such a fantastic day job:Read More »Behind Brave: The Pixar Process
You know that feeling you get when you see something for the first time and it makes so much sense that you can’t believe it hadn’t been thought of before? Yeah, that just happened at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. With the debut of Cars… Read More »Meet the Monorails of Disneyland Resort