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Walt Disney World Resort officially launches Soarin' in May, taking
Epcot guests on a high-flying magical journey that sweeps them up,
over and across the richly diverse landscape of California. Never
before Soarin' has anyone had the opportunity to view the Golden
State from a bird's-eye view with such an extraordinary sensation
of free flight.
Using stunning cinematic artistry and Walt Disney Imagineering-developed
motion-based technology, Soarin' literally lifts 87 guests at a
time 40 feet aloft into a giant projection screen dome. From all
sides -- up, down, left and right -- their field of vision is completely
filled with the beauty and wonder of California as their flying
theater takes them soaring on an unforgettable journey.
So how does it all happen? How can technology be so "invisible"
to the experience?
"The genesis of the idea goes back to our dream of being able
to fly, along with the impressive natural beauty of California,"
said Kathy Mangum, Walt Disney Imagineering executive producer/vice
president. "There's the ocean, Big Sur, the mountains and desert
-- an unbelievable variety of terrain and spectacular topography.
Clearly we wanted to use film to capture the beauty of all that,
but how do you do it in a way that's never been done before?"
The Flight
The challenge was a formidable one. "One of the early designs
was a series of little hang gliders on a conveyer belt system, but
it had all kinds of problems," explained Mangum. Several other
concepts also fell by the wayside.
It wasn't until Mark Sumner, a Walt Disney Imagineering show/ride
engineer, decided to take the problem home over the weekend that
the challenge was resolved.
"I think I'm like a lot of Imagineers where I don't necessarily
leave my job at the office," said Sumner, whose specialty is
creating ride systems. One particular weekend, he started sketching
some concepts for the Soarin' ride design and was trying to figure
out how to best convey his ideas to his team.
"I remembered I had a 40-year-old toy, an erector set that
I got when I was a kid," said Sumner. "So I pulled it
out of the attic, and over a couple of hours, I built a working
model.
When I came back to the office on Monday, I set it on the table,
cranked it up and said, 'Maybe we can do it like this.' As they
say, the rest is history."
That kicked off a tremendous engineering effort, and a considerable
amount of research and development followed to achieve the remarkable
technological result of what literally started with a child's toy.
Sumner's concept -- small enough to hold in his hands -- grew into
a ride structure containing one million pounds of steel that is
able to lift 37 tons.
The Film
The counterpart to the engineering complexity of the attraction
was the cinematic challenge of generating film that would immerse
guests in the visual aspect of the ride. "We filmed everything
from a helicopter," explained Rick Rothschild, Walt Disney
Imagineering senior vice president and the film's director. "We
used an IMAX camera with a special lens that captures everything
within a person's visual periphery."
Shooting in a variety of locations around the state was not always
an easy task, particularly in a place like Yosemite National Park
where governmental restrictions usually prohibit flying inside the
park's valley.
"We were fortunate to be able to make an agreement with the
Department of the Interior to acquire a four-hour window on a specific
date to get our shots," said Rothschild. "That meant no
changes to the schedule no matter what kind of weather we had on
that day. As it turned out, it was one of those clear and pristine
blue-sky California days, and we got incredible footage of the valley,
Bridalveil Fall and Half-Dome."
Each location in the film brings to life the beauty and diversity
of California, whether it's soaring over the mountaintops of Lake
Tahoe or gliding across the sands of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
"And don't forget that your other senses are involved as well,"
said Rothschild. "You're totally immersed. You feel, hear and
smell things at the same time that you're enjoying all the visual
wonders as you fly within the film that surrounds you."
To further enhance the experience, the film is projected at 48
frames per second, twice the speed of normal motion picture film,
resulting in a crisp, clear image with extraordinary definition.
"I like to think that in Imagineering we practice the art
of 'invisible engineering'," said Sumner. "If people are
thinking about the big machinery and how we're moving them around,
then we haven't done our job. I think that Soarin' takes most people
by surprise because it really does give you that feeling of flight.
The smells, the sound and the video -- put them all together in
a symphony and time them just right and it all comes together to
create an experience that people truly enjoy."
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