D23.com
Disneyland Resort will glow like never before this summer as it debuts an all-new fireworks show, Magical, along with beloved characters and sensational new effects that will brighten the Summer Nightastic!


New thrills galore will arrive at the popular Fantasmic! on the Rivers of America in Frontierland.
Guests can see Disneyland Resort in a whole new light as Summer Nightastic! brings nighttime shows and parades to life — bigger, better and brighter. A huge new dragon and other special effects enhance the magestic Fantasmic!. Explosive surprises will illuminate the night sky in the all-new fireworks spectacular, Magical. Guests can rock the night away at a new dance club in Tomorrowland. And sparkling new magic comes to Disney's Electrical Parade, as well as to Pixie Hollow, the enchanting home Tinker Bell inhabits with her fairy friends.

"When the sun goes down, things are going to light up!" says Jill Estorino, senior vice president, Domestic Parks Marketing. "This summer, we're piling up the magic even more."



A BOLDER FANTASMIC!: New thrills galore will arrive at the popular Fantasmic! on the Rivers of America in Frontierland. The evil Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty transforms into a brand-new, 40-foot tall, fully animated, fire-breathing dragon. She'll have flapping wings, a moving head and mouth and, at 10,000 pounds, she had to be helicoptered in to the Park! Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid will introduce her pet eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, who slither into the show with new power. "They come right up to the sea wall and look you right in the eye!" says Show Director Carla Carlile. And with the help of HD technology — high definition, not Huge Dragon! — the Fantasmic! video projections practically leap off the giant mist screens. During the Captain Hook pirate ship scene, look for a newly animated crocodile, who now even snaps at Captain Hook!

AN EXPLODING CELEBRATION IN THE SKY: Magical is a new Disney fireworks spectacular created especially to celebrate Summer Nightastic! at Disneyland. Tinker Bell is once again your host, waving her wand to ignite the brilliant color, stunning special effects and charming music. But she won't be alone in the sky this summer. Dumbo will make his surprise airborne debut in the new show. Tink's sparkling touch awakens a fantastic array of Disney's most magical characters, from Pinocchio to Mary Poppins to Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and the Three Good Fairies from Sleeping Beauty (wait 'til you see Flora and Merryweather engaged in colorful overhead battle between their signature colors, pink and blue!). Powerhouse vocalist Eden Espinosa, a longtime singer at Disneyland who starred in the Broadway production of BKLYN and also played Elphaba in Wicked, sings Magical's theme song as well as classic Disney tunes like "Baby Mine." Other songs included in this extravaganza include "Second Star to the Right" from Peter Pan, "Hi-diddle-dee (An Actor's Life for Me)" from Pinocchio, "Jolly Holiday" from Mary Poppins and "So This is Love" from Cinderella. Longtime Disneyland composer Greg Smith supplies the score.

NEW FLOATS BRING FRESH MAGIC TO DISNEY'S ELECTRICAL PARADE: Everything about Disney's Electrical Parade will have a new glow as Tinker Bell leads the way, waving from the basket of a magical balloon aboard a new opening parade float. "A fairy's magic lights the way," reveals Denny Newell, senior show director. The parade's beloved music and floats will feature electrifying audio and lighting technologies, with sparkling pixie dust added to all the parade floats. Returning to the parade this summer as well, after several years' absence, are Snow White's Diamond Mine float and two Pleasure Island floats from Pinocchio. "Because of LED technology," explains Denny, "we can do a lot more fun programming." In fact, thanks to LEDs, the Cheshire cat will disappear just like in the movie. Though the Blue Fairy float that used to open the parade has gone on hiatus, Guests with a keen eye will notice that the center mast of Captain Hook's pirate ship is now a foot-and-a-half taller.

AN EXCITING NEW DANCE CLUB 'IGNITES THE NIGHT' IN TOMORROWLAND: Tweens, teens and families will be drawn to the TLT Dance Club at Tomorrowland Terrace in Disneyland. Dazzling décor will include an illuminated DJ console where the TLT Dance Club DJ will spin the hottest dance tunes, guaranteed to keep Tomorrowland rockin' all night. Live bands and the hottest Southern California radio stations will appear on select nights throughout the summer.

