Planning headline events to span an entire year and firmly make at home a new century’s characters in the landscape of the Magic Kingdom is all in a day’s work for Kat de Blois, Creative Director of Disneyland Paris Entertainment…

Now Mickey’s Magical Party is over, what do you take from it?

That was really… magical. We created no less than eight different exciting projects. That represented a huge amount of work and was an opportunity for us to look to consultants from all over the world. That was very enriching. And who better than Mickey to create a party that big ?

How did you come to the idea of the New Generation Festival?

We wanted to associate all the new characters the Disney Studios have developed for the last 10 years or so with the concept of “festival”. That came out of Blue-Sky discussions we had, going outside — like in front of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant — in order to dream of what new things we could do to celebrate, translate and give life to those beautiful movies throughout our parks and through our interactivities with our guests.

The artists at the Walt Disney Studios have created all kinds of wonderful worlds and our task is to make them come true, make them real. The term “festival” was also very inspirational to us. For centuries, Europe has been animated by all kinds of festivals, celebrating in the streets the culture of each country and each people. We wanted to celebrate in the same spirit our stories and characters.

How did you select the Disney Characters that would be the stars of the New Generation Festival?

We chose them according to the spirit we wanted to give the Festival. Take the Incredibles, for instance. They’re superheros, yet, at the same time, they’re average people living a normal life like you and me. In a way, they show us that everybody can be a superhero. And the link between all these new characters and the classic ones is, obviously, Mickey Mouse and his friends, because, as you know it, “it all started with a mouse !”. They’ve met the new characters during the Festival and they want to share that experience with us! That way, we wanted our Festival to be about another kind of bond: friendship. It shows through the presence of Lilo and her unexpected friendship with Stitch, an alien from outer space. In the same way, there’s the friendship between little Boo and big Sulli from Monsters, Inc.

You’re talking about the brand new Disneyland Park show, Disney Showtime Spectacular.

Exactly. That was the occasion for us to gather Disney Characters that we weren’t used to meeting in our parks. I was mentioning Boo, but there’s also Mike Wazowski, and Angel, Stitch’s new girlfriend. From the creative point of view, that was a true challenge to associate, for instance, the universe of Buzz and Woody from Toy Story, to the one of Mickey and friends, and to conceive production numbers that would allow you to really dive into these universes in less than 2 minutes. In order to do that, our dancers can draw from some “toy chests” located on stage in which they can find new accessories to transform themselves and accompany Mickey and friends in each tableau.

We also worked a lot on the soundtrack. We looked to scores that don’t necessary come from the realm of musicals. Composers like Alan Menken or Phil Collins have written themes that are perfect for the stage. But that’s more difficult when dealing with music taken from, say, Toy Story, since that kind of music doesn’t form part of the action. It rather accompanies it. So, we had to make those titles danceable and singable. In order to do so, we used a process called “routining”. That means that we go to the studio with the musical director. We are all there, standing and listening to, say, five bars of pre-recorded music, and we’re experimenting movements according to the different musical accents of the score.

For this show, we rediscover the stage built last year for It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends. What did you use from that experience?

It’s true that it’s always nice to work with a stage you know, and we wanted to enhance that 360° aspect in creating a kind of “ambulatory” experience. That means that, since the audience is not sitting like in an indoor theater, they can follow our show in circulating around the stage. They can choose a Disney Character or a family in particular and really follow all their movements on stage. Because of its very specific nature, that stage invites you to a certain interactivity and lets you feel free to choose what you want to see, when you want to see it. With that spirit, we worked on the timing, on the lifts, the stairs and the effects to bring an even better visibility than last year, taking our inspiration from the reaction of the audiences that we were able to observe during last year. That helped us a lot to stage that new show.

There was a great deal of work on the costumes, I think.

Imagine it, for each tableau, Mickey is dressed specifically to fit each and every universe we’re going through. He goes from Green Soldier from Toy Story to a Hawaiian shirt for Lilo & Stitch, to a chef’s suit for Ratatouille and a Dixieland shirt for Princess and the Frog. We also worked on the dancers’ costumes, with, in addition to the various accessories they get, t-shirts on which they can stick all kinds of things like badges. That way, the audience can really feel the passage from one world to the other since they can see the changes on stage, literally in front of them. That was a great challenge for Sue Lecash and her team to conceive those kinds of clothes and find fabrics that remain colourful no matter the weather, to make all these universes really come to life.

How did you adapt the concept of the New Generation Festival according to the different stories that the Disney parks tell, be it Disneyland Park or Walt Disney Studios Park?

The idea is that all the characters of the New Generation come to Disneyland Paris, but, of course, not all in the same place. They just got parachuted right in the middle of our usual activities. Thus, when attending Stars’n’ Cars, a cavalcade in which the cars are the stars, you’ll discover a brand new car, just like a moving kitchen for Remy from Ratatouille. And that’s another occasion for a new production number à la Busby Berkeley on Place des Stars!

Now, from the Disney Princess side, Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade was the perfect place to welcome Tiana, and more particularly the last unit, devoted to the Dreams of Romance, that ends the parade with a magical garden where you can retrieve all your favorite Disney Princesses with their Princes. It was natural to meet Tiana there, accompanied by Naveen, as a touch of New Orleans was added to the score of the parade. As for Disney All Stars Express, that presents all of our families of Disney Characters, we set one car for the new generation, in addition to the one of the Disney VIPs, Goofy, Pluto, Chip & Dale and the others, and to the one of the classic Disney Characters –a new meeting between generations.

Finally, we imagined Monsters Inc. Scream Academy, a place to meet and greet Sulley, shake hands with him, take pictures with him, but also try his Scream-o-Meter –a concept that perfectly fits the story of the park dedicated to sound and special effects- and get a special badge “I screamed with Sulley!”.

All these events are perfectly connected to the attractions of the parks, right up to the much-anticipated Toy Story Playland at Walt Disney Studios park.

You know, we are one big, happy Disney family. We always work in close collaboration with our Imagineers, but also with our friends from the Food and Beverage departments like Restaurant des Stars with Rémy and Buzz Lightyear’s Pizza Planet Restaurant. There’s always a way to partner with all the divisions and departments of Disney since everybody wants to take part in the celebration.

What is your favorite event in the New Generation Festival?

I’ve been dreaming of that for years: having a Cancan on the music by Offenbach in front of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant!! We thus conceived a burlesque Cancan with giant vegetables surrounding Remy and Emile, the kings of French gastronomie in Ratatouille. The cooks are then panicking, trying to manage everything at the same time; dance the French Cancan and cook! That was really fun to produce! And each time I see that number, I feel goosebumps!

The New Generation Festival began a few weeks ago. What are the first reactions you’ve seen?

We’ve already received interesting feedback. Our guests love that idea of integrating a new generation of stories, characters and music. It’s a celebration that will be held for the next ten months and that will allow you, going from one park to the other, to enjoy different, unheard-of and exciting new experiences!

Talking of the New Generation, it’s also about sharing between generations. Our Festival is for the whole family, from kids to grandparents. Everyone has a favorite character and we imagined a festival where the little ones would introduce their grandfather to Buzz Lightyear, whereas the grandfathers would tell them about Peter Pan, who is as good at flying! In associating now new Disney Characters to our parks, the Festival gathers all those stories coming from different times, for the fun of the whole family. In that, we are true to Walt Disney’s first ambition for Disneyland: creating a theme park where all the generations could, together, have fun and share some very special times.

Disney’s The Princess and the Frog is not just a return to hand-drawn animation, not just the first true Disney animated musical in over a decade. Set in New Orleans of the 1920s, it introduces the first American to Disney’s age-old cast of princesses — moreover, the first African-American, black princess.

