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The Making Of
Behind the magic of Magique...
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Fun Facts & FootnotesCast includes: CinéMagique takes its main theme from 'Les Parapluies de Cherbourg' (1964), with additional original music by Bruce Broughton (Le Visionarium, Honey I Shrunk The Audience). Music from Star Wars and Gone With the Wind is also notably used during the film. The art deco Disney Studio 2, or the 'Studio Theatre', is thematically the main screening room of Walt Disney Studios - the place where crew gather at the end of a shoot to review their footage, or where old films are screened for reference. When George returns through the screen thanks to the Knight's sword, his suit is ripped and torn exactly as it was whilst he was in the film, such as by the Arabian suitor's machete. Whilst Marguerite's costume changes for each picture she steps into, since she is a part of "the magic of the movies", George's costume only changes right at the end, when he kisses Marguerite before 'The Wizard of Oz', signifying his acceptance into the world of movies for happily ever after. As he grows closer to Marguerite, George's competence in French also improves rapidly. The lighting of the angular exterior marquee entrance was designed to resemble that of a true Art Deco theatre marquee (for example the exposed neon lights to form the film title), whilst many of the lights resemble a filmstrip - in particular the square recessed lights brought from Belgium, installed like the sprockets (holes) of a celluloid film. In 2003, the Themed Entertainment Association presented its annual Attraction of the Year 'THEA' award to CinéMagique, a highly prestigious accolade from people in the themed entertainment industry, to people in the themed entertainment industry. CinéMagique had already been an attraction at Disneyland Resort Paris before 2002, over at Discoveryland in Disneyland Park. It was entirely different to the current attraction, however - CinéMagique was simply the name for the European version of Michael Jackson's Captain EO 3D film, located in the current building of Honey, I Shrunk The Audience between 1992 and 1998. Did you notice... HistoryOften referred to as a 'big screen version' of Disney's The Great Movie Ride, CinéMagique does indeed find its roots at Disney-MGM Studios Florida. The centrepiece of the Florida studios since opening has been The Great Movie Ride, a lavish and lengthy guided tour through recreated Audio-Animatronics versions of classic movie scenes, with a live host providing commentary for each of the large ride vehicles. At CinéMagique, George effectively plays this role as he stumbles through the various films. Contrary to popular belief, CinéMagique was actually planned as a key attraction for Paris' studio park from the outset, rather than its Great Movie Ride cousin. The original late 1980s plans for Disney-MGM Studios Europe featured Florida's Grauman's Chinese Theatre recreation as its centrepiece, albeit with a cinema show inside rather than an Audio-Animatronics dark ride (at least for the park's opening day). The 'Grand Movie Palace' was to have taken its cue from The Great Movie Ride's finale, which features the vehicles stopping beneath a giant movie screen playing a series of vignettes from classic movies. Imagineers were faced with the problem of how to make a 30-minute show of film clips entertaining and enthralling for a captive audience. The idea for a live actor to enter the screen appeared at a very early stage - whilst researching European film, the Imagineers stumbled upon Le Ballon Rouge (1956), a French film involving a child who has a grand adventure with a simple red balloon. Taking this concept, the Imagineers then planned in depth a concept whereby the audience would become annoyed with a parent unable to keep a child's balloon down. As the situation got out of hand, the balloon was to have been sucked into the film to ultimately depart on a grand adventure through movie classics, blundering parent in tow. Despite an entire storyboard and presentation video being created for this concept, it was eventually abandoned when Imagineers decided an audience would not become emotionally involved with the balloon or parent, fearing cries of "Just buy your kid another one!" from guests. Instead, they looked for love... Nothing captivates an audience like a love story, but how could the star get on screen? After a trip to the cinema, Senior Creative Executive Tom Fitzgerald knew exactly what the key would be: a mobile phone. The team set about drawing up lists of the greatest Hollywood and European films, before having to consolidate their choices down to those they could fit into a workable story. With this done, the huge legal team were tasked with acquiring the license rights from the studios, producers, directors, actors and music composer of every single shot used. This was without doubt the biggest single grouping of licenses ever collected for use in a motion picture. Where there was uncertainly whether an agreement could be made with other studios, however, such as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly sequence, a reserve sequence was also designed (in that case a generic Western). In addition to the rain, bullet holes, dynamite flash, door and sword, several other in-theatre effects were considered during the attraction's design phase, such as a UFO crashing through the building or a man riding a horse through the theatre during the Wild West sequence. Another idea involved a man being thrown out of a door in the screen to land on the stage, though all were eventually dismissed as too impractical for an hourly show. With the script written, actors and supporting artists could be found. Martin Short was chosen for his good commitment to several other Theme Park Productions projects at Walt Disney World in the past, as well as his very emotive facial expressions, essential for the multilingual audience. He agreed to the project after reading plans to use a scene from Harold Lloyd's 'Safety Last'. Principal photography began just six months before the first previews of the park and lasted only two weeks. Indoor sets and greenscreen where shot on two soundstages in downtown LA, whilst the outdoor medieval segment was shot on location elsewhere in California. Swordfighting choreography and extras were provided by SwordPlay Fencing Studios, Inc. For the Pinocchio and other underwater sequences, Martin Short (luckily a qualified diver) filmed in a giant water tank with special underwater cameras and lighting equipment created by HydroFlex,Inc. for an entire day to get the right effect of him actually being underwater. Shots were planned in advance so that the very minimum of background sets needed to built, whilst many of the later segments use greenscreen. The film footage licensed from other studios had to be completely cleaned up and remastered to make it suitable for the huge, unforgiving 70mm digital projection screen used in the theatre. The production crew even went to the effort of tracking down the original matte painting of the Yellow Brick Road and Emerald City from 'The Wizard of Oz' to re-photograph it digitally. In contrast, the new footage filmed to match these archive films had to be downgraded until the two matched perfectly. The films were researched in-depth so that wherever possible similar lenses, lighting and film stock could be used for the new scenes. The release of Monsters, Inc. in November 2001 allowed the production team to swap out a segment from the Titanic doors sequence that wasn't playing very well amongst themselves. The scene originally featured Scream (1996), but the release of Monsters, Inc. brought a perfect, family-friendly replacement in the form of Sulley's roar, whilst also introducing the important modern form of computer animation by Pixar into the production. Between guest previews in February 2002 and the park opening on 16th March, another scene was changed - in the underwater sequence, an encounter with the Nautilus from Disney's '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' was swapped out for Sean Connery's 'The Hunt for Red October', leaving just three Disney films in the entire production. The Disney Studio 2 theatre has played host to countless events and film previews over the years, such as exclusive screenings of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy for cast, crew and invited guests, or various previews of new Walt Disney Pictures films for shareholders. During the grand opening event of the park, the theatre hosted a special press conference with Jay Rasulo and various other important figures in the creation of the park. Above all, CinéMagique proves that - with the magic of cinema - anything is possible.
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