1.
Fantasia (1940 film)
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Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. With story direction by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer, and production supervision by Ben Sharpsteen, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Music critic and composer Deems Taylor acts as the films Master of Ceremonies, as production costs grew higher than what it could earn, Disney decided to include the short in a feature-length film with other segments set to classical pieces. Fantasia was first released in theatrical roadshow engagements held in thirteen U. S. cities from November 13,1940, the film was subsequently reissued multiple times with its original footage and audio being deleted, modified, or restored in each version. As of 2012, Fantasia has grossed $76.4 million in revenue and is the 22nd highest-grossing film of all time in the U. S. when adjusted for inflation. Fantasia, as a franchise, has grown to include games, Disneyland attractions, a live concert. Fantasia opens with live action scenes of members of an orchestra gathering against a background and tuning their instruments in half-light. Master of ceremonies Deems Taylor enters the stage and introduces the program, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Live-action shots of the orchestra illuminated in blue and gold, backed by superimposed shadows, animated lines, shapes and cloud formations reflect the sound and rhythms of the music. Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, selections from the ballet suite underscore scenes depicting the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn to winter. The Sorcerers Apprentice by Paul Dukas, based on Goethes 1797 poem Der Zauberlehrling. Mickey Mouse, the apprentice of the sorcerer Yen Sid, attempts some of his masters magic tricks. Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, a visual history of the Earths beginnings is depicted to selected sections of the ballet score. The sequence progresses from the formation to the first living creatures, followed by the reign. Intermission/Meet the Soundtrack, The orchestra musicians depart and the Fantasia title card is revealed, after the intermission there is a brief jam session of jazz music led by a clarinettist as the orchestra members return. Then a humorously stylized demonstration of how sound is rendered on film is shown, an animated sound track character, initially a straight white line, changes into different shapes and colors based on the sounds played. The Pastoral Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, a mythical Greco-Roman world of colorful centaurs and centaurettes, cupids, fauns and other figures from classical mythology is portrayed to Beethovens music. A gathering for a festival to honor Bacchus, the god of wine, is interrupted by Zeus, Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli
2.
Disney's Hollywood Studios
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Disneys Hollywood Studios, originally Disney-MGM Studios, is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, based on an idea by Marty Sklar, Randy Bright, and Michael Eisner, the park opened on May 1,1989, and was the third of four theme parks built at Walt Disney World. To increase public interest and the variety of representation within the park, Disney entered into a licensing agreement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The parks current name took effect in 2008, with the removal of the MGM-branding throughout the park, the parks icon was originally the Earffel Tower from the parks opening until 2001 when the Sorcerers Hat—a stylized version of the magical hat from Fantasia—was erected in the parks central hub. It then served as the icon until its removal in January 2015. The tower was removed in April 2016. Currently, the park remains without an official designated icon, although both the Great Movie Ride and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror are represented as such in marketing materials. In 2015, the park hosted approximately 10.8 million guests, ranking it the fifth most-visited theme park in North America and we welcome you to a Hollywood that never was—and always will be. A team of Walt Disney Imagineers led by Marty Sklar and Randy Bright had been given an assignment to two new pavilions for Epcots Future World section. The brainstorming sessions led to Wonders of Life and Great Movie Ride pavilions, the latter was to look like a soundstage backdrop, with a movie theater-style entrance in the middle and would have sat between the Land and Journey Into Imagination pavilions. In 1988, MGM/UA responded by filing a lawsuit that claimed Disney violated the agreement by operating a working movie, when the park first opened, the only two attractions were the Studio Backlot Tour and The Great Movie Ride. Disney later filed a countersuit, claiming that MGM/UA and MGM Grand, on October 23,1992, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis B. The 33-acre MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park opened in 1993 at the Las Vegas site, on August 9,2007, Walt Disney World President Meg Crofton announced that Disney-MGM Studios would be re-branded as Disneys Hollywood Studios, effective January 7,2008. On March 12,2015, during a shareholders meeting. Disneys Hollywood Studios is divided into six themed areas, the parks original layout featured a large Hidden Mickey, which was visible in aerial photographs of the park and on the parks early guide maps. Construction and other changes have eliminated much of this image. Hollywood Boulevard, inspired by the street in Los Angeles, serves as the main entrance and operates in the same vein as Main Street. It is lined with themed streetscape facades and venues selling Disney merchandise, guests enter through the main entrance gate, which resembles the Pan-Pacific Auditorium
3.