But, as the film itself tells us, we need to “Dig a Little Deeper”. So that’s exactly what Jérémie Noyer did. Given the chance to meet Tiana’s supervising animator Mark Henn, responsible for every detail of her look and movement, he set about discovering how you create a brand new Disney heroine. Those characters in the parks don’t just come from anywhere, after all…

For The Princess and the Frog, you animated three characters in one, as you animated adult Tiana, young Tiana and frog Tiana. Can you tell me about that challenge?

It certainly was a challenge. It’s something very unique to Princess Tiana. So, we had to come up with three different designs which is a little extra work, but the other important thing was making sure that, when she’s a frog, she is the same character. Even though she looks different, she’s still Tiana, but she just looks like a frog, now. So, those were different challenges on the film.

You animated Ariel, who is both a mermaid and a human, and Mulan, who is a girl, but at some point stands as a soldier. In what way did that experience help you deal with the different aspects of one character on Tiana?

Certainly, having gone through those films and those characters, it helped me to think back to how I worked with those different solutions. But each of those are slightly different. It was just a matter of sitting down and trying to find a design.

We started with the human Tiana — what would she look like as a little girl of about 5 to7 years old? Then, of course, what she’s gonna look like as a frog — and she had to be a very appealing frog. She could be a lovely frog, but she needed to be very attractive. So, it was just a matter of diving in and working hard to come up with designs that the directors like, then going ahead animating those things.

Can you tell me about the “design” part of your work on Tiana?

One of the things that we did is that the whole group of the supervising animators and the directors and a couple of the visual development artists, we spent a long week end. We ran away for a week end to a hotel resort. Our whole time was going over all of the characters of the movie and everybody got to pitch in and put forward their ideas. We spent maybe a morning working on Tiana, and then the afternoon working on Prince Naveen, and all the different characters. That was one of the real important steps.

The rest of the time, we would just be taking about the results of that week end, and for myself, just spending a lot of time making drawings and showing them to the directors. They would say they like this one or they didn’t like that one, and I’d draw up the things they didn’t like and build on the elements of the designs that they did like and then start animating some tests. We had Anika’s voice early on in the production, so I was able then to take some tracks of hers and animate some test scenes to see if the design and the voice were matching up well for the character.

You can’t go wild with leading ladies like Tiana. Did her frog aspect allow you to have more fun with her animation?

Yes, it did. Certainly, that was one fun aspect in animating Tiana because, as a leading lady, as a human character, fairly naturalistically handled, you can’t over-animate that type of a character. But with Tiana as a frog, you can be a lot broader and have a lot more fun with the animation in that sense. And even as a little girl. She could be a little broader because she was a child. And I thought that was an opportunity there to do something with it. But there were some ways to make sure that Tiana as a human character is very interesting and fun to animate as well.

How did you work with Randy Haycock on the scenes involving both Tiana and Prince Naveen, who is a very different character?

It just depends on the scene. Usually, what happens is: one of the characters is kind of the dominant character in the scene. So, one of us would usually animate our character first, and then we would hand it to the other animator, and then we would add our part in.

So, it’s just kind of a simple back-and-forth that way. I might start a scene, animate Tiana and kind of roughly indicate where I think Prince Naveen should be standing, and then Randy would come in and he would add Prince Naveen.

Now, if he played the hand at a certain point, I could go back  and make adjustments. So, we kind of just worked back-and-forth that way. Or vice-versa, he may be animating a scene with Prince Naveen first and then I would add Tiana in and again, we’d just work back-and-forth that way.

Tiana in some way is kind of “practically perfect” whereas Prince Naveen obviously has some flaws. How did you and Randy Haycock find the right balance in both your ways of acting?

That’s interesting that you put it that way with Tiana. She is perfect to a fault, let’s put it that way. She is very disciplined, more so than Prince Naveen, but to the point where she is so focused on her dream and her goals that she kind of pushes the rest of her life aside. So, she doesn’t enjoy life as much as Prince Naveen. And those are the kind of elements that each of them bring to each other in their relationship.

Prince Naveen probably needs a little more discipline in his life, and Tiana needs to learn from Prince Naveen how to enjoy life a little more. And through that process, of course, they both find love, which is very crucial to the theme of the movie. That’s the one thing that Tiana had forgotten, the thing that her dad had tried to tell her as a little girl never to forget. And that’s the thing that she did forget and had to re-learn. She re-learns that through the journey with Naveen.

Some artists who worked on Princess and the Frog went to Disney’s Animation Research Library to research about the look of classic Walt Disney films such as Lady and the Tramp. Did you do that same as the animator of Tiana?

Not real thourough. John Lasseter told us early in the production that his vision or his idea for the film was that it would be very much in the kind of the Golden Age, if you will, of the films from the 40′s and 50′s, the Peter Pan, the Lady and the Tramp, which was, in his mind, kind of the classic Disney look, with characters that were well designed, kind of nice, dimensionally drawn characters, fully animated.

So, we did study Lady and the Tramp for various reasons. But from the animation point of view, it was the idea of looking at well designed, very dimensionally designed characters that were fully animated in the Disney style, which we’ve always wanted to do and have been doing since I started here. But that was kind of the mandate that we got from John Lasseter, kind of what he was thinking about how to approach this film.

What do you mean by “Disney style”?

The Disney style is what John had in his mind, that he saw with the film. That is fully animated — it’s not a restrained style of animation, everything that needs to move is moving. But there’s also very complete personalities, very identifiable. The layout and background paintings are very rich. Balance between realistic and yet an artistic kind of impression of things.

That’s one of the reasons why we looked at Lady and the Tramp, because it has a lot of those elements. There’s a simplicity to the film, and yet there’s a great balance between that simplicity and detail in the background as well as the animated characters.

What part of Tiana’s personality do you feel the most connected to?

I think, with Tiana, one of the things that I really enjoyed with her was her sense of humor. I can certainly identify with her discipline, her goal-setting and having a dream, I can clearly identify with that. But I also really appreciated her sense of humor which rises more throughout the film, as she becomes a little more comfortable and, as they say it here, when she lets her hair down and relaxes a little bit, she becomes a pretty funny character.

Music is very important in that movie. How did you approach the songs?

You approach a song sequence just like you would approach any other sequence in particular. I didn’t work on the Almost There sequence which is kind of the fantasy sequence. Eric Goldberg took that over because he has a real taste for music and animating to music, but I did the lead up to the beginning of the song, and then I finished the song, as well as worked on the songs in the end and at the very beginning of the movie. But you really approach it not too differently from the rest of your animation. You want to be aware of the timing and the beat, and you want to make sure that the movements are hitting beats, rhythmically moving with music, as opposed to fighting against that.

As a designer and supervising animator, you brought a lot to Tiana. But what did you learn from her?

That’s a good question. Well, I did learn to balance my life like she needed to balance hers. I had to make sure I was disciplined and had my goals in mind. But I also had to make sure I enjoyed my life once I got home, for the few hours that I had, particularly in the last six months when we were really working very hard to get the movie finished. That was that kind of balance learns herself. She was out of balance and had learnt that, and I needed to make sure that I balanced between my work and enjoying my life home with my family.

After having supervised Lewis in Meet the Robinsons, how was it to get back to hand-drawn, traditional animation?

Well, I have to be honest. I did not enjoy animating on the computer as much as I enjoy drawing. It’s what I had done for over twenty years when I learned the computer. There’s still that excitement of seeing your scene come to life as a computer animated film, but the process is not as interesting or satisfying to me as an artist. I really enjoy drawing.

So, when they announced that we were going to go back and make 2D films again, I and most of the 2D animators around here were very, very happy, and happy to be drawing again. To me, it’s like breathing. It’s a very natural thing for me to do and much more personally satisfying than moving a mouse around on a computer.

