Week #4 - Disneyland Lighting Revelation!

I visited Disneyland this week, and all I could pay attention to was the lighting everywhere!!! I have been to Disneyland about a million times. I worked at Walt Disney World in Florida for 5 months in 2010, and I worked at Disneyland from June 2011 to June 2012, and now my boyfriend works there. I grew up with Disney, going to Florida basically every other year of my life. Honestly though, going to Disneyland after starting to look at light in a new and different way in this course at UCI, was amazing. It was almost like I was seeing the park for the first time. This, to me, says that I don't usually notice lighting everywhere I am on a regular basis, and this makes me sad. I was missing out on so much magic! I think I definitely used to take light, whether theatrical or in life, for granted.

I took this photo from the top of the ferris wheel (Mickey's Fun Wheel) in Disney California Adventure Park. The photo captures Paradise Pier, Carsland, Tower of Terror, and the city of Anaheim surrounding the park. There were so many pictures that I took of lighting on this trip to Disneyland that it was really hard to choose just one for this blog. Even in just this photo alone, there are so many things I could talk about. But I am going to focus on the mountains of Carsland.

I was very involved in the growth of Carsland, working as a Guest Relations guide while it was being built. I was a docent in the exhibit all about the evolution of Carsland and the process that the Imagineers went through with the folks at Pixar to create the land. For that reason, these mountains hold a lot more emotional value than they might for someone who didn't have that same experience. The mountains are truly an inspirational work of art, genius, and collaboration. They are vast. When you are standing down in the mountain range you are truly transported to the inspirational mountainous scenes along Route 66. Emotions I connect to this, which are definitely reflected in the lighting of the mountains, are serene, inspirational, epic, vast, awe-inspiring, nostalgic. To me these mountains are all about a journey. The journey from the story of Cars, but more importantly my journey growing with this part of the park during my first year in California, and also my journey which I took when I drove across the country from NC to CA through the beautiful scenery of this amazing country of America.

Disney is the best of the best when it comes to perfection in technical theatrics. At times this can be a bit overstimulating. But usually it usually just takes my breath away.