PIXIE HOLLOW ENCHANTMENT: Tinker Bell and her friends have been welcoming guests into their Pixie Hollow home, tucked into the glen near the entrance to Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland, since fall of 2008. This summer, for the first time, nighttime visitors will find magical surprises as Pixie Hollow and the nearby pond come to life in iridescent light shows. Pixie dust cascades across the landscape and radiates down into the pond. Even the water becomes enchanted as playful fountains spring to life, water jets perform with whimsical precision, and sparkling strobes shine throughout Pixie Hollow. For those who haven't visited the Hollow before, as guests enter Tink's domain, they will notice the flora around them growing bigger and bigger — as they shrink to the size of a fairy. "We call the effect, 'the Monsanto tunnel,' laughs Denny, referencing the now-defunct Disneyland Adventure Thru Inner Space attraction.

tmz.com
Burbank family is suing the Walt Disney Company, claiming toxins from its Burbank headquarters contaminated the surrounding community, resulting in death.

Dennis Jackson claims Disney's air conditioning system contained contaminated wastewater laden with toxic chemicals that migrated into nearby residential areas and even contaminated drinking water.

The lawsuit, filed today in L.A. County Superior Court, claims Louise Jackson, who lived with her family in the neighborhood, died as a result of the pollutants. The suit claims residents now live in "terror of emissions."

The suit says Disney has been using the same cooling system since 1957.

NYTimes.com
Going to the movies isn’t exactly environmentally friendly, at least the way most people do it – by driving to the multiplex and creating a bunch of concessions trash. But Disneynature has found a way – via a gimmick to drive interest in its new movie “Earth” – to make moviegoing (at least for one week) a little kinder on the planet.

Disneynature, a new film label the Walt Disney Company is introducing to produce and distribute nature documentaries, said it will plant a tree “for every moviegoer who sees the film in its opening week.” Continued the press release: “Disney’s goal is to ensure that it plants trees in areas that conservationists have identified as important hot spots of biodiversity. Disney will oversee the planting of the trees in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, which is considered the most endangered rain forest in the world. Today, only 7 percent of the Atlantic Forest remains. Disney is committed to ensuring the trees are planted and cared for to provide the greatest long term benefit for the planet.”

“Earth” – from the same filmmakers who did “Planet Earth” for Discovery Channel – focuses on three animal families and their migratory journeys. It opens on April 22, Earth Day. How many trees could Disney be looking at? It’s hard to peg this far in advance, but “March of the Penguins,” the hit 2005 movie that Disney cited as a reason for getting into this niche, sold over $4 million in tickets on its opening weekend. If “Earth” does that kind of first-week business (a big if) and using the industry’s average ticket price ($7.29, according to Media By Numbers) that would be just under 550,000 trees.

LATimes.com
Dorothea Holt Redmond, an illustrator and production designer who helped visualize several Alfred Hitchcock films and worked with Walt Disney to design a private apartment in Disneyland's New Orleans Square, has died. She was 98.

Redmond died of congestive heart failure Feb. 27 at her longtime home in the Hollywood Hills, said her daughter, Lynne Jackson.

In Hollywood, Redmond broke ground in 1938 as the first woman to invade the "heretofore exclusively male field" of motion-picture production design, at David O. Selznick's studio, The Times reported that year. Her male colleagues so resented her, they insisted that Redmond's work space be walled off from theirs, her daughter recalled.

Redmond came to be regarded as one of the most talented illustrators in the industry, according to research by Tania Modleski, a USC English professor who is documenting the contributions women made Hitchcock's films.

Working with Hitchcock and an art director, Redmond would create an illustration that became the basis for communicating to the cameraman and others -- and essentially set the tone of key scenes, Modleski told The Times in an e-mail.