You met John Lasseter at Cal Arts. How was it to retrieve him now at the command at Disney?

I knew John a little bit at Cal Arts and then our paths crossed. I recognized at that time — and this is the truth — as I got to know him, I could have probably told you back then that John Lasseter was destined for something very unique, and occupy a very unique place in our industry. What that was, I couldn’t probably tell you but you recognized he was very gifted and had a particular gift for storytelling. I just knew that he was gonna have a very special career because of that.

What did you enjoy the most in the production of Princess and the Frog?

Just the fact that we got to do it, the fact that after almost five years of having the Studio say “we’re not gonna make animated 2D, hand-drawn films anymore”, the fact that we got to make a new hand-drawn movie, I think that’s probably the biggest memory, and fun memory that we had that challenge, we had to kind of learn all over again what that process was from a studio’s point of view.

But for me as an artist, to be able to go back and flipping and drawing on paper and animating on paper was the greatest memory.

What was the most rewarding scene you got to work on?

What come to mind first is the sequence when she’s at the window as a little girl and she’s wishing on the star for the first time. I think that little sequence was very nice. But I also like its adult equivalent when she’s out on the balcony of the house and she’s at rock bottom in her life and she finishes the song and wishes on a star again and of course then meets Prince Naveen as a frog, and then going into that little sequence where he’s introducing himself as a prince and she hits him on the head with the book and all that. I also enjoy sequences of her as a frog when she and Naveen have their little verbal banters back and forth. Those were fun sequences to animate.

You spoke about the joy to animate in 2D. Will you be part of the upcoming Winnie the Pooh feature?

Yes, I am. I’m gonna be the supervising animator for Winnie the Pooh!

• The Princess and the Frog comes to cinemas in the UK & Ireland on 5th February, in Belgium and the Netherlands on 3rd February, Spain and Portugal on 4th February and is out now in France. Visit the official website to see video clips and more.

• Princess Tiana arrives at Disneyland Paris as part of the New Generation Festival from 2nd April 2010, joining Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade and meeting guests during her own Dixieland jazz tribute on Town Square, featuring songs from the film! Watch a trailer here.

After Mary Poppins and Sleeping Beauty, Jérémie Noyer finds out what happens behind-the-scenes of a Happily Ever After…

Tell us about this brand new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs event!

It’s what we call a “happening” that takes place at Castle Stage, where we presented Winnie the Pooh and Friends, Too some years ago, and Le Livre Magique de Mickey at the opening of the park. The idea is to celebrate our princess as Walt Disney’s classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has just been released on Diamond Edition Blu-ray disc.

Since our show is 8 minute long, it’s not about re-telling the whole story. I rather selected highlights of the film that I interpreted in a spirit of celebration. So, we enjoy the greatest songs and scenes of the movie such as Heigh-Ho, Someday My Prince will Come and Whistle While You Work. It’s really a show about music, dancing and singing!

Where does the music of the show come from?

Actually, we made a new showtape out of arrangements that have been produced for the park in previous years.

How did you approach the choreography of the Seven Dwarfs?

I got my inspiration directly from the movie, and notably from the Dwarfs’ Silly Song sequence which we recreate on stage using the very same musical instruments: bass, cithar, flute and accordion.

I also played with picks and wheelbarrows. This “Waltz of the Wheelbarrows”, as we call it, is a brand new thing for me since I had never worked with such accessories before, and it was very interesting to set this up with the dance captains that are going to manage the show. Hence the choreography of the show is very diverse and fun, mostly because the Dwarfs play a lot with accessories.

As for Dopey, he also dances with Snow White, whom he’s secretly in love with… and then, there’s the finale with a big waltz — because the show is above all about a love story — danced by Snow White and her Prince, in which the dwarfs take part, in their own way, too!

Back in the late 1930s, the live reference model for Snow White was Marge Champion, who was a dancer herself, and who gave the princess all her grace. As a show director, choreographer and dancer yourself, how did you approach her movements?

To me, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the easiest of these films to adapt on stage since, as a dancer, Snow White’s movements are really characteristic. You recognize the steps, the style, the gestures taken from ballet. I watched the whole movie, focusing on key-scenes again and again to understand that corporal language fully, which I then integrated into my choreography and directing.

It’s such a pleasure to enjoy the Castle Stage — Le Théâtre du Château — again!

Because of the very nature of the show, we didn’t need any changes of costumes nor of scenery. So, this stage fitted perfectly. And most of all, I like its openness. We have a lot of space and an easy access. It’s a great stage to work on!

The show ends with a meet ‘n’ greet…

Indeed, so that our guests can meet Snow White, the Prince and the Seven Dwarfs. It’ll be a unique occasion for them to meet the whole Snow White family, all together!

Jérémie Noyer talks to Emmanuel Lenormand about developing new scenes at the Studios…

What does the Christmas market in Walt Disney Studios Park hold for us this year?

For me, Christmas markets are a sublime tradition from the East of France and Europe. In particular, I saw sumptuous Christmas markets in Germany. It’s really “the” Christmas celebration through the products, but also through the smells, the colours, the flavours…

So I tried to transcribe this spirit to Walt Disney Studios Park, in Production Courtyard. It’s a vast space, which fits an event like this well; and even better, it’s right next to where Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars happens.

How did you develop this concept compared to last year?

Last year, it was more about a test. This year we tried to make it more magical and more “cinematic”. We really want the guests to feel they’re in a movie. That’s the way we imagined this Christmas market, like a “Christmas Lane” edged with chalets on which we’ve put together a great lighting design. And this lane of chalets ends with the Christmas Tree.

Last year, the tree was an allusion to the cinema with rolls of films as Christmas balls. This year we’ve created a tree completely different from the one of last year, and at the same time, completely different from the one of the Disneyland park, with a perspective and a colour in the blues. It’s magical in particular at nightfall, at about 4-5 pm.

And to be in perfect adequacy with the Disneyland Park, there’s also a small Post Office in the studios. If Father Christmas is in the Disneyland Park, his elves will go to Walt Disney Studios Park to gather the letters of all the children! There’s also a small stable with a reindeer which will be an allusion to Father Christmas’ team.

In what way is the market this year more “cinematic”?

This market is more in sync with the story of Walt Disney Studios Park in the sense that we’re no longer situated behind the scenes but truly “within” a scene, as if the guests were in a film. We wanted to plunge the guests into a dream rather than showing them the back side of the scenery. That’s the spirit we used to create this lane.

So Christmas is celebrated in both parks…

Every year we think about Walt Disney Studios Park while working on Christmas. We wonder a lot. The fact is that there has always been a nice Christmas atmosphere at Walt Disney Studios Park. It still can be increased but I think that it truly can be found with this Christmas Lane, not to mention Merry Christmas Walt Disney Studios in the morning, with the Disney characters arriving to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”.

It’s true that, eventually, our will is to have Christmas celebrated as much in Walt Disney Studios Park as in Disneyland Park, but we prefer to take it slowly, step by step. And, this year, the other innovation is the “Christmas” version of Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars.

How did you give this cavalcade a new Christmas spirit?

We changed the start and the arrival of the cars — Mickey goes to wish all the children a Merry Christmas, and there’s a new medley, with a very “Hollywood Christmas” feel, very much “Broadway”, too. I think it’s a good surprise for our guests. The essence of this cavalcade, very much appreciated by visitors, remains the same, but the Christmas atmosphere is definitely here!

When you’ve 200 dolls to redress in seasonal costumes and a whole attraction to decorate for international feasts, where do you begin? Jérémie Noyer talks to Hélène Hanquez, costuming production senior manager, about the challenge…

It’s a great pleasure to see the return of “it’s a Small World” Celebration!