Geographical coordinates
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Walt Disney Imagineering
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Imagineering is responsible for designing and building Disney theme parks, resorts, cruise ships, and other entertainment venues at all levels of project development. Imagineering also manages various properties held by units within the Walt Disney Company including Disneys Burbank Studios, New Amsterdam Theater, when Disney was in the sports team ownership that included Edison Field and the Mighty Ducks Disney Ice practice rink in Anaheim. Disney filed for a copyright for the term in 1967, claiming first use of the term in 1962, Walt Disney Inc. was formed by Walt Disney in 1953 with the Disneyland designing engineering division. In light of objections from Roy as well as those of potential stockholders, in 1961, WED moved into the Grand Central Business Park, the site of the former Grand Central Air Terminal, in 1961. The unit was renamed as of January 1986 to Walt Disney Imagineering, in 1996, Disney Development Company, the Disney conglomerates real estate development subsidiary, merged into Imagineering. Imagineering created Disney Fair, a U. S. traveling attraction, with poor attendance, the fair was pulled after a few stops. Disney Entertainment Projects Inc. a new Disney Asian Pacific subsidiary, by 1997, Imagineers were in several buildings in Grand Central Business Park when Disney purchased the park. In September 1999, Disney Imagineering announced the Grand Central Creative Campus redesign of the park with a new office-studio complex anchored by Disney Imagineering. Some of the building were demolished to make way for new buildings, the additional space would be for sound stages, production facilities and offices. Imagineers are governed by a few key principles when developing new concepts, often, new concepts and improvements are created to fulfill specific needs. Many solutions to problems are designed in this way, such as the vehicle of the attraction Soarin Over California. An Imagineer found an Erector set in his attic, and was able to envision, Imagineers are also known for returning to ideas for attractions and shows that, for whatever reason, never came to fruition. These ideas are often reworked and appear in a different form – like the Museum of the Weird, finally, there is the principle of blue sky speculation, a process where Imagineers generate ideas with no limitations. The custom at Imagineering has been to start the process with what is referred to as eyewash--the boldest, wildest, best idea one can come up with. Many Imagineers consider this to be the beginning of the design process and operate under the notion that if it can be dreamt. Imagineers are always seeking to improve upon their work--what Walt Disney called plussing and he firmly believed that Disneyland will never be completed as long as theres imagination left in the world, meaning there is always room for innovation and improvement. During an Imagineering workshop in 1991, Marty Sklar presented ten commandments attributed to Mickey Steinberg, WDI is responsible for technological advances such as the Circle-Vision 360° film technique and the FastPass virtual queuing system. The idea sprang from Disney’s fascination with a bird he purchased in New Orleans
6.
