Hi and welcome my name is Drew and we're
live here on the Walt Disney Studio lot
in Burbank.
I'm one of the official Walt
Disney Studios lot tour guys and I'm
going to show you some of the spots here
on the closed studio lot. How cool is
that?
But what makes this unique is you get to
choose where we go.
It's a choose-your-own-adventure, if you
can believe that. How cool is that? So you
have three choices... you can choose either
A.) the corner of Mickey Avenue and Dopey
Drive. It's an iconic street sign which
is pretty fun. B.) Legends Plaza... we'll
talk about all the Disney Legends that
are here in the studio lot or C.) a
stroll down Minnie Avenue where we talk
more about the animation process
especially back in Walt's days. So those
are the three choices how do you make
those choices? Right there in the
comments section. So go ahead and write
either A.) the corner of Mickey Avenue and
Dopey Drive. B.) Legends Plaza or C.) a
stroll down Minnie Avenue. While you're
choosing and figuring out which one of
those you have to choose because I know
what I would choose. I want to do all
of it.
Why don't we talk a little bit about how
we got here to Burbank. It started back
in 1923. My D23 fans
know why they're called D23 now, right?
Right. So when Walt moved from Kansas City
to California in 1923 to partner with
his older brother Roy, they were just about
six and a half miles away from here in
the Los Feliz area. They were there for
about three years and from there they
moved about a mile and a half from there
because they were so successful to the
Hyperion Avenue lot on Hyperion. From
1926 to 1940,
tons of stuff happen. In 1927, Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit was born. In 1928, Steamboat
Willie, the first synchronized sound
cartoon starring Mickey Mouse and that's
his introduction. And in 1929 we started
the Silly Symphonies cartoons. But even
more than that we were in production of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in the
30s. Now that was the first full-length
animated feature film ever done. Now that
made eight and a half million dollars.
Now today that might not seem very much
but back then a child's ticket price was
ten cents an adult ticket price was
twenty-five cents.
Wouldn't you love to have those prices now? I
know I would. Yeah. So, eight and a half
million dollars was a lot of money. It was
the number one movie of all time at that
time. So Walt was able to take three
million dollars and purchase 51 acres
here in Burbank and we officially opened
in 1940. We had we were built to be an
animation studio that's why I'm standing
right in front of the original animation
building. Think of this in this building
the first movie that we did in there was
Dumbo. We did all the animated features
from Dumbo through The Great Mouse
Detective in this building. Again think
about this, that means Cinderella was
done in this building, Sleeping Beauty
was done in this building.
Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Fox and
the Hound, The Jungle Book... all of those
great movies in this building. On top of
that, this is where Walt sat. He sat in
this top of part of the wing, this third
floor he took up that entire wing. Two
offices up there in that spot. And from
there he looked over every script that
came across his desk whether it was
movies or television or of course that's
where he worked on Disneyland and what
became Walt Disney World up there in that
spot. Ahhhh!
you can almost feel the magic right from
there. So on that third floor back in
those days
Walt and story development were done
also the Sherman Brothers were up there.
They made all of those great songs from
Mary Poppins and they did the Tiki Room
song and it's a small world
let's all say okay I won't do that but
anyway that's where all of that stuff
was done. The directors were on the
second floor and the animators on the
first floor that means the "nine old men" were
in this building and even more recently
people like John Lasseter were here.
That's where he started right after
Cal Arts. Also people like Brad Bird and
Tim Burton actually started in this
building if you can believe it. All of
those legendary animators this building.
Like I said, you could feel the magic. I
know i'm feeling it right now. Oh wait a
minute.
Looks like, oh I am told to go over
the choices again. So once again let's go
through those choices. All right. You
ready? Choice A.) is the corner of Mickey
Avenue and Dopey Brive. B.) Legends Plaza,
Or C.) A stroll down Minnie Avenue.
So go ahead and right there in the core
in the comments write down which choice
you want to make. And that we'll go there
because
of your choice. That's what cool is
this live thing is so cool that you can
actually choose where we're going to go.
I'm happy to talk about anything you
want to talk about. So let's take a look
at some of these spots very very soon.
And let's see we got our first comment.
Where can you buy that shirt? And I'm
sorry I can't read that name it's a bit...
Binon, I'm sorry about I apologize. Binon...
so where can you buy that shirt? This
shirt I actually bought at the D23 Expo
last year. We're gonna have another D23
Expo next year. So maybe they'll be a
different kind of shirt over there. But
this is cool because this shirt John
Lasseter actually designed, so that's
pretty cool. And I'm sure it's on other
places, but the how cool is this shirt? I
love the shirt. It's actually one of my
favorite shirts. Now on this studio lot
we also have seven sound stages. We're
shooting three TV shows right now. On
stages two and three were shooting a TV
show called Code Black. On sound stages four and five,
a TV show called Black-ish. And on stages
six and seven the real O'Neals. So
we're an active studio lot. So if you start
hearing noises of people running around
or cars driving around
that's the great part of this live thing
too is that you actually get to hear all
the activity here on this studio lot. Now
so many things have happened on the
studio lot throughout the the years and
so many exciting productions that we've
been on, but it's so important that this
started off as an animation studio.