The idea came from George Kalogridis, and what I particularly like about the Small World Celebration is the fact that, in terms of festive seasons, all the countries of the world do not necessarily have the “Father Christmas” celebration. So, as we’re an international park, thanks to “it’s a small world” Celebration we can touch upon all the countries.

There’s Saint Lucy who’s very important for Scandinavia or Saint Nicolas (Sinterklaas) who’s very much more important than Father Christmas for many of our Dutch, Belgian and German friends. There’s also Diwali for India, Hanuka for the Jewish community, the feast of the moon for Africans, Epiphany for all the European and South America Hispanic countries and, of course, Christmas.

There will also be costumes inspired by the Rio Carnival, because that celebration begins on 21st November and runs right through till the end of February. This will allow us to touch on all the feasts which take place during this period, even including the Chinese New Year. What we offer is a representation of all these feasts and their traditional costumes.

It’s a very important side of our job. We’ve got a great respect for all these different countries. The creative who had managed it five or six years ago, Benna Sims, had contacted all the embassies in order to genuinely research and respect the costumes of each country and to be utterly true to original traditions

What are the changes made to “it’s a small world” on this occasion ?

In total, 200 dolls are changed and 150 accessories are added. For the representatives of Belgium, for example, we’ve got the Gilles de Binche for which we’ve made small baskets to carry their oranges. We tried to respect as much as possible the existing spirit of “it’s a small world” by staying as close as possible to the original design of each doll. There are some absolutely splendid costumes, sequinned, satiny, with an enormous amount of feathers and fabric more radiant than ever before, because we wanted to bring a very positive spirit to each doll

We also have a great exclusive “first” in that, for the first time, we’ve got the Christmas music of “it’s a small world” Celebration. Before, it was only broadcast in the American attractions and this year we succeeded in getting it to match here and correspond to the sounds of our dolls. There are also lots of lights added everywhere to create a very illuminated atmosphere of feasts.

How do you prepare such a transformation?

We’ve been working on it for 4 months with Sandrine Deschamps, our costume creative and Yves Benyeta, from SQS (Show Quality Standard, the department of WDI which checks that all the elements of the parks’ scenery are in harmony with each other and with their original form). I can tell you that in the sewing workshop, when I announced that we were going to bring these costumes out and bring them all to life again, everybody was just delighted! From that, we made an inventory of everything we had and we cleaned everything.

On these 200 costumes, some only had to be altered whereas others had to be completely remade to match the originals, to give this come-back a great splendour. The fabrics were still beautiful, but they didn’t have as much panache as they would if they were new. So we did up some shirts, pants, or even complete costumes, in particular those of Gilles de Binche. They were made of a golden satin material which had badly aged, even though they had been stored well away from light.

Most of all, we replaced many feathers. You’ll notice that there’s an awful lot of feathers, feathers everywhere! To do so, we called on a remarkable feather maker from Paris, in particular to comb them. There’s a lot of hats and an enormous amount of petticoats which flow in all directions. The dolls have rolls and rolls of petticoats. For the English dolls, for example, we went as far as 14 flounces! It’s just splendid!

After this we checked all the costumes, all the wigs, all the hats, then moved onto planning the installation in collaboration with the maintenance services to determine how we could coordinate together to dress the 200 dolls again, whilst other departments dealt with the painting/decorating and lightning.

Overall, it’s such an enormous amount of work that it could have taken a whole year, but we realised it all within just 4 months!

• “it’s a small world” Celebration opens today and remains right through to the New Year.

From the nostalgic return of the much-loved Tree Lighting Ceremony to a brand new sleigh for Santa Claus, Jérémie Noyer meets the man behind the holiday magic, Christophe Leclercq, who acts as Show Director for the entire season of events…

The Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony is back on Town Square!

This year, we want to come back to a more basic concept and above all, more intimate. That’s the reason why we’ve developed this new ceremony in front of the Christmas Tree.

Now we’ve got three key events within the day. Several times a day, we’ve got simultaneously the illumination of the lamps, the fall of the snow on Main Street to the sound of Ring the Bells and passing by, Disney’s Once Upon A Dream Parade and Minnie’s Party Train. Then at the end of the day, we’ve got this Tree Lighting Ceremony in front of the tree, and later on, a ceremony on Central Plaza Stage for the illumination of the Crystal Palace.

With the return of the Tree Lighting Ceremony on Town Square, it brings back much nostalgia of the early Christmas seasons at Disneyland Paris!

I was nostalgic myself! It’s true that this Victorian square is very beautiful and that the Tree fits perfectly, it looks so beautiful here.

What does the new Tree Lighting Ceremony consist of?

The basic idea is to ask a child to take part in the illumination of the tree. For this, we use a removable stage we decorate for the occasion. It enters the Park and comes to a stop before the tree, to the sound of a Christmas medley composed of Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, Petit Papa Noël and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

On the float, we see our favourite characters: Mickey & Minnie, Chip & Dale, Goofy, Pluto, Donald and Daisy, all dressed in white and red Christmas outfits, as well as Tifil, Santa Claus’ assistant. This character has gathered all the letters for Santa Claus in a big red velvet bag, all the letters posted by children since that morning at the Santa Claus Post Office in Frontierland.

Tifil therefore comes to celebrate Christmas before the letters are flown off to the North Pole, and brings the illumination of the tree to life as Master of Ceremonies. He explains that he needs help to spark the illumination because fireflies locked in a magical book, which is on the float, must be freed. Only the hand of a child can open this book.

So a child will be chosen in the audience and he or she will be able to open the book, releasing a special lighting effect all around.

A very original lighting effect, indeed!

It’s a really new lighting concept. All the secrets lie in the opening of the book, which will at the same time release the start of the fireflies and all sorts of flashes around the child and the book. This is also decorated with mirrors to help the effect, creating this feeling of lights coming from all angles. And from there, the fireflies join the tree and begin to illuminate it.

As a finale, the lampposts lining Main Street are lit all at once, creating a kind of magical path as far as the Castle, which is not yet illuminated…

That’ll happen at the end of the last performance of It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends each day?

Absolutely. It’s the same show, except for the fact that, after Peter Pan’s number, Mickey’s magic formula “Miska Mouska Mickey Mouse” now releases sparkling fireflies not only on his suit but all around the stage and on the Castle.

From these, Tinker Bell appears, linked to Peter Pan who just preceded her, spreading her Pixie Dust on the castle which then illuminates fully, before the show ends with the “Mickey Dance”. This means that, for the finale of the Mickey Dance, we’ve got a sublime castle behind this stage full of singers and dancers, which itself will dance in lights to the same rhythm.

The other event is the new float for Santa Claus, to bring together the Dreams of Christmas section of Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade.

It’s a brand new sleigh pulled by reindeer, designed by Jerome Picoche, which gives the impression of it flying above the clouds…

From now on, you’ll be able to see it at the end of Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade every day during the Christmas season. I hope that, like me, you’ll love it too!

Jérémie Noyer takes us into his world, to discover the story behind what has always been a very different, yet still very Disney, Halloween festival…

You’ve created all of the designs of Disneyland Paris’ Halloween Festival from its beginning. Can you tell me about the history of the Festival?

There were a lot of different periods, but Halloween has always been based on the idea of integrating stories into the park. The two first years, we created characters that were scarecrows. There were different kinds of characters that visited the park and were transformed into scarecrows. It was very small at the time since it took place in the area of Cottonwood Creek Ranch in Frontierland. Then, we expanded it and we moved to a “mummy” concept, with bandages and the haunted cruise.

From that approach that was both more classical and scary, we decided to make the concept evolve and we came to something funnier. That’s when we created the characters of the Pumpkin Men, that were a great way of having more fun with Halloween. For instance, orange paint was spread over Main Street and Frontierland somehow like children would have done it. But it could be at the same time a kind of a satiric interpretation of gore films… yet in orange! There’s always different possible readings, different possible interpretations.