Walt Disney Animation Studios
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Founded on October 16,1923, it is a division of The Walt Disney Studios. The studio has produced 56 feature films, from Snow White and it was founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. The studio was dedicated to producing short films until it expanded into feature production in 1934. In 1983, Walt Disney Productions named its film studio Walt Disney Pictures. In 2006, Walt Disney Feature Animation took on its current name, the studio also pioneered the art of storyboarding, which is now a standard technique used in both animated and live-action filmmaking. Walt Disney Animation Studios continues to produce films using both traditional animation and computer-generated imagery, at the present, Andrew Millstein is the general manager of the studio for day-to-day business affairs, under the direction of Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter who also oversee Pixar. Kansas City, Missouri, natives Walt Disney and Roy O, in February 1924, the studio moved next door to office space of its own at 4649 Kingswell Avenue. Disney refused, and as Universal owned the rights to Oswald rather than Disney, most of Disneys staff was hired away by Mintz to move over, once Disneys Oswald contract was done in mid-1928. The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, were previewed in limited engagements during the summer of 1928, the Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons, distributed by Powers through Celebrity Productions, quickly became the most popular cartoon series in the United States. A second Disney series of cartoons, the Silly Symphonies. Powers in return signed away Ub Iwerks, who began producing cartoons at his own studio, columbia distributed Disneys shorts for two years before the Disney studio entered a new distribution deal with United Artists in 1932. The result was the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees, the first film released in full Technicolor. Flowers and Trees was a success, and all Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. In 1934, Walt Disney gathered several key members and announced his plans to make his first feature animated film. In the course of teaching the classes, Graham and the created or formalized many of the techniques and processes that became the key tenets. During the production of Snow White, work had continued on the Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935, by which time the series had added several major supporting characters, among them Mickeys dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy. Donald, Goofy, and Pluto would all be appearing in series of their own by 1940, the Silly Symphonies, which garnered seven Academy Awards, ended in 1939. The success of Snow White allowed Disney to build a new, larger studio on Buena Vista Street in Burbank, Walt Disney Productions had its initial public offering on April 2,1940, with Walt Disney as president and chairman and Roy Disney as CEO
7.
Bob Rogers (designer)
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Bob Rogers is founder and chairman of BRC Imagination Arts, an experience design agency. In 1998 Newsweek magazine described him as the theme-park industrys resident futurist and he is on the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Bob Rogers began his involvement in themed entertainment in 1968 with the Walt Disney Company, in 1980, he co-wrote and co-produced the parody short film Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind. In 2010, Rogers was inducted into the IAAPA Hall of Fame, in his induction by IAAPA, Rogers company was referred to as one of the worlds leading creators of content-based visitor experiences for museums, cultural centers and theme parks. In 1984, Rogers was elected into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in 2014 he was elected to serve on the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Rogers is also a board member of Ryman Arts, a non-profit which provides recognition. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration invited Rogers to help develop its master plan for the exploration of Mars as part of their Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, in September 2002, Rogers was awarded one of NASA’s highest civilian honors, the NASA Public Service Medal. In 2009 Rogers received the Order of Lincoln Medal in recognition of his and BRCs work creating the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Newsweek has called him the industry’s resident futurist. Rogers is a writer and popular speaker on the subject of content-based themed entertainment and is recognized among industry peers and the press as an expert in his field. Rogers has been quoted and interviewed in a range of media such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Fast Company, Popular Science. He has been a featured guest on National Public Radio’s program, in 2007 Rogers received the Thea Award for Lifetime Achievement. Each year one such award is given to an individual who is recognized, industry-wide, for their key contributions to the evolution of themed design, past recipients have included film innovator Don Iwerks and Walt Disney Imagineers Marty Sklar, Tony Baxter and John Hench. Rogers holds two patents in theater entertainment technologies and he is the inventor of the “Holavision” Theater, a special effect technique, which pairs live performances with “floating” aerial image illusions. In 2012, Rogers and BRC revealed plans for The Vomit Comet, history with Special Effects, Is it Museum or Haunted Mansion. Los Angeles Times Decker, John D, exhibition Reviews, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Strumming the Mystic Chords of Memory, with Smoke and Cannons, Museum Brings Lincoln to Life. Lincoln’s Spirit Lives in New Museum, the Real Lincoln – Special Report. Empire State Building to Update it’s Tourist Experience, when the Factory is a Theme Park, Business Week
8.
