Christmas Parade Taping
We didn't realize the Christmas Parade taping was going to happen during our trip until a few weeks before we headed south. After reading blogs and forums, all we found were horror stories about how crowded the MK was, or how awful and boring it was to be part of the filming, or how you got trapped in the MK all day.
Well, it turns out, NONE of that is true (or at least it wasn't this year).
On Friday, November 30, we headed over to the MK to get lunch. We arrived shortly after noon and saw the mess of production gear setup in Town Square and the Hub. So, being the techie guy I am, we took lots of pictures of their setup.
As we ventured down Main Street, we realized that they were about to film Colbie Caillat's song on the stage, and film several of the "introductions" by the beautiful Maria Menounos. The crowd around the Hub was TINY (I'm taking maybe a couple hundred people, which is nothing). It was so bad, they had to shoot the stage performance three times:
- Once with the crowd up against the stage, with the stationary and boom cameras behind the crowd, looking at the stage;
- Once with the crowd backed up about 10' to allow steady-cam guys to run back and forth in front of the stage, with boom cameras looking at the stage and crowd from various angles; and
- Once with the crowd back up against the stage, and the boom cameras near the stage looking down over the crowd with only the band playing.
They had to do this to make the crowd look huge for the telecast.
After Colbie performed, they setup the stage to look like a generic "any band" setup and filmed a series of takes where Maria would introduce the various bands (Colbie, Lady Antebellum, and whoever would be playing in Disneyland), and then a surprise guest appeared - Samantha Brown! She's 7 months pregnant, but looks fantastic. She looks WAY different in person than on TV. Plus, she's let her hair grow out.
She and Maria did a few bits together where they promoted Aulani and Disney Cruise Line. We were up against their little platform for all of those shots, and the director kept shuffling us around so it looked like a different crowd every time. We MAY actually end up on the broadcast, depending on how the final edit works out.
Having worked in Technical Theater and being into broadcasting, this experience was fascinating. I took more pictures of the boom cameras, steady cams, mounted cameras, sound mixing booths and lighting rigs than anything else. I did make sure my wife got plenty of close-ups of Maria and Samantha though. Eye candy x 2!
They took a break, and were setting up for one more band (Lady Antebellum, I think) and then they were going to be done...so we left and headed back to the hotel to clean up and go to DHS.
Since we knew they'd be doing parade filming on Saturday, we packed Friday night and checked out of the hotel and did airline check-in Saturday morning, and headed to the MK. We got there around 9:30, after they'd done the first round of shooting.
We had NO idea that people pre-purchased tickets that got them into the park and into the roped off "parade audience" areas. We entered through the Expo Hall side of the train station and there was a guy holding a "Parade Audience" sign. To the left were CMs escorting people down Main Street to arrange them into a nice looking crowd arrangement. To the right, other CMs were directing the general public down the red sidewalks into the rest of the park.
Well, we didn't have any plans, so we just stood there by the sign guy, and all of a sudden the "audience" CMs waved us over hurriedly and put us with a group that they were hustling down Main Street. We were positioned on the outside of the Hub, on the east side, near the little "hut" where castle show and various other "show controls" take place.
Once positioned, we saw people with papers in their hands, and heard others talking about the tickets. We were standing next to a Disney Cruise Line call center CM and her friend, and casually asked if they had special "audience" tickets. They did. Turned out, we probably weren't supposed to be where we were....but oh well. We weren't taking anyone's spot, because there was LOTS of empty space.
We hung out there until the flyover at 11:00, which we just barely got two photos of because it happened to suddenly and without much warning. But from 930-1100 it was quite boring. I think they were shooting some intros and dialogue down at Town Square, and I believe they were getting some steady-cam crowd face shots up and down Main Street, but no floats.
By 11:30, the sun had gotten the better of us and we were hungry. So, we got lunch as Cosmic Rays (which was empty), then hit a couple favorites around the park. We got stopped once at Splash Mountain where you cross to head toward Adventureland at the parade driveway. They were driving out floats to put them into a holding area before shooting them on Main Street.
It was very strange seeing all these floats driving out at high speed with no music, and the performers just sort of sitting on them and waving "normally" to the crowd. Nobody was in character. Even the costumed characters were just sort of lounging - almost like they were backstage (but everyone had their heads on, of course). I think this confused MANY of the guests around us, because we heard several say, "Oh, the parade is starting, get over here!" and were hoisting kids up on shoulders, gathering family, etc.
One old man got really upset and yelled at the CM's holding the ropes. I couldn't hear everything he was saying, but I think the gist of it was that he was upset with the quality of the parade and that they needed to fix the floats, and so on. A little amusing, but it also made me realize that Disney should do a FAR better job of cluing in day guests on the happenings that day. If we didn't know what was going on - just because, well, we're in tune with things - I can see where we would have been completely caught off guard by the roped off Main Street, fake parade, lack of area music, and huge production crews all over the place.
However, to anyone who has pondered attending these taping sessions, our advice is to go on Friday for the band and intro tapings. It's much faster paced, and actually kind of fun. Plus, since it's a pretty dead day for the MK, your odds of participating are very high, if you're into that.
But, parade day will be long and boring. They were staging the extras around main street for 3 hours before they even started taping floats. No bands. No talking at the hub. So, it can be a long day, especially if you get there at 7am for the first taping, then hang out until they start taping at noon. It's over and everything is packed up by 2:00.
As a side note, it was VERY strange leaving the MK at 2:00 (we were headed back to BLT for our 2:50 Magical Express pickup). They were running the gas powered vacuums all over main street, cleaning up the confetti, rolling tons of camera rigs, lights, cameras, dollies and gear boxes up main street, shooting international interviews in the hub yards, tearing down scaffolding...and to top it off, there was NO area music playing on, or around, Main Street. Probably the least magical "last view" of the MK I've ever had. But still a neat experience.