The artist "was masterful at working with light and shadow," Modleski said, "and deserves credit for working with Hitchcock to convey the German Expressionist aesthetic he has been praised for adopting throughout much of his career."

"Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film," an exhibit staged last year at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, also documented Redmond's collaboration with Hitchcock. The director was known for presenting himself as an auteur when in reality he was deeply collaborative, the exhibit pointed out.

Redmond's suspense-filled graphite drawings interpreting a sequence in Hitchcock's 1943 film "Shadow of a Doubt" helped transform a sleepy town into a threatening locale, which was essential to the movie's evolution, according to the 2007 book "Casting a Shadow," based on the exhibit.

Hitchcock was "one of her very favorite people to work with," said Redmond's daughter. "She just loved his personality and his taste."

In a film career that started with 1937's "Nothing Sacred" and spanned 20 years, Redmond contributed to seven Hitchcock films, including "Rebecca" (1940), "Rear Window" (1954) and "To Catch a Thief" (1955).

Among the more than 30 films she worked on are such classics as "Gone With the Wind" (1939), "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) and "The Ten Commandments" (1956).

In 1964, she joined what is now known as Walt Disney Imagineering and helped envision elements of Disneyland and Disney World.

Disney died in 1966 before the elaborate New Orleans Square hideaway she designed with him could be completed. For decades, the space was used as a gallery.

Following Redmond's original renderings, the park recently restored the apartment above Pirates of the Caribbean and turned it into the Disneyland Dream Suite, where randomly chosen park visitors can stay overnight.

Redmond also designed the interior and exterior settings of many restaurants and shops in New Orleans Square.

For Florida's Walt Disney World, she completed moody studies of Fantasyland and opulent renderings of Main Street, according to Disney.

"Her watercolor sketches were extraordinary place-making," Marty Sklar, an executive with Walt Disney Imagineering, said last fall when Redmond was named a Disney Legend in a hall-of-fame program that honors those who have had lasting impact on the Walt Disney Co.

The elaborate mosaic murals in the archway of Disney World's Cinderella Castle were also designed by Redmond and realized by another artist in a million pieces of glass. Some of the murals were later duplicated in Tokyo Disneyland.

Dorothea Holt was born May 18, 1910, in Los Angeles, the only child of Harry and Mary Holt. Her father co-owned Western Lithograph Co.

After studying architecture and earning a bachelor's degree in fine arts from USC in 1933, Redmond received a degree in illustration in 1936 from what is now the Art Center College of Design. She later taught at the school, her family said.

In 1940, she married Harry Redmond, a producer she met at Selznick's studio. The couple built a house in the Hollywood Hills and finished designing it themselves when the architect died midway through the project, completed in 1948.

For about a decade, Dorothea Redmond worked for the architectural firm of William Pereira and Charles Luckman before joining Disney. She retired in 1974.

About a week before Redmond's death, a private exhibit of her artwork opened at Walt Disney Imagineering's Information Research Center in Glendale.

In addition to her daughter and husband, Redmond is survived by a son, Lee Redmond; three granddaughters; and three great-grandsons.

