Imagine you’re tasked with creating a brand new parade for Disneyland Resort Paris. Something for a major anniversary, something truly special. Ideas are flying all over the place — how do you reign them in to create something finite, something that can be constructed and built?

For set design manager Yves Ollier, this dream — however nightmarish in scale — was his reality. Two years ago, his final designs for the eight floats of Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade were being constructed and Jérémie Noyer joined him to talk dreams…

How did you become a designer for Disneyland Resort Paris?

I’m a scenographer, originally. I’ve worked a lot for theatre. I also did some publicity as an art director and some television, too. I was doing that freelance when, one day, I was presented with a project for Disney. From then on, I came back to the resort from time to time while keeping with my other activities.

Among those projects, there was the Kids Carnival, for which I conceived all the puppets and the whole universe of those characters. There was also Halloween. And now, I’m a Set Design Manager at Disneyland Resort Paris, working with several collaborators. Together, we create settings for the different stages of the park, the different seasons and the 15th Anniversary parade… Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade!

How would you explain your role in Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade?

First, I was a set designer. I drew out and invented the whole universe of the floats and gave it its coherence through the Disney themes. After that first creative phase, there was a period of study: scale, mock-ups, blueprints, then art direction in the workshop with the sculptors, painters, and so on.

How would you characterize the visual style of the parade in terms of design and colour?

Colour-wise, our choices were inspired by each film we represented. Yet, in the way we treated them, I rather had fun exploring original ways to do that. For instance, the float of the Dreams of Fantasy, with Peter Pan and Mary Poppins, I thought about German expressionist painting. For Dreams of Power, I took my inspiration from the Baroque style and all its eerie fountains with fantastical characters. The only difference is that we reference Disney characters, but the influence from Baroque sculpture is there.

Thus, each float was inspired by a specific artistic movement. For Dreams of Romance, it is Romantic painting through icons like a temple, a castle, rocky cliffs. It’s very much 19th Century. So, it’s not only about being inspired by the original film. It’s also about re-interpreting the history of art.

Recent research showed how much Walt Disney was inspired by European art. You seem to resume that in that parade.

It’s part of my personality to draw from all those references, and I think that any artist should draw from the history of art to nourish his or her own art. That’s the only effective way to create something interesting. And that’s the reason why Walt Disney drew his inspiration from all this history in his different projects. It’s natural dynamics for me. Without that, all you can create remains cold and superficial.

Were you a Disney fan before going to Disneyland Resort Paris?

Of course, I knew some of the classics. Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderfland, Pinocchio and Fantasia are films that impressed me during my childhood. But I didn’t know so much about them. Now I’ve integrated myself into Disney and I’ve done a lot of research in order to conceive this parade.

During the creative phase, how did you work with Show Director Katy Harris?

When we began thinking about the parade, we explored different directions together. Obviously we had to refer to Disney themes. We also knew we would have eight floats and we wanted to tell as many stories as possible.

That’s the reason why we thought that one story per float would be too limited and that we could try to combine different stories. From then on, we tried to find themes that could fit together. Another important thing for us was to create a parade that would not be a mere display of sculptures passing by. On the contrary, we wanted animation, performing artists, dancers, acrobats, something as lively as it could be and as surprising as possible.

We wanted you to see something from one side of Main Street, and something totally different from the other side. Then, we built out from that framework, Katy and I. The first float to be conceived this way was the one with Alice and Pinocchio. I associated the White Rabbits‘ house to Pinocchio‘s cuckoo clock. It worked pretty well on both sides.

On the Pinocchio side, we could have acrobats and puppets, and then animated props on the other side. Thanks to that first float design being successfully completed, we were able to develop the other ones.

Speaking of the Dreams of Laughter & Fun float with its “bungee” acrobats, that reminded me of the ones in Disneyland’s Parade of Dreams in California.

In fact, during the conception of our parade, we researched everything that was possible to do in terms of street show: skyrunners, bungees, jugglers, etc. We had already worked on that with Katy for the Kids Carnival and we had loved doing it since we then had everything a street show had to offer.

Don’t forget that while we call it a “parade”, it is really an entire street show, a very elaborate one. So, we went from there and added puppets, which bring something very lively and very interesting to the show. Our American colleagues share the same interests and they had looked to the techniques we began years ago on the Kids Carnival.

The floats of Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade are extraordinarily complex in terms of animation, lighting and sound system. How did you manage both the artistic and technical dimensions of the floats while working on them?

It is true that we tried to integrate a maximum of everything in our floats so that they could be the most animated, the most elaborate possible and that they’d feature a maximum of effects.

That’s how we even came to integrate Odorama to the floats! In order to do that, I first tried not to focus on the technical needs — because it’s difficult to create something artistically if you have too many constraints. That said, as I was drawing the floats, I knew approximately where I could seat the drivers. Then, after the first sketches, I began to think about where to place the speakers, etc. So, it came secondary, but very shortly after the first drafts. Then, I had to work on the proportions, scale and size of the float so that everything could fit within.

Could you describe in your own words all the floats of the parade? Let’s start with the Dreams of Imagination float.