Then, we imagined that rivalry between Pumpkin Men and Pink Witches. Meanwhile, guest were asking for Disney Characters to come back (like Stitch, for instance). Therefore, certain Disney Characters joined the party. That’s how we’ve come to work now with Jack Skellington and Sally, from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

What kind of Halloween tradition do you refer to?

Even if Halloween has a “festival of death” angle, we’ve always preferred the more traditional kind of carnival, festive aspect to it. That was the time of the end of harvests and people were celebrating before winter. Except for the period when we focused on mummies, we’ve never played on the scary side of it. That’s something cinema has been playing with fully and we always want to propose our guests something different. After all, isn’t Disneyland Paris definitely about fun!

Do you draw some of your inspiration from other Disney parks, like Tokyo Disneyland?

No. The design of Halloween at Disneyland Paris is all original.

What are your sources of inspiration?

Regarding the Disney Characters, we can’t vary very much since we have to respect their original appearance. To the contrary, for the Pumpkin Men, we had carte blanche since the characters didn’t exist before. That was interesting to create a character from scratch… and have it be so successful that Florida asked him over!

Considering all this, our only guide for Halloween is just making fun of it, to allow ourselves to do something completely different from what we do the rest of the year, to make the period even more original!

How do you work with Emmanuel Lenormand, the Show Director of the Halloween Festival?

First of all, we collaborate on the stage shows. Here, the work is pretty classical, just like any director would work with his decorator. Emmanuel gets an idea of a show, of a theme, and from that thematic idea, I develop the setting and the ambiance that fits it.

For example, for the Trick and Treat Stage of the Disney Witches show, I imagined that a troupe of gypsies or a touring theatre would have landed in Frontierland. They would have built a stage simply made out of just what they had with them: a canvas for the background and some accessories for the stage.

I did that because I wanted it to feel authentic within the park, respecting the story of Frontierland. I always make sure that my designs get fully integrated within the park, it’s a very detailed environment of sophisticated architecture and themes.

Concerning the design of places like Main Street or Halloweenland, what kind of tools do you use to conceive the different ambiances?

I imagine a model in my head and then I, when the idea is clear and after a series of early sketches, I draw it with a pencil. That proved to be the most efficient tool I’ve ever used! I draw several drawings. One with which I show the general ambiance with different elements, then, progressively, I get into the details. After being green-lit from the technical and budgetary point of view, each element is then drawn from every angle so that I can give the plans to different workshops that are going to make them for real.

How are all the elements made, then?

Here, at Disneyland Paris, he have one workshop in charge of restoring and refurbishing the elements we already have. For the new ones, we deal with exterior workshops. Most of the decorations are built in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France. We also have a lot of stability and security requirements. So, there has to be metallic structures within all these elements which have to be engineered.

Then, all is ready to be set in the park.

That takes place during the night. The different elements arrive in different places in the park, from Frontierland to Town Square. That demands weeks to build and set everything, from the closure of the park to 7 in the morning, so that everything is cleaned up for the opening.

Before all that, I have to decide on an installation plan to make sure everything is set at the right place. But I also take part in the building on site since there can be differences between the ideas we have on paper and reality. I can change my mind and get a better idea on site. That’s the fun of it!

About how many drawings does an event like Halloween demand?

It can go up to a hundred!

Considering the ever-growing success of the Halloween Festival, it seems that it’s worth the effort!

When I see our guests taking pictures of their families and friends at the photo locations we created, I feel that they have real fun. Seeing that, I’m happy, since from my side, I had great fun drawing them, too!

This is Disney’s Halloween Festival, when whole lands of Disneyland Park are taken over by the fun of the season and the resort’s Entertainment directors and creatives push themselves to better their frights, year after year. Now, after months of preparation, Jérémie Noyer learns just exactly what show director Emmanuel Lenormand has in store for this season…

One of the most anticipated and talked-about features of Disney’s Halloween Festival this year at Disneyland Paris is the nighttime spectacular of Disney’s Halloween Party on 31st October itself, that is no longer a fireworks show…

Yes. In fact, we have operational constraints which mean we have to close Fantasyland and Adventureland one hour before any fireworks, which is always frustrating for our guests since they then miss out on major attractions.

That’s the reason why we wanted to create an event that would be as big as a fireworks show, but doesn’t force us close any land before closing time. So, we’re going to revisit the elements that made last year’s show such a success — projections, dancers, etc — but enhanced a million times! You’ll have up to 60 artists, projections, pyrotechnic effects and the Castle transformed into a stage itself!

The idea is to have Mickey confronting the forces of evil with lots and lots of surprises: black light effects and lots of projections. In fact, we’ve got a new projection system which is really effective, so you’ll be able to see giant characters and news ways to animate the walls and the windows of the Castle. It’ll look really different. There will be other surprises, but I don’t want to spoil everything!

Without fireworks, you don’t have to focus on the Castle. I guess it opens new staging perspectives to you, as a Show Director.

Things will still be made so that everything can be comfortably viewed from Main Street, USA, but I think that the projections and the new, 360-degree stage we’ve built will allow our guests to see the show perfectly from other sides.

The result is that guests, instead of being just spectators, will take part in the action. They will be surrounded by all these artists, Disney Characters, skeletons and bats that will arrive from all around them. And you’ll encounter Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, who will take over the show. So, the space is bigger and wider, and that’s great! There will be no comparison with fireworks!

Speaking of the new stage, it seems that the Disney Villains will take over It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends during the Festival.

It’s just a cameo. For the last performance It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends of the day, and to weave in the story of Maleficent complaining about not having been invited to Princess Aurora’s ceremony, the witch will suddenly appear, surprised not to have been invited to Mickey’s Magical Party.

She will burst up from the stage at the end of the show, challenging Mickey to surprise her, using the magical spell “Miska, Mouska, Mickey Mouse” to summon the Disney Villains to come and dance with her. I thought it would be fun to have all those Villains dancing the Mickey Dance! There will also be a similar cameo at the end of It’s Dance Time… in Discoveryland.

What are the other surprises of the Halloween Festival of this year?

Within the now well-known story of the Pumpkin Men trying to repaint Disneyland Park in orange, Minnie’s Party Train will be given a Halloween overlay. It’ll also run only in Town Square, and all the Disney Characters will be dressed in special Halloween costumes, helping out in a massive giveaway of sweets and candy.

And at Cowboy Cookout Barbecue in Frontierland — renamed Halloweenland for the occasion — we’ll see a brand new show featuring the Disney Witches performing an incredible duel: The Disney Witches Dancing Spells Party. In this show, Maleficent and the Old Hag from Snow White arrive in a cemetery during the night to have fun with their cauldrons and spells to invent new potions. Four children/dancers passing by are going to be choreographically transformed according to the Hag’s and Maleficent’s potion ingredients.

For that show, Jérôme Picoche came up with some superb scenes, with the transformation of the tombs into cauldrons, with effects everywhere, and a cool ambiance! The cemetery echoes the presence of Jack and Sally who, because of the huge success they got last year near Phantom Manor, needed a wider space. That’s the reason why we’re moving them over to Cowboy Cookout Barbecue – at least, when they’re not taking part in the Halloween Parade which again precedes Disney’s Once Upon A Dream Parade.

Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Party grows bigger, too!

It was such a success last year that we decided to fully open Central Plaza and Frontierland for the occasion. There will be a brand new show in front of the Castle with Disney Characters, in which each good character with confront his or her evil counterpart! And again, there will be lots of candy and sweets handed out.

There will also be a Disco Party in Frontierland. The whole place will be filled with dance and fun everywhere! With all of our dancers and Disney Characters, it’s going to be terrific!

