An animator with Disney Live Entertainment who worked on both “Happily Ever After” and “Disney Enchantment” shared several Easter eggs and behind-the-scenes facts about the latter show on Twitter.
With the 50th Anniversary ending March 31st and Happily Ever After set to return April 3, I wanted to share some fun little things that can be found in Enchantment and reminisce on a project that was very close to my heart
— Ana Beltrán (@anakbeltran) February 28, 2023
Ana Beltrán wrote in the first Tweet of the thread, “With the 50th Anniversary ending March 31st and Happily Ever After set to return April 3, I wanted to share some fun little things that can be found in Enchantment and reminisce on a project that was very close to my heart”.
As Beltrán states, “Disney Enchantment” was designed during the COVID-19 lockdown, with a strict deadline of October 1, 2020 — the actual 50th anniversary of Magic Kingdom. It was also the first show with projections down Main Street, U.S.A. (MSUSA). It took designers 7-8 months to model Main Street, U.S.A. alone.
Modeling MSUSA, however, was SO. MUCH. FUN!” Beltrán writes. “I got to learn a lot of architecture terms and little quirks specific to these buildings. MSUSA predated AutoCAD, so we only had scanned data to go off of and built everything from scratch. We modeled 25 buildings total.”
The new 50th anniversary decorations also had to be modeled for projections. “Yours truly then had to figure out where each piece was placed and when it was placed to update accordingly,” says Beltrán.
Beltrán and art director Ashley Reser worked together to create the Enchanted Castle look. “[Reser’s] castle design gave me so much freedom to build off of and use for both the castle and MSUSA,” Beltrán says.
The design was also easy to fit some fun little easter eggs in, if you catch my drift
pic.twitter.com/tO3seCyifB
— Ana Beltrán (@anakbeltran) February 28, 2023
Beltrán shared a few hidden Mickey moments, including the one embedded above. A Mickey head can be seen hidden amidst the Main Street, U.S.A. projections.
“The show was purposely fit to make MSUSA a surprise moment,” Beltrán explains, “which is why it appears about 5 minutes in with Joe Gardner in the Zone. The castle and subsequent first look ever to be projected on WDW MSUSA is inspired by Mary Blair and her unique attention to color and design.”
Beltrán links to a Disney Parks Blog post featuring a video of Eric Goldberg, who did several custom animations in “Enchantment,” including of Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, Alice, and the Mad Hatter.
“What is really cool about those in the Mary Blair section specifically is that they’re styled in an homage to Mary’s style,” Beltrán says. “When we got these from Eric and his team our whole team was losing it (In a good way) because how awesome is that?!”
“Luca” is featured in “Disney Enchantment,” which is one of the film’s first representations in Disney Parks.
“This section is also the first of many wonderful pyro moments that interact with projection. When WALL-E and Eve fly up and out on the castle, pyro takes over and shoots them into the sky! I had no idea they were going to do that when I was working on it.”
“Similarly, during Into the Unknown, I got to do Elsa’s final magic burst moment on the castle and had NO IDEA that there were pyro launch areas near her hands. No one believes me when I say this was not planned, but I was FLOORED when I saw pyro doing that for the first time[.]”
LOOK HOW COOL IT CAME OUT!!! IT WAS NOT PLANNED!!! (Or at least, I was fully left in the unknown
) pic.twitter.com/WFa958lGJm
— Ana Beltrán (@anakbeltran) February 28, 2023
Beltrán shared a video (embedded above) of that specific “Frozen” moment.
“Using clips from the film is also always fun because for this part I needed to cancel out the camera move the clip had at the end, so if you saw this without any of the content and just the movie clip, Elsa grows to be like 100+ feet tall on the castle XD[.]”
Also blink and you’ll miss the
pic.twitter.com/jKz4U0Cdxo
— Ana Beltrán (@anakbeltran) February 28, 2023
Beltrán shared another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hidden Mickey in the breezeway of Cinderella Castle, pictured above.
The “Over 500,000,000 Served” sign from the Underworld in “Hercules” appears as a nod to the 50th anniversary. It’s just beneath the giant 50th anniversary medallion.
Beltrán concludes the thread with a photo of her with her dad, who also worked on “Disney Enchantment,” writing, “Working on this show was truly spectacular for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that I got to do it with my dad. This is us on opening day.” Beltrán’s dad worked on the “Moana,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” and “Zootopia” sections, plus the start of the “Into the Unknown” section.
“Enchantment will always have a special place in my heart as I hope it does for many that have come to watch it over the past 18 months. Thank you for answering the call at the most magical place on earth[.]”
“Disney Enchantment” will be performed through April 2. “Happily Ever After” will return on April 3. Watch our video of the full updated version of “Disney Enchantment,” including clips of Walt Disney and Roy Disney, below.
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