Walter Cronkite
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Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years. During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr. and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his coverage of the U. S. space program. He was the only recipient of a Moon-rock award. Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase And thats the way it is, Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was born on November 4,1916, in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the son of Helen Lena, and Dr. Walter Leland Cronkite, a dentist. He had remote Dutch ancestry on his fathers side, the family surname originally being Krankheyt, Cronkite lived in Kansas City, Missouri, until he was ten, when his family moved to Houston, Texas. He was a member of the Boy Scouts and he attended college at the University of Texas at Austin, entering in the Fall term of 1933, where he worked on the Daily Texan and became a member of the Nu chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity. He also was a member of the Houston chapter of DeMolay, while attending UT, Cronkite had his first taste of performance, appearing in a play with fellow student Eli Wallach. He dropped out in 1935, not returning for the Fall term and he dropped out of college in his junior year, in the fall term of 1935, after starting a series of newspaper reporting jobs covering news and sports. He entered broadcasting as an announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City. In 1936, he met his wife, Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, while working as the sports announcer for KCMO in Kansas City. His broadcast name was Walter Wilcox and he would explain later that radio stations at the time did not want people to use their real names for fear of taking their listeners with them if they left. In Kansas City, he joined the United Press in 1937 and he became one of the top American reporters in World War II, covering battles in North Africa and Europe. With his name now established, he received a job offer from Edward R. Murrow at CBS News to join the Murrow Boys team of war correspondents, CBS offered Cronkite $125 a week along with commercial fees amounting to $25 for almost every time Cronkite reported on air. Up to that point, he had been making $57.50 per week at UP, when he informed his boss Harrison Salisbury, UP countered with a raise of $17.50 per week, Hugh Baillie also offered him an extra $20 per week to stay. Cronkite ultimately accepted the UP offer, a move which angered Murrow and he also landed in a glider with the 101st Airborne in Operation Market Garden and covered the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials and served as the United Press main reporter in Moscow from 1946 to 1948, in 1950, Cronkite joined CBS News in its young and growing television division, again recruited by Murrow. Cronkite began working at WTOP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Washington and he originally served as anchor of the networks 15-minute late-Sunday-evening newscast Up To the Minute, which followed Whats My Line. at 11,00 pm ET from 1951 through 1962
9.
Robin Williams
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Robin McLaurin Williams was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Starting as a comedian in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. After rising to fame as Mork in Mork & Mindy, Williams established a career in both comedy and feature film acting. He was known for his improvisational skills, Doubtfire, Jumanji, The Birdcage, Night at the Museum, and Worlds Greatest Dad. Williams won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as teacher Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting and he also received two Emmy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards throughout his career. On August 11,2014, Williams committed suicide by hanging at his home in Paradise Cay and his wife attributed his suicide to his struggle with Lewy body dementia. Robin McLaurin Williams was born at St. Lukes Hospital in Chicago and his father Robert Fitzgerald Williams was a senior executive in Ford Motor Companys Lincoln-Mercury Division. His mother Laurie McLaurin was a model from Jackson, Mississippi. Her paternal great-grandfather was Mississippi senator and governor Anselm J. McLaurin, Williams had two elder half-brothers named Robert and McLaurin. He had English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, German, while his mother was a practitioner of Christian Science, Williams was raised in the Episcopal Church, where his father belonged. Williams wrote a list, Top Ten Reasons to be an Episcopalian, during a TV interview on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, Williams credited his mother as being an important early influence for his sense of humor. He also said that he tried to make her laugh to gain attention, Williams attended public elementary school in Lake Forest at Gorton Elementary School and middle school at Deer Path Junior High School. He described himself as a quiet and shy child who did not overcome his shyness until he became involved with his school drama department. His friends recall him as being very funny, in late 1963, when Williams was twelve, his father was transferred to Detroit. The family lived in a 40-room farmhouse on 20 acres in suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and he excelled in school, where he was on the schools soccer team and wrestling team, and was elected as class president. As his father traveled frequently for work and his also worked, Williams was attended to by the familys maid. When Williams was 16, his father took early retirement and the moved to Tiburon. Following their move, Williams attended Redwood High School in nearby Larkspur, at the time of his graduation in 1969, he was voted Most Likely Not to Succeed and Funniest by his classmates
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