Because we start off with just one
sound stage.
Oh it looks like we have our final votes.
Let's see uh our final votes
drumroll... A.) 43. So that be for
Mickey Avenue/Dopey Drive. 81 for
B.) Legends Plaza. And the winner is, ding ding ding ding ding... with a
hundred and forty five votes a stroll
down Minnie Avenue.
So let's go ahead and take a walk down,
stroll down Minnie Avenue. As we
walk around the old animation building
or the original animation as i like to
say it... again so many legendary movies have
been done in this building and it's
still active today. Now there are a lot
of great productions.
And we're back. Again, how fun is this that
it's live? If you wanted proof, that's your
proof.
Well we're going to take a stroll down
Minnie Avenue. Now what we're doing right
now is we're walking by the inking and
painting building where we had some 200
inking and painters working on those
cells. You know those cells are worth
thousands of dollars today...
well that's the building that they
worked on them. It would take a long time to
do those cells because you have to be
absolutely perfect when you're drawing
those lines and painting on the back of
those cells and will take six to eight
hours to dry. Now think about this, 24
frames per second in traditional film,
that means up to 24 drawings per second
which also means up to 24 cells per
second.
Alright hundreds of thousands of these
cells for 90-minute movie. It's amazing
but can you imagine back in those days
they didn't know that those were pieces
of art? Yeah, the art was the final
production, the movie that came out. They
just had stacks and stacks of these
cells so they actually had to throw some
of them away if you can believe it.
That's why cells are worth so much money
today. But it's amazing so the inking and
painting building over here and the very
next building over here is the camera
building. But before we go too much
further, got to point this out. So I was
pointing out where Walt's office was, again
on that third floor that wing. And over
here, right next door across from it on
the second floor was Roy O. Disney's
office. So you can see that Walt could look
down at Roy he-he but Roy couldn't look up up
at well very easily.
For those of you who've seen Saving Mr. Banks,
check out this area. This is where Emma
Thompson as P.L. Travers takes that
coffee cup and she digs the hole and
that whole scene was shot right here. In
fact, a lot of the studio lot scenes in
Saving Mr. Banks was shot right here on
this property because all of these
original buildings have not changed
since 1940, that's why it looks
exactly right and they look fantastic
still which is amazing we still use
these buildings for so many things.
Now the camera building over here is
where we have that multi-plane camera.
The camera that helped to give illusion of
depth in our films.
So this is where we would take the cells
and film them. And right after that would
be the cutting building which is where
we would edit.
Alright, so think about the process of
animation back in Walt's days. He was
very thoughtful about how all of these
buildings worked. On the top floor be
story development. Walt would be there
making sure all the stories were just
right and the Sherman Brothers that's
where they would sit, who did all the
music for Mary Poppins and did that song
the Tiki Bird song and it's a small world.
After Walt was happy with the story then
would go to that second floor, the
directors would be there. And then the
first floor would be the animators. From
this building they go across the street
to the inking and painting buildings and
then over to the camera building where
they would be filmed and over to cutting.
A very efficient process. Walt thought
about everything. Isn't that amazing? I'll tell
you, I've been to some other animation
studios... nothing is like this. This is
just amazing. Notice how there are four wings
on this old animation building as well
and that's because Walt wanted to make
sure every office had a window. So
important as an artist and I know some
of you are artists out there. You want that
sunlight, you want some sun to be able to
come inside.
It's so much better for you as an artist
and Walt understood that being an
artist himself. So that's how important
all of this was and how we built it. Now
I want to take us over here to the
corner right where the stop sign is and
talk about some of the things around
here.
One of the first things that you could
see over here is stages B & C. Now
stages B & C are post-production sound
areas. That's where we do automated
dialogue replacement or ADR voiceover
work and dubbing. In stage B we've done
all the voices for all the Pixar movies
since 1995 which is great and we're also
working on some new Pixar movie some of
you have heard about Cars 3 coming
out next year... while those voices have
been recorded in stage B. How fun is
that? One of the final things I want to
show you is this wonderful water tower
which is the main icon of the studio lot.
It'ss a hundred thirty-five feet in height
which makes it about 12 feet shorter
than the Matterhorn at Disneyland. It used
to hold a hundred fifty thousand gallons
of water
it also has six legs because Roy looking
at the original design that had four
legs wanted to make sure that we had six
legs because it looks better.
Which it does I think it is when the
best looking water towers I've ever seen.
Oh we got some comments over here let's
take a look... Matt Khan says, "How can I work
at the studio?"
well there are lots of different ways if
you're on production or creative there
are lots of ways to gain through that
you can be a PA on a movie or television
show and also DisneyCareers.com. Joel
is asking, "Are we going to go inside the
buildings."
Unfortunately not this time but who
knows maybe sometime in the future we
could.
Speaking of that though, if you ever want
a studio tour yourself we do tours every
once in awhile through D23. That's right,
you can have a guided tour here and have
an even bigger experience on that. So
check out D23.com and check out when
we have those tours coming up and if you
remember you can actually come over here
to the studio lot and check out even
more and actually going to some of these
buildings.
How fun is that? Thank you all so much
for this live experience. I hope you all
had a good time and I hope you have a
magical day.