I’m Baaaack!
I returned from my California trip late Saturday and captured some nice video of some beautiful sights. As you may know, we are feverishly getting ready for our big 3-home unveiling at the MBA(Metropolitan Builder’s Association) 65th Annual Parade Of Homes. It was difficult to justify leaving town for even 1 day while we were installing and creating so many unusual and delightful things all at one time, but my son Sean only gets off two weeks a year with his accelerated college schedule, so we made the time to do the family minded thing and we were not sorry we did,
There we were, on our way to see the sea lions on the beach and video them. The weather was so gloomy and chilly(yes chilly!) that I did not even shoot a single video clip of this scene. So we decided to head for Anaheim and Disneyland in hopes of at least finding “Nemo” AND the Sun. Sure enough, there it was! One of the reasons I wanted to go to Disney to shoot video footage was that these creative folks recently opened what looked like the biggest new water fountain show on the planet, called Wonderful World Of Color.
The show was 26 minutes long and it featured hundreds of amazing lighting, fountain, video screen, laser, and fire effects. The music was bold and exhilarating. The experience of getting to this show, was not. In order to get into the show, required everyone to first get in an early morning waiting line to get your Disney Fast Pass tickets to enter the show. This was a 45 minute to an hour long line. Then the day could be spent doing whatever we wished until the appointed hour of 6:45 or so. that was the time to return to the World Of Color waiting line to enter for the 9:00pm showing. In this case however, there was no real line but rather just a huge grouping or mass of standing people who stood behind a rope line with no real direction where the actual entry area would be. Then at about 7:30(as I recall) they released the rope and the mass swarmed over to several poorly identified small entries into various roped off cubical areas. Just before we got to these cubes, we all handed our ticket/Fast Passes, to gate keepers who could not even look at the tickets due to the huge masses. I could have honestly handed them a business card and they would not have had the time or chance to stop anyone from swarming past them with the crowd’s sheer momentum.
I was surprised to see that the next stage to this waiting game was to stand inside a roped-off area of about 15 by 15 feet and stand shoulder to shoulder to wait for the show to start. I had hoped for some comfy seats or at very least some hard bleachers but none were to be found. That meant about an hour and a half wait to stand for the show to begin. My family was tired and wanted to sit on the concrete, but this was frowned upon by the Disney personnel who were watching the flocks. I tried to get a good location to shoot the video of the show. One Disney staffer told me that resting my camera on a pylon was permissible, then the next staffer told me I could not put my camera rig resting on any such area.
I ended up sticking the tri-pod support into my belt top and it seemed to work. I asked the staffer if I could at least stabilize myself by leaning onto a temporary fence-type post which the ropes were attached to. They said these posts would stay intact and that my leaning on them would be fine. I even went so far as to ask a Disney manager if he was sure I could lean on this post since I was assuming it would likely be removed near the show end to allow the crowds to do their mass exiting. While he said the ropes were going to stay and not be taken down(another Disney manager , who was to follow at 11), sure enough, while I had spent my 26 minutes shooting the show, the final minute they made me move to remove the post and rope so the crowds could exit. That meant that the finale would have to be re-shot on another night since my camera(and me) had to move for the final moments.
The bigger reason for us having to re-shoot the video and re-live the standing and waiting experience all over again was that this how turned out to be a rather wet and misty experience, that made the camera lenses so wet that by the time the finale was playing, the camera view was poor and looking through water droplets on the lenses. When the first night video shooting was over, I asked the family if the waiting and standing was worth the show and they all agreed enthusiastically, that the show was worth all the trouble.
It is always amazing to me that the power of music and images can be so powerful as to make humans feel so uplifted. It is that uplifted experience that makes us forget the hassles and troubles that have transpired to get to the “goodstuff” in life. We humans seem to have the gift of putting bad or troublesome experiences behind us and move on to enjoy life. One last “kicker” the Disney person who was in charge of our section told us earlier that when the show was over we would all need to exit to the far left or right. The actual exit turned out to be directly to the rear and center. Oh well, this is a new show and they are learning the ropes. At least they all seemed, for the most part, nice.
Remember, I intend to bring this footage (in some form or another) to our big 30 foot wide , triple movie screens we will be having in our basement night club at the MBA Parade called “Club Wonder“. I previewed the video footage and from what I could see on my small monitor, the clarity and visuals were excellent!
At the end of our Disneyland stay, Jacquie and I had talked to our second night (World Of Color) standing neighbors and they told us of a surfing championship being held only a short drive away. While the boys slept , early the next, last morning , of our trip, we set up our triple camera rig on the beach to shoot surfers on the waves. The visuals could have been great since it was interesting to watch BUT, again, the clouds were gloomy and overcast.
Maybe the lesson is that long lines and waiting at Disney WITH Sunshine beats beach and surfing or sea lions and docks with NO sunshine. We did wear sweatshirts most of the time we were in California and I did get some great video of mountains WITH Sun. When we returned, the sun was shining and I was so glad to be back in Sunny Wisconsin where the lines are short, the sights are nice and the gas is cheaper, and now I can get back to creating some very special homes! Life is so good.
Blessings,
Tom Hignite
