From 10 January, Disney Tales of Magic will bring the magic of Disney stories and illuminate not only Sleeping Beauty Castle but also – for the first time ever in Disneyland Paris – Main Street, U.S.A. To pull off this technological feat, the destination’s teams combined excellence and creativity to bring together state-of-the-art projections, lasers, pyrotechnics, fountains and drones in ways never seen before.
But Disney Tales of Magic is also a story of passion and emotion, shared with us by the show’s Creative Director Tim Lutkin and Morgane Keesling, Senior Manager, Creative Development.
Tim Lutkin: I’ve actually had a lot of experience of shows in general. Back in high school, I used to put on plays with friends. We built the sets together and I directed the cast. Later, when I studied lighting design, I realised how important it is to know all the trades involved in creating a show. I’ve been doing this for years on productions like Life of Pi and Back to the Future: The Musical on Broadway and in London. So, when Dana Harrel, Executive Director of Entertainment at Disneyland Paris, asked me to come up with a concept for Disney Tales of Magic, I felt both honoured and totally comfortable coming up with an idea that would involve all the different trades involved in a night-time show of this size.
Morgane Keesling: I’m originally from California, but I grew up between France and the United States because part of my family lives here. That’s how I discovered Disneyland Paris before Disneyland Resort! One of my earliest memories is of Sleeping Beauty Castle decorated in carnival masks, jester hats, frills and bells, inspired by The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, for the park’s 5th anniversary. I said to myself that creating things like this must be the best job in the world! My first experience at Disney was in 2015 as an illustrator because I was able to draw in the style of the artists who worked on the first great classics. Then things evolved and I became interested in attraction design, media design, mapping and Audio-Animatronics. I love collaborating with other creatives and coming up with incredible things for families to enjoy. Disneyland Paris was always my dream, but it seemed a long way off. And then, when I saw that a position was available, I said to myself, like Tiana, ‘Fairy tales can come true.’ That’s how I joined Disneyland Paris last January, and how I met Tim.
MK: Tim was one of the first people I met when I arrived here. We’re both crazy about Disney and that immediately brought us together. He shared his vision of the show with me, and I was thrilled. We talked about the different directions we could explore, the artistic choices, the visual styles… and that’s how I became involved in the project, through the artistic conversations we had together, and how I was able to take part in the different stages of the project, from rehearsals to the recording of the music. I’ve added my own vision, but above all I have to pay tribute to Tim for coming up with this incredible story, which brings together Sleeping Beauty Castle and Main Street, U.S.A. for the first time at Disneyland Paris.
TL: When I was asked to create a new night-time show for Disneyland Paris, I thought a lot about the story I could tell and the characters we could evoke to create a narrative arc that was both poignant and coherent. Our show takes place in Disneyland Park, and we had to respect its specific identity. I wanted the show to exude a warm, authentic feeling to round off a day that was already rich in emotion.
I thought I should start with something delicate and then build up to a crescendo. So, I set out to find out what the word ‘magic’ means for Disney today. When Mickey made his cartoon debut, the focus was more on comedy, humour and his relationship with Minnie. Then, when Walt started making animated features like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, the magic became a reality. Disney became synonymous with magic, and each new feature film was like a chance to reconnect with that magic. And that’s the story I wanted to tell and share with our guests.
TL: The prologue to Disney Tales of Magic is a tribute to the visual magic that Walt Disney brought to the cinema and into our homes with Pinocchio (1940), Cinderella (1950) and finally Mary Poppins in 1964.
Then, from the late 1980s onwards, magic became a feeling. As we explain in the show, magic can be born from a fairy wand, a star or a phrase like ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’, but it’s not just something you see with your eyes. Sometimes it comes from what we feel inside. In 1989, Ariel began to sing about her hopes and dreams, and it is this feeling that drives her to follow her own path. The same was true for Quasimodo and Mulan, and that’s what I wanted to convey – the feeling of magic that emanates from the adventures these characters go on to fulfil their destiny.