The Associated Press
Walt Disney Co. is taking the wraps off an advanced new car racing video game that the entertainment company hopes will bolster its success in the lucrative gaming sector.
As sales of video games prove relatively resilient in the economic downturn, Disney is betting that it can prosper broadly from new games that it makes on its own. Rather than licensing Disney content out to game publishers, Disney's in-house gaming team wants to generate video game characters and story lines that can be the basis of movies as well.
"That is the Holy Grail for video games, to see them successfully become franchises," Graham Hopper, head of Disney's game division, told The Associated Press.
To that end, the company is investing in projects like the latest from its Brighton, England-based Black Rock Studio, a car racing game called "Split/Second" for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PCs, set within the world of a reality television show.
With a release date of early 2010, the studio behind last year's off-road racing game "Pure" has employed new graphics-rendering technologies to pit racers against both the track and explosions triggered by competitors. A sneak preview to the AP showed a race track on an airport stage set, complete with an air traffic control tower that can come crashing to the ground.
The title is part of Disney Interactive Studios' strategy of injecting around 20 percent of its investment dollars into new intellectual property. The company invested about $170 million in overall game development last year and plans to increase that by $40 million to $50 million this year.
The video game market continues to expand even as music and DVD sales slump.
San Diego-based consultancy DFC Intelligence predicts that the worldwide video game market — including consoles, portable machines, their software and PC games — will hit a record of $57 billion this year, up from $33 billion just three years ago.
Nintendo Co.'s success with the Wii, which helped to expand the market beyond "hard core" gamers over the past few years, could play nicely into Disney's reputation for family-focused material. In fact, Disney has had mixed success with a mature-rated game, "Turok," a violent shooter game that was distributed under the Touchstone label. Hopper declined to comment on reports that a sequel to "Turok" had been scrapped, but he said that building a big Touchstone game portfolio was not a priority "right now."
Disney is taking more production in-house, rather than licensing its own characters and content to other developers. It rejected a pitch from its longtime video game partner THQ Inc. — which made the games based on Disney's "Ratatouille" and "Cars" movies — to create the game for the upcoming "Toy Story 3" film.
The company has a goal of self-publishing 80 percent to 90 percent of games, acquiring five development studios in recent years, including Black Rock and Austin, Texas-based Junction Point Studios.
However, Disney has not been immune to the economic downturn. Its Vancouver, British Columbia-based Propaganda Games recently cut 30 positions. Disney also plans to combine its Fall Line and Avalanche studios, both based in Salt Lake City, resulting in the loss of around 20 employees.
One problem is the high cost of producing and marketing major games. Disney Interactive Media, the unit that includes Disney's online division as well as Disney Interactive Studios, reported a $45 million loss in the most recent quarter. Higher sales volumes were more than offset by an increase in production costs and more expensive marketing.
Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Shub Mukherjee have forecast the unit will steadily increase revenue to around $1.3 billion in 2014, from $719 million in 2008. But they also note that the division's pretax losses are likely to extend to more than $385 million in 2014, from $258 million last year.
One pillar of Disney's strategy involves new twists in the way the games look. "Split/Second," for example, feels more like a movie — with cars surging through dissipating smoke while light refracts through exploding buildings — thanks to developments in graphics-rendering technologies such as "deferred lighting."
Video games have traditionally have been able to appear as if the action has one or two sources of lighting. "Split/Second" uses a "deferred renderer" that can generate hundreds of virtual light sources, including ones on exploding particles of buildings.
That kind of realism is backed up by "fluid dynamics" — a movement technology that allows "Split/Second" to flow more smoothly.
For instance, smoke and dust generated by explosions in the game are realistically generated so that "cars can punch through the smoke," said Nick Baynes, game director at Black Rock.
And "if you are at the back of the pack," he said, "you'll get a clearer view of the world in front of you than the car who's had to drive through it first."

Variety.com
Disney has moved up the nationwide release of "The Princess and the Frog" from Christmas Day to Dec. 11.
Studio also announced that "Princess," a traditional animated musical set in New Orleans, will open exclusively in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 25.

In its old date, "Princess" would have gone up against 20th Century Fox's holiday family tentpole "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel."

"Princess" has far more breathing room with a Dec. 11 opening. So far, the only other film skedded to debut that weekend is Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones," from DreamWorks and Paramount.

The Mouse House will use the L.A. and Gotham runs to build word of mouth, taking advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday.

MSNBC.com
The Walt Disney Company announced the names of two new cruise ships, Dream and Fantasy, that will join the theme park giant's fleet.

Similar to the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder, the names were chosen to celebrate Disney's unique heritage of creating enchanting places and stories where dreams really do come true, according to a news release.

The ships were constructed at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, and designers drew inspiration from art deco and whimsical styles and are geared toward families.

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According to a news release, the expansion will more than double the passenger capacity for Disney Cruise Line. Each ship will have 1,250 staterooms and will each be 128,000 tons.