So, the Halloween Festival grows even bigger, but not enough to reach Walt Disney Studios Park?

We’re thinking about it at every meeting we have because there are so many exciting things you can do with the theme of the movies. But we’re waiting to have a really solid and big project instead of trying little things without a real ambition.

How do you work with designer Jérôme Picoche?

First of all, we take part in brain-storming sessions where we develop ideas. Each one of us brings his own techniques and tricks. There is a “Blue Sky” period when we dream, we have fun, and then you have to get into a writing phase, and you have to take into account practical conditions. Then, as our offices are real close, we keep visiting each other.

I’ve been in charge of the Halloween Festival for 4-5 years, but Jérôme originally created it with Kat de Blois. He’s the one who brought his fantasy into the creation of the Pumpkin Men or the petrified scarecrows, and into all these crazy ambiances all over Halloweenland. He’s an expert on the subject.

Based on that experience, we were able to build the correct feeling. For example, on the Disney Witches show, I had said I wanted cauldrons, but not classical ones. Snow White’s Witch’s one naturally had to have a skull on it, and for Maleficent’s, I thought she should have hers echo her look. Actually, we resumed the shape of her headdress, with the horns. That’s when Jérôme came in and shared his opinion on it.

Regarding the stage, we discussed the place where to put the cauldrons. For instance, Jérôme was more concerned about the perspective whereas I’m more concerned about my dancers and the space they’ll need. Those are the kind of discussions we have, they’re always enlightening!

But, for the people behind the magic like musical director Vasile Sirli, the excitement of a new event like Mickey’s Magical Party is about more than just dusting off the classics; It’s about giving a new spin, a new soul, a new personality to the old favourites — not to mention creating some brand new music in the process.

For this entirely new year-long celebration, Vasile Sirli and his team joined the challenge to launch a record five new entertainment productions on the same day, four of which Vasile would work closely on. Jérémie Noyer joined the maestro of the magic to discover the unique European flair behind the party and much more…

To yourself, as the musical director of Disneyland Paris, what is the spirit of Mickey’s Magical Party?

Vasile Sirli: When I started working on the project, I wondered about the way to convey a “party” spirit to guests coming from all over Europe with a different conception of that. Some people associate party with Latino music, others to pop music and others to rock.

Moreover, it’s not only about cultural differences, but also about differences of generation. Which made that project really challenging and exciting: how to touch all these different audiences? How to give all of them the feeling to experience an event and an environment really devoted to party? From then on, I had to take into account the way Mickey’s Magical Party is celebrated all over the resort, from It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends in front of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant, to It’s Dance Time… in Discoveryland, along with our orchestras and other shows introduced during previous seasons.

That’s the reason why we chose to give each event its own voice, but at the same time, to create common features between them. Musically speaking, this can heard through the different versions of the same Disney themes in different shows. For example, we hear Scott Erickson’s song, Mickey’s Magical Party Time in It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends, but also in Discoveryland and on Main Street, using different arrangements. And it’s the same for the classic Disney themes.

How did you arrange the classic Disney themes through the spirit of Mickey’s Magical Party?

Generally speaking, all the arrangements sound more contemporary than the original ones. For example, we wanted to introduce a disco colour since, after 30 years, that festive style is still very vivid. Think about the success of Mamma Mia!, the musical, but also the movie, both of them based on songs by Abba.

Thus, for Peter Pan’s Following the Leader, we associated an ethnic, South African approach with the very disco. On the other hand, the music associated with Tigger became Celtic, whereas the one associated to Donald took Central European colours. One party – hundreds of references and colours, from ethnic to disco, jazz, jazz-rock and pop, with all kinds of mixes between them. The result is an incredible musical diversity to bring a joy and an energy to the celebration!

Each arrangement was created with great attention to authenticity, regarding each musical reference.

Above all, I’d want to stress the quality of the original material we work with –Disney music. It’s a pleasure to do all sorts of variations on those themes. Everybody can hum or whistle them. You can do anything with them, provided you love them! And I do love them!

From the start, we tried to enhance each Disney Character musically through different colours and rhythms. Take Tigger. He’s the vivid expression of the idea of “jumping for joy” and the songs the Sherman Brothers wrote for him are really full of that kind of energy. How to go further without repeating oneself? It appeared to me that the Celtic style was the solution because of its rhythmic specificity, incredibly lively, and because of its vibrant instrumental colours.

By the way, we recorded that music with Celtic musicians, true specialists, at Real World studios, nearby London. We used the fiddle, that folk violin, but also different Celtic flutes that brought their unique qualities to the music.

In the same way, for the South African tone of Following the Leader, we looked for musicians who were specialists in that kind of repertoire, playing authentic instruments. The flute they used is a very plain one, made of wood, with a very unusual pitch, which makes all its charm and authenticity. I remember the success that Paul Simon’s album, Graceland, had during the 80s, when he appealed to South African musicians, and I wanted to rekindle that spirit, with that very positive rhythm, and at the same time very serene. I thought it would be interesting to associate Mickey to that spirit, that serenity.

As for disco music, we went back to the archetypes of that style, not only from the rhythmical point of view, but also from the point of view of the strings, of the reverb and of the type of mix which immediately evokes that period.

As you can see, the music of Mickey’s Magical Party is filled with all kinds of references, sometimes very fugitive, but that stand as surprises, nods and homages.

Take Donald. I thought of using a theme that is devoted to him, Macho Duck, but less known, played by a wonderful Hungarian musician on a Cymbalum. Since he’s very good at improvising and he was pleased to play a Disney theme, he made several versions of it among which I had to choose. That was a wonderful meeting with him and all the musicians on that production, and each time, they brought their own style and their personality to the music.

And above that Cymbalum, I added a traditional violin from Central Europe playing a very famous Romanian folk song called The Lark. It’s a moment of virtuosity since the musician has to imitate the birds singing with his instrument, like in 18th century imitative music, in the vein of Leopold Mozart — Wolfgang Amadeus’ father—’s pieces. With Donald, it became not only in reference, but also a gag since he can’t fly. It is music itself that allows him to do it, in a way! In fact, it is when I thought of that piece that I got the idea of arranging the whole moment in the spirit of Central Europe.

That said, considering all these styles, there was a risk at dispersing oneself. But we kept our production focused on its main aims — humour and joy. And at the same time, we all feel the greatest respect toward the material we use and toward our guests. With all this, our path was clear. I just needed the sparkle for each piece, the idea that was going to make it unique.

The production of this music is also an opportunity to meet new people and I imagine that was the case here again.

I worked in Budapest with a wonderful orchestrator/arranger named Peter Pejtsik. Like me, he studied classical music first, then came to jazz and rock. Besides, he plays in a progressive rock band in Hungary. He’s very enthusiastic and energetic, always ready to have fun with music — that’s the reason why we got along so well!

He was very much involved in that production, notably playing the bass (he’s a cello player) and traditional Romanian fiddle in the Donald piece we’ve just talked about. And, to get as close as possible to the spirit of folk music, I sang and whistled the theme of The Lark to him so that he could play by ear. I didn’t want to use sheet music because that implies a different relation to music, more rigid. Traditional, folk music is one of oral tradition and transmission, which implies a more fluid, more improvised and more lively approach.

You don’t have to play a score, you have to charm your audience by any means: vibrato, bow technique, timbres, etc. That’s I was looking for in that piece.

On the other hand, for It’s Dance Time… in Discoveryland, you turned to techno music, with a brand new mix of Pirates of the Caribbean, following the version produced by Hans Zimmer and DJ Tiesto. How did you create your own version?