First of all, the idea itself was very inspirational. When you think about it, you see the sun and things floating in the air. You think of a storybook, too. To me, it was a way to allude to all those fairytales we love and that inspired all those wonderful animated films by Walt Disney: Perrault’s, Grimm’s, etc. It was another way to get back to the European origins of the Disney films.

Then comes Dreams of Laughter & Fun, with Alice and Pinocchio.

That was all about the playful character of the stories, something silly and surrealistic. That’s why I thought about that giant Alice. I remembered that Dali worked with Walt Disney at some time. There was a link between the two universes and I took advantage of that.

Compared to Alice, Pinocchio is more joyful than surrealistic. How did you set a bridge between the two of them?

We conceived the front and the rear of the floats as two different experiences, but with a connection in terms of themes and in terms of music. So, we had that childish aspect in both film scores. To me, both Alice and Pinocchio are about a quest for escapism, adventure and discovery. They really fit together and I thought that could work well that way.

How did you get to the idea of associating Toy Story and Winnie the Pooh for the Dreams of Friendship float, since those universes seems so remote from each other?

Very remote indeed. Yet, I started with the idea of a child’s room. Toy Story was about toys and Winnie, too. You could easily imagine a bedroom in which you could find toys like the ones of Toy Story, along with Pooh plush dolls and pop-up books.

Let’s return to Dreams of Fantasy. How did you manage to associate expressionism and Disney?

Our expressionism is lighter than the German one, which was darker and scarier. We just wanted a touch of silliness. That’s why you find surrealism in that twisted Big Ben and those terraced Victorian houses linked to the sparkling and shiny merry-go-round and pirate boat, with its canons. There’s something very dramatic about it all.

Though Walt Disney widely looked to European artistic references (like European expressionism for Fantasia‘s Chernobog), there’s actually very little Baroque influence in his films. How did you come to that idea for Dreams of Power?

When I go to Baroque art museums, I’m always fascinated by all those fantasy creatures sculpted and intertwined together and I found that that would be a pretty dramatic way of setting all the Disney Villains together.

Then we see Dreams of Adventure…

This is the one of free and wild animals having fun together. There is an “animal musical comedy” side to it, very colourful, going from Africa to the Indian jungle.

This one is probably the one that is the most inspired by what I did for the different Carnivals. I got back to the themes I had used then, with giraffes, elephants and ostriches. I also kept that “crafty”, “patchwork” aspect, like African hand-made art, using second-hand materials.

And finally, Dreams of Romance. First of all, why two floats for one tableau?

We wanted an impressive finale, like in any show. And at the same time, it was a unique opportunity to represent together all the most famous Disney couples in a dreamy garden. It’s very “Champagne”, it’s sparkling and fresh!

The first float ties The Little Mermaid to Aladdin. How did you integrate them within that same romantic universe?

For The Little Mermaid, it had to be a sea shell. And that’s a device very present in 19th century architecture, notably the balconies. That’s the reason why I designed that balcony in a seashell shape — an aquatic Romeo & Juliet, in a way!

And for the other side of the float, I felt that the “flying” aspect of a carpet would have been too simple, too easy, and I made it a swing, again in the Romantic spirit, a dream swing surrounded with cherubs, just like in Fantasia!

That swing seems also reminiscent of 18th century paintings.

Exactly, notably Fragonard’s. He’s an artist I really thought about, and I did go back to his paintings to design that scene.

As for the last float, it gathers Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

Indeed, it’s a finale rich with Romantic icons: the temple of Love, the cherubs again, the bridge and the dream castle. Speaking of it, I really wanted the castle to be unique, to be special, so, I designed it so that it would give the illusion of having been carved in ice, lighted from the inside, and surrounded by smoke as if it were in the clouds.

Was your bridge inspired by the one in the Cinderella sequence So This Is Love?

I thought about it, but finally I decided not to refer to that one. It is a more generic bridge that could be found in any garden. For instance, there is a similar one at the Buttes Chaumont in Paris. Here I focused more on the ambiance than on the references.

A true homage to European art and Paris, as the Disneyland Park itself is.

Absolutely. It’s a way to complete the circle, since Walt Disney widely drew from the Old World to create his stories.

Are there Hidden Mickeys in your floats?

Of course! We love these little touches. Without this humour, it would be tough to work on such a project. You have to keep it fresh. It’s also a way to enrich each new experience. The first time you discover the parade, you realise it’s so rich that you don’t have the time to catch everything. When you go back and see it again, you can discover things you wouldn’t have expected. But now, it’s up to you to find them…!

Can you tell me about ideas you had that didn’t make it in the final parade?

The first direction we explored, Katy and I, was music, always very present in Disney movies. All the more that music is very important in a parade.

So, we started with the idea of a big orchestra. Each float represented a giant instrument in a funny design, which could evoke the universe of several movies. As you can see, we had already thought about associating different films on one float, and we had started experimenting here with ways to set different films on the same unit. Mickey was the conductor of that kind of silly symphony or silly opera passing by.

We also had a Ferris wheel with drums hanging on it. It was really interesting and, who knows, maybe it’ll be the inspiration for another project in the future…!