Imagineering Sound Design Behind-the-Scenes
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:13AM Posted by Admin ;)
Imagineers share the unusual work of adding sound to Disney attractions in this new video.
Director Michael Coleman recently contacted us about a video he recently produced about WDI sound teams. He takes us behind-the-scenes of Walt Disney Imagineering Studios to see how ride tracks, voice recordings, sound effects, etc. are produced.
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See home-made contraptions designed by legendary sound designer, Jimmy MacDonald (first photo above).
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See how speakers are disguised with the use of painted scrims.
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Jimmy MacDonald is seen here crafting the sounds of a forest fire for Bambi using bamboo.
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Even President Obama takes part in the Imagineering process.
Side note: When recording his speech for The Hall of Presidents he said, "are these like wax figures or holograms?"... "Oh robots, that's kind of cool". This is not featured in this video but can be seen here.
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A big thanks to Michael for sharing this new film. All images are courteous of Michael Coleman, SoundWorks Collection, and Walt Disney Imagineering.
Up next: Walt Disney Studios Post Production Behind-the-Scenes.
Related posts:
Inside Walt Disney Imagineering
New Lincoln Animatronic Lookin' Good
I Miss Paul Frees
Reader Comments (11)
Awesome post!
the link for the video did not work for me... I'm on a Mac 0SX... ;(
The link for the video did not work.... :( I'm on a MAC OSX...
WOW! I learn so much from your posts!!!! This was AWESOME!
The link works on my OSX.... try it again.
Firefox and Chrome on Ubuntu here, neither browser could play the embedded video. If you're having trouble, click the blue title in the player to go to its Vimeo page; it plays fine there.
I just re-entered the html for the video and did it a bit differently than the first time. I tried Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on Mac and they all work. Although Chrome kept pausing and playing a blank black screen until I clicked further down the video timeline then it worked fine. Sorry for the troubles.
Hope you enjoy!
This is brilliant! What a great video.
That Jimmy MacDonald was a character! hehe. We use to drink at his house every other night and pull pranks on the new guys. He'd pull out some bamboo, mess with it, and tell some poor guy that his ass was on fire! The guy would jump up and cry and scream but it was Jimmy and his bamboo! HAHA! He'd pull the trans axle out of a Ford Galaxy 500, tickle it with a mallet, and some poor guy would be convinced he was having a heart attack! They'd hear the sound and yell "Oh god! My heart!". Sometimes it killed them but......what a gas MacDonald was.
Jimmy was great. He was the only man I ever met who could tie his pubic hair to a stick and strum "When You Wish Upon A Star". Simply beautiful and you'd cry every time you heard it. Touching.
One more story. One night on the backlot, after a long day of shooting on Mary Poppins, I saw Jimmy sitting on the curb rubbing his forehead. I asked "Hey Jimmy MacDonald, what's wrong? You ok?". He looked up at me with sad eyes but his amazing grin and said "Hoot, I can fart Mozart works in my sleep and beat the bass out on a dead Mexicans skull". I knew something was wrong......gosh...that was the last time I saw him. It's like he knew.
Wow, great video! I can't get enough of the behind the scenes stuff of Disney. Keep up the great work!
Cool post I like it!