TL: It’s the magic of friendship, the one that unites him with Lilo, and it’s also the heart of the Toy Story universe, as shown in the scene that follows. It’s a lighter moment, both funny and spectacular, especially with the epic battle between Zurg and Buzz, accompanied by the Aliens. All the animation on the Castle has been created especially for our show, and I’m very proud that Tim Allen, the original voice of Buzz, agreed to record the new dialogue for our Space Ranger.
TL: Exactly, with WALL-E and EVE. After Buzz, we’re still in space, but our feelings are taken to a new level. For me, WALL-E has something reminiscent of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz: he’s a little robot who finds a heart when he falls in love. The scene also pays tribute to other iconic Disney couples, such as Beauty and the Beast and Carl and Ellie in Up.
TL: Yes, it really does. A huge red curtain covers the Castle before revealing an ofrenda, taken from the Pixar animated film “Coco”, with candles and photos of people who have died. It’s a very peaceful moment. Our message is that there is also magic in remembering those who are no longer with us, when we recall the happy moments we shared with them. So, we pass from love to the memory of love. It’s not necessarily a happy moment, but it’s magical all the same, leading up to the scene in which Rafiki makes Simba realise that his father still lives inside him, to the tune of ‘He Lives in You’.
TL: You’re right to say that this may seem surprising. The Castle turns green, and we hear South American dance music. But the reason Bruno enters our story is to evoke one of the most important feelings of magic, the feeling of belonging to a family, whatever form it takes. That’s what made Bruno the ideal character to conclude our journey, before the grand finale.
I imagined this story line on a flight to New York. I was on the plane, and I thought about what Disney magic was all about. I put all these ideas on my voice recorder and sent them to Dana. She immediately replied: ‘Write it all down!’ and I spent the next few days writing up the story behind the show.
TL: I’m very grateful to Roger Gould, who is the link between the Disney Parks and the animation studios, for allowing us to use so many characters and say such important things through them. There are more characters than in Wondrous Journeys at Disneyland Resort, which previously held the record for the most characters in a night-time show. And all these characters end up on the façades of Main Street, U.S.A. It’s stunning!
TL: It was an exciting stage in the creation of the show, especially for animation enthusiasts like Morgane and me. Part of the process involved extracting certain characters from the original films. For stories like Encanto or Toy Story 4, it was very easy because the technology used to produce them made it possible almost automatically. However, for the films made before 2015, it was more complicated. This technique is called rotoscoping. Morgane and I put a lot of thought into finding the ideal moments in the films and crafting a visual narrative around them to fit as naturally as possible into this new context.
In fact, there are many original elements in our show, including some of the characters. We’re very proud to have two of them fully animated for the occasion. They are the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio and the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella. Over 300 drawings were produced on paper, as was customary at the time, before being digitised and then painted on a computer.
The Blue Fairy is as elegant as a ballerina. In the prologue, she performs a beautiful movement with her wand, which she sends to the top of the Castle. Then the Fairy Godmother catches the wand before turning back to the audience. For me, this move is part and parcel of her effervescent personality, and I wanted to bring that out in the animation. I came up with this idea during a trip to Hong Kong. I filmed myself in my hotel room doing these movements using a pencil as a wand. This recording was sent to the animators, and once the animation had been produced, we watched it with the team – who I’d never even met before. The funniest thing was that they didn’t realise I was the original model until after we’d finished watching!
TL: For me, one of the best musicals is Fiddler on the Roof. When they developed it, they didn’t have the big ‘Tradition’ prologue in which they explain who’s who. It was only later that they added this iconic piece. So, when I was writing the prologue to Disney Tales of Magic, I asked myself how I could grab the audience’s attention right from the start. That’s why I wanted a silent opening, with Geppetto walking through Sleeping Beauty Castle with his lantern, using an approach to light directly inspired by the animation. But to bring Pinocchio, Cinderella and Mary Poppins together in a coherent, unified picture, I knew I needed an original musical number. It had to start delicately and explain in just a few words where our story was going.