The same way we wanted to pay homage to Celtic, South African, jazz-rock and disco music, we imagined an homage to techno music. The only difference is that we thought it would be more accurate to do it in Discoveryland, a land devoted to technology.

Immediately, I turned to Show Director Emmanuel Lenormand. As you know, before starting to work on a project, I always ask the creators about their favourite songs to help me choose the right themes. So, he told me about Pirates of the Caribbean. Then, I started working on it with the idea of keeping with the same musical family as what had been done before in that matter, the archetypes of that kind of mix. In order to do that, I produced a first demo based on the rhythm of Pirates of the Caribbean and some elements from inside the main theme. Klaus Badelt’s theme is so well conceived that you can always use it as a whole or in parts and always recognize it. Just a few notes and you’re in.

So, I proposed that demo to Emmanuel to see if that was okay with him from the point of view of the dance. Then, we talked about instrumentation and sounds that we could add to it, and I contacted Doru Apreotesei, from Stockholm, to propose the project to him. He got very thrilled about it and, together, we created no less than eight versions, with different mixes. This way, we were able to bring a new personality to that theme, while keeping within the same musical family as the other remixes.

In a way, it was like composing a symphony in the style of Beethoven in respecting the idioms of his writing. There are people who think techno is formulaic, simplistic. On the contrary, I think techno offers a whole array of possibilities, and it was so much fun to work on that!

How did you musically transform the Disney Stars and Motorcars Parade of Disney’s Hollywood Studios into Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars, a unique mix of cavalcade and production number.

It really was a team effort since it’s about a kind of a “collage”, in the spirit of the Beaux-Arts in the 30s, a rendering of pre-existing material to which we added new elements. Show Director Emmanuel Lenormand also created that concept. He has a perfect knowledge of the Disney repertoire and he chose the music he wanted for his show.

You know, the Walt Disney Studios Park is like a guided tour through a contemporary fairytale. We work with recent myths, stories that date back to less than 100 years. So, the music of Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars is in that sense an homage to the greatest moments of cinema history, a presentation of Disney Characters beautifully dressed and driven in magnificent automobiles, celebrating popular culture. But there is also some wisdom in that culture, in each subject. Even a great wisdom.

Then, for the production number and the meet and greet, we chose cues taken from different shows, like a summary of the history of show business and cinema. I find that this association brings some freshness to that music, which makes our show particularly nice and a highlight in a day at the park. To me, it was a different kind of work, but fun all the same!

You’re also a record producer for Disneyland Paris. You’ve just produced two new albums, Disneyland Resort Paris en Musique and Les Parades en Musique, featuring the complete score of the Disney’s Once Upon A Dream Parade. Can you tell me about that aspect of your work as Director of Music?

To me, it’s a way to balance the different aspects of my work. I love to alternate writing and producing. Record production is a passion that comes from far away in time and space. That was my job in Romania almost 30 years ago when I was the artistic director of the only recording label of the country. That was really intense since I produced about 250 albums a year. We were publishing all kinds of music, but also literature, audiobook recordings.

Thanks to Disneyland Paris, I can do that again. I can produce only for the park, which means that our records are to be sold on site only, and focus on our music for shows, old or new, and even never heard before versions, to allow our fans to appreciate all the work done for each and every production.

For the music of the Disney’s Once Upon A Dream Parade, we didn’t present it the way you would hear it in the park, because, on site, the soundtrack is always changing, adapting according to the progression of the parade and to the position of the floats. So, we preferred to release a medley presenting the entirety of the music of each float, the way it was performed in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra two years ago.

It was a very complicated project since each cue is produced a particular way for the park, sometimes mono, sometimes with a different reverb according to the acoustics of the place. For the album, we have a stereo mix that offers nearly perfect listening conditions.

That’s the way I think of my job as a producer: to give the audience attractive tracklistings, but also to set a light on the talent of the artists. At the time I was in Romania, for four years I didn’t publish any of my music, to be free to be fair. That’s the reason why I conceive my records as an homage to the great artists that have worked with us.

Let me also pay tribute to my team, sound engineers Michael Obst, Sylvain Chesneau and Xavier Bongrand, without forgetting Estelle Champeau and Robert Fienga’s always smart and professional contribution. I also closely collaborate with our colleagues from the Merchandise department who help us to create designs in coherence with the one of the season or of a show.

Besides, I can tell you we’re working on another album for Mickey’s year, which will go out this summer, with material from Mickey’s Magical Party and other surprises…

It seems that the records produced at Disneyland Paris lean rather to shows than to attraction music. What are your thoughts on that?

As a record producer, Disneyland Paris’ aim is to produce records for the visitors of the park, so as producer of the park’s music, that’s why I do it with the idea that our guests will enjoy listening to it on a record at home, like a souvenir. And I consider it important to give priority to our own productions, in order to respect the artists that kindly accept to work with us.

Now, I’d like to pay tribute to Wayne Allwine, voice of Mickey Mouse, who passed away on 18th May 2009, and who had lent his voice to numerous shows and events for Disneyland Paris.

For my team and myself, he’s Mickey. Forever will he be our Mickey. I can’t think of him but in the present. I haven’t fully come to terms with his passing away yet.

I had the pleasure of working with him in Los Angeles, along with his wife, Russi Taylor —Minnie’s voice, and I have always looked forward to meeting him again. He came here [to Disneyland Paris] several times, notably for the 5th and the 10th anniversaries of the park.

When I think of Wayne Allwine, I think of an extraordinary human relationship, a generosity, a kind of desire to share and be with other people which you only see in exceptional people. Each time we met, we laughed, and at the same time, we had really deep moments talking about life, about being human, about friendship, about the world. Artists like him can’t pretend. You can pretend once or twice, but that’s all. That’s why he will always be our Mickey.

He was an immense actor and immense human being, someone critical for the Disney organization. People loved him and still love him for a reason. He was and is respected by his fellow actors and by fans. It’s the great loss of this Spring, and for us, a friend has gone. Our thoughts go to Russi…

Because of that, the new album you’re producing sounds like an homage.

Indeed, it’s an homage because, beyond the fact that Mickey is the icon of our company, we always thought about him when doing our records and our shows. We always tried to find a way to have him say a few words just to have the pleasure of meeting him again, through the phone or for real, here or in Los Angeles. And we always felt that warmth from him.

Of course, Mickey’s Magical Party is no exception! For this brand new year of fun, the resort called upon well-known Disney parks composer Scott Erickson to write the theme song which ultimately became “Mickey’s Magical Party Time!”, a lively, feel-good rock-pop anthem.

Scott knows the universe of Disney well. He has arranged numerous songs for the follow-ups to animated classics, such as Mulan II, Tarzan II, Mulan II and even Bambi II before becoming a frequent composer for Tokyo Disneyland amongst other resorts. But his relationship with Disney is deeper still, thanks to his upbringing of Mickey Mouse Club TV shows and visits to the original Disneyland in California.

How did you get into the realm of Disney theme park music?

It was probably 1997. I was working with a producer named Robbie Buchanan and Vasile Sirli called him to do a song for their parade that was Dancin’ (A Catchy Rhythm). So, Vasile came to Los Angeles to work with Robbie, and as I was working with Robbie, I came to meet him. I was production assistant, Robbie was the producer.

The first thing I ever wrote for one of the parks was a song called Pumpkin Party for Tokyo Disneyland. That was five years ago.

And in just a few years you’ve just come to work for almost every Disney park in the world!

I’ve done mostly songs and music for parades or for shows. It’s fantastic to work with Disney parks. Everybody is so professional and so talented. They only use the highest level of musicians and the music directors of the parks are so smart and so talented!

How did you come to work on the Mickey’s Magical Party song?

It was kind of a funny story. First of all, Vasile was trying to find a project for us to work on together for a long time and last year, probably in February or March, he called and asked me to send him a bunch of songs possibly for Halloween. It turned out that they didn’t have the budget last year to update the parade and change the Halloween song.

