45 Years ago this week Walt Disney World opened its doors and since then millions have poured through its gates capturing memories on film. In the past 3 years we've shared nearly 50 restored home movies of WDW. While a few of these films are from our own family and friends, the majority come from eBay, garage sales, and flea markets. Captured memories that were tossed away to time, lost in estate sales and completely forgotten. When you view the films you can't help but wonder who they are and why their once precious memories played eventually played second fiddle in their lives.
To celebrate these individuals who we will never meet, we put together a montage of those wonderful faces, happy children, and delighted (er, sometimes grumpy!) adults in a project we call Kodachrome Kingdom. This musical montage is nearly 3 years in the making as we carefully pulled out specific scenes from our restorations to fill in the puzzle. This film is not complete by any means; as we restore additional meida and obtain more personal footage we'll gradually change the film to be a more complete picture of the faces and people that have enjoyed WDW in the early years. Kodachrome by Paul Simon was selected for a few reasons. For one, it is an obvious nod to the finest color film of all time...our footage spans 1971-1980 and this song, released in '73, captures the essence of that era and photography; and its just a good song!
Families never dreamed their short few minutes of film would be shared for all to see...
This film is dedicated to all of those whose memories were thought to be lost to time
Technical Notes: We realize that not every film we've restored has the clarity and cleanliness of Kodachrome, over time we'll replace the grainy clips with higher quality footage. The montage follows the song to a degree and slightly follows what a day at the MK would be like back then. The latter is a project for another day!