To do this, I wrote a one-page document that we sent to 6 songwriters to guide and inspire them. They weren’t lyrics, just themes, words, ideas of what the song should convey and what it should express in terms of emotions. We received some very ‘Disney’ responses, in the classic sense of the word, and then we discovered this song, ‘Live in Magic’, written by Noémie Legrand, with this delightful female voice accompanied by a simple acoustic guitar. She said simple things about magic, but they were so essential, like the fact that it touches us all and can be found everywhere: ‘Find it in the young and the old, find it where the story’s told’. It said it all and provided a clear framework for our prologue. In the show, the song begins gently, then transforms into a sort of anthem for Cinderella, before returning at the end with a full orchestra and lots of rhythm and energy.
There are other musical elements that were particularly important to me for this show. Belle and Quasimodo already sing in French, and I wanted to use the characters’ original voices to record these new arrangements of their songs. And more generally, for the Beauty and the Beast sequence, I asked that the music be inspired by that of Drawn to Life, a magnificent show produced jointly by Disney and Cirque du Soleil in Florida.
TL: I called him DJ Fab. I wanted to pay tribute to a friend of mine who passed away a few weeks ago, Adam Fabulous, who was a DJ and also a big fan of the Disney parks. I’m very grateful to Dana and Roger for allowing me to make this very personal little reference, which fits in perfectly with the spirit of this show.
TL: That’s an important question. Main Street, U.S.A. offers a number of possibilities. The street can be an extension of what is happening on the Castle, using its colours and textures, or it can be a completely independent environment, with its own immersion, or it can be an extension of an effect initiated on the Castle. Whatever the case, it was always my intention that Main Street, U.S.A. should have a life of its own.
For example, the first time the magic takes hold of Main Street, U.S.A., the imagery is completely different from that of the Castle. The Fairy Godmother points to the street, which is transformed into a ballroom for Cinderella and the Prince. The soundtrack is also completely different from that of the Castle. Guests at the ball can be heard celebrating, applauding and toasting with their champagne flutes.
In the painting dedicated to Mary Poppins, we see Big Ben on top of the Castle and Mary flying above. That’s when Main Street is transformed into a London street, with the windows switching on and off in a magical light show. And when rose petals fall on the Castle, there’s also a lovely transition to Main Street, whose rooftops are in turn covered in petals. It’s a very poignant moment.
I’d also like to mention the Toy Story segment, which is made up of three different and complementary scenes: Zurg’s lair at the Castle, the battle itself, with coloured lasers above Central Plaza, and Buzz’s space base on Main Street, U.S.A. It’s a moment I love because the colours in the street are particularly bright and vibrant. Our projections are four times brighter than what we are used to seeing. The transformation is spectacular!
MK: I’d say the ‘He Lives in You’ segment. It’s a song that has a special resonance for both Tim and me. It’s already a nod to Tim’s experience in the world of musical theatre. But it’s also a song that means a lot to me. There are lots of different interpretations, and I always get goose bumps when I hear them. That said, I think our version in the show is really unique. It’s about talking about the loss of a loved one, but in a positive way. There’s a message there that makes this moment very special.
I’m also particularly fond of the Blue Fairy segment. You should know that when Tim and I discovered that we were both huge Disney fans, he came to my office with a present: a lovely sculpture of the Blue Fairy that I treasure. It’s the first thing I see when I arrive at work and for me, having taught animation in the United States, it’s something very important, it symbolises Walt Disney’s entire art form. In Disney Tales of Magic, the Blue Fairy opens and closes the show. She welcomes the audience and bids them good night at the end. So, I have a very personal connection to this character and every time I see her in the show, it takes me back to my own story.
TL: The Blue Fairy’s part is a moment in which we can enjoy all kinds of physical effects linked to magic, but the real magic is that she allows Geppetto to become a father. It’s his dearest wish. Of course, there’s the spectacular side, which is dazzling, but there’s also everything that lies behind the effects, which is very important.
TL: For me, the characters in the show are like actors on a Broadway stage, and our Broadway stage is Sleeping Beauty Castle. I love the idea of seeing all the artists again at the end of a musical. It’s a way of paying tribute to them and highlighting the show’s message with them – to embrace life and all those precious moments of friendship, love, memories of loved ones and belonging. And that’s what magic is all about!
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