Then, in October, he called and said: “we have this new show” and he explained about Mickey’s Magical Party to me. “We’d love you to write a song”. And there was one of the songs I had sent them that they really liked and that hadn’t been used for anything. “We love this song. If you want to change that into the song for our show, that would be great!”

So, since nobody owned it at that time, I could do anything I wanted with that song and we changed it from a Halloween song into the Party Time song. We added a big band in it, made it bigger and changed some things, and that was how we did it!

How did the creators of Mickey’s Magical Party tell you about the spirit of the party so that you could change your song?

We didn’t change the music very much. We changed some of the lyrics that were specifically about Halloween to be more about parties and being happy and having a great, fun time. For instance, when I compose a song for a show, I like to put the name of the show in my song so that everything is tied together.

How did you write that song?

The writing of this song was different from what I usually do. Usually, I write it at home in my studio. But at that time, I was in Las Vegas producing a Christmas record for Barry Manilow. We were mixing it there. And during the mixing of a record, the producer doesn’t have a lot to do. Usually, he waits for the mixer to do his job.

So, I was there, bored for a week and a half. So I borrowed a keyboard from the stage and I brought a couple of my computers, and I set up a little studio. That’s how, mixing a Christmas record, I composed a song for Halloween!

How did you write the lyrics of the song?

Probably two thirds of the lyrics were left over from the original demo, and then anything that had to do with Halloween was taken out and changed to be more specific to the show. Also, Vasile told me that there were some banners around the park that say “Welcome” in different languages, and he said it would be fun to incorporate that somehow into the song. So, I did.

With Vasile, it was a give-and-take kind of exchange, going back and forth and working together until we all came up with a structure of a song that we were happy with.

It seems that Kat de Blois was very much involved in that process, too.

Very much so. I was introduced to her on this project. She had a lot of input. Vasile was working in Romania at this time, so I started to call Kat to get her input and her specific ideas, because she’s the Creative Director of the show.

Also, she’s American as opposed to Vasile and Christophe Leclercq, the Show Director, so she was able to add some possible lyric ideas or some specific images because she speaks the language a little more fluently. She was very helpful.

Can you tell me about the main arrangement of the song?

It has a kind of a rock feel. We kept that, but made it a little broader. And to add some emotional feel, we added some strings over the chorus and over the second verse. I was doing another project for Disney – I was recording some promotional versions of When You Wish Upon a Star with an orchestra in Prague – and on the same session, I had some extra time so I recorded the strings for this one.

We also added horns. They’re pretty characteristic of theme park music but we wanted to use them in a more “pop” kind of way than in a theme park one. They add a little more excitment and a little more energy. For the bass part, I got in touch with Lee Sklar, who is a famous bass player with a long beard who’s worked a lot with Phil Collins during the 80s, and who’s a good friend of mine.

I called my usual guitar player, Tim Pierce, who plays for all kinds of famous records, and my drummer, Charlie Morgan, who lives in Nashville. So, I sent him the track music and he played drums in Nashville and then sent over the audio through the internet.

That’s my favourite part of the production of any song, this one included: doing sessions with all these incredibly talented people that I have the privilege of getting to work with, and watching them do what they do so well. All the musicians and singers and the orchestras – I’m such a fan! So, we had people from everywhere: Prague, Nashville, Paris…

Percussions were part of your background. Does that influence the way you approach rhythm in your songs?

The very first thing, I started playing the piano when I was 5, and then when I was 11, I started to play the drums. I continued to play piano while doing a lot of percussion in orchestras and classical percussion through college. Because of that, I like to change rhythm so that the rhythm is not the same all the way through the song. It changes several different times. It definitely is an outgrowth of my experience as a percussionist and a drummer.

Stylistically, there seems to be a Blues Brothers-meets-High School Musical touch in your song. Do you agree?

Yes! The High School Musical franchise is now part of the company’s creative message. With a little touch of Disney theme park music, too! The Disney theme parks seem to have their own, specific kind of style of production. We’re trying to update it and modernize it but it remains a very identifiable sound.

Can you tell me about the different arrangements of your song presented in the park?

I was surprised to discover Vasile’s orchestral arrangement. I didn’t know he was doing it and it turned out fantastic, just great. I love it!

As for the techno one, it’s a remix done in Cleveland by a guy called Tony Miracle. I sent him all of my tracks and we sent him the mix. He rebuilt it with different things. He did it all and I co-produced it with him. He’d send it to me and I gave him notes and sent it to Vasile and Vasile added some comments. There were two or three small revisions and that was it.

Mostly, it was great! But to make it a little more “Disney”, the very first version he sent didn’t have quite as many “sparkling” sounds or “Disney” kind of effects. It was kind of darker and we had to remind him that it was intended for a Disney park and that we had to add a little bit of sparkle, a little bit of magic. So, he did that and he did a great job.

You seem very much aware of what the Disney magic truly is. How’s that?

My first memory of Disney music is the Electrical Parade at Disneyland when I was ten. It was so great. The lights were so magical and wonderful, but the music was just fantastic. And it was really a thrill for me to actually come to know the composer of that piece, Jean-Jacques Perrey! I’ve been a fan of this guy forever! Also, I love animation. I used to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings.

Probably when I was 10 years old, I bought a book, The Illusion of Life, by Disney Legends Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas and had it in my bookshelf for years and used to look at it. It was great! But my first Disney trivia personal connection is that I was born on the day Jungle Book was released: October 17th 1967! In the 60s and 70s, Disney made records for children to learn things. I actually have them hanging in my studio here: one is called Fun With Music – 30 Favorite Disney Songs, another is called Learning to Tell Time, and Acting Out the ABCs.

And when I was in Grade School, the new Mickey Mouse Club was on and was so addicted to it! My fantasy in the world was to be a Mouseketeer. Friday was called Discovery Day and they taped the show at Disneyland, at the Carnation Plaza. So, of course, when we got to go there two years later after watching, I freaked out when I saw the Carnation Plaza where the Mouseketeers did their show every Friday.

And at the same time, they were still airing original Mickey Mouse Club episodes on TV. So, I used to watch that when I was a kid, too. Ironically, Don Grady, who was part of the original Mickey Mouse Club, became a very talented songwriter and musician, and we crossed paths seven or eight years ago and we’ve become very good friends! So, my connection to Disney seems to be pretty long and deep!

And I guess that’s an experience you share with your kids. How is it for them to have their father make Disney music?

It’s thrilling to get to watch my 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son experience these shows in a different way because the songs they hear at home come out to television, theater or Disney parks. Just after she turned four, my daughter sang along with the children’s group on a Disney Princess parade that I wrote for Tokyo. That was thrilling. We got the video from Tokyo and every time that part of the song comes out, she knows that she was part of those girls singing along with those Disney Princesses! What could be better?

Of course, my kids are my test audience! When I write something for one of the shows, I bring them out here and they tell me if they love it or hate it. And believe me, they don’t love everything, especially my daughter! She’s not an easy audience! Here’s a great story: I wrote a Halloween show for Tokyo Disneyland, and in one of the songs, I wrote a section for Princesses dancing around their castle singing La-Dee-Da-Dee-Da… I had the demo playing in my car, and my daughter was not quite convinced.

She said: “I really like it except for one part: Disney Princesses don’t say La-Dee-Da! They just say: La-La-La”. It just turned out that I had lunch with the Creative Director from Tokyo Disneyland a week later. I told him about it and he said: “you know what? I think she’s right!” My daughter is an expert on all things Princesses, that for sure!

• With thanks to Scott Erickson, Vasile Sirli, Aurélie Massin and Magali Arnéodo!