Originally Posted By Doobie This topic is for Discussion of <a href="http://www.LaughingPlace.com/Lotion-View.asp?ID=357" target="_blank">LP Lotion: LP Lotion: Animated Peforming Characters at WDW</a>
Originally Posted By Doobie I first saw this at Mickey's Magic Show at Disney-MGM Studios a few months ago. I thought it was amazing at the time, but it's even better now. I don't know if it's the show or it's been improved or what, but I've always had a problem watching masked character-based shows for exactly this reason and the difference is night and day. This is a truly wonderful innovation. Doobie.
Originally Posted By MinnieSummer I agree it's a wonderful advancement but -- how am I and every other parent going to explain to our little ones that Minnie can only move her mouth or blink her eyes when she is on stage and not when we greet her in Toon Town or wherever? Potentially a disaster. If I didn't have a daughter who lives and breathes Minnie I would think it was wonderful.
Originally Posted By Doobie Minnie doesn't talk in Toontown, so that's why she doesn't move her mouth. Now why she doesn't - I don't know. I agree, that's the biggest down side, but I think the upside is well worth it. Doobie.
Originally Posted By LPFan22 I can see the ups and downs to this but overall I think it's a wonderful change in bringing the characters to life during these kind of shows. Very cool!
Originally Posted By jasmine7 That is amazing! And I love the face Captain Hook & Smee instead of the rubber headed ones.
Originally Posted By NikkiLOVESMickey Hook and Smee definitely look different. I'm not sure how I feel about those two yet.
Originally Posted By dixielandings watch their thumb and finger on the right hand you can see how the mouth is being controled
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 Oh, so the mouths are user controlled? Interesting...and another thing for the CM's to have to work out. I have to say though, that this is a big improvement on stage shows. It's much, much easier to suspend disbelief now that it's not just rubberheads bobbing their heads to speak. This really does have a big impact on enjoyment of the show. I do agree that it might cause problems when kids are greeting their favorite characters and wonder why they can't talk now.
Originally Posted By Doobie I don't know for certain, but I've heard the movements are pre-programmed. They're not controlled live. Doobie.
Originally Posted By Dlmusic The masks are pre-programmed from what I understand so it's not live puppetry. It's rather like wearing an animatronic on your head. Personally I think that the characters should be able to blink randomly as they walk the park. The fact that they don't talk is no more strange than it was before when they didn't talk. I think the fact the characters don't talk has always been a necessary evil. On the one hand they can't very well hire impersonators (at least not with the salary characters get), on the other though it does make it really hard for children to buy the characters are real. At least for me, while I went along with it to the point of not really thinking about it one way or another, the characters never seemed that real to me because they couldn't talk. By contrast, I thought that K.I.T at Universal Studios was the coolest thing ever (not that I'm a big fan of K.I.T in general just the fact he could talk). I would hope that eventually they will use this technology to have Mickey carry on a conversation with guests. For the most part he would only need yes reponses, no responses, lots of greetings and exits and a few specialized comments (happy birthday, anniversary, red shirt, blue shirt, so on and so forth). A few hours in the recording booth for each character would provide plenty of material. The only thing that would be a problem is that there is no way they could control all that audio inside the suit. There would have to be an extra assistant for each character. So logistically with today's technology it could be possible, but the likelihood of Disney wanting to A) pay for the extra labor B) pay for all the new masks C) pay for actors to come in for recording sessions is unlikely. Which is somewhat of a shame because I think it would make a bigger impact on the daily guest than almost any attraction. From what I've heard Turtle Talk with Crush gets some of the best exit surveys and I think it's because they got to talk to a real character.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj << So logistically with today's technology it could be possible, but the likelihood of Disney wanting to A) pay for the extra labor B) pay for all the new masks C) pay for actors to come in for recording sessions is unlikely. >> Why is it unlikely? Sure, it's unlikely that Disney would roll out an expensive technology like this across all of their walk-around characters simultaneously -- that would not be a smart financial decision. It only makes sense that they would roll this out in phases. Right now, it's with a stage show. There's no reason to believe that Disney wouldn't attempt this technology in some sort of version with the walk around characters at some point. If the company is so cheap, why would they even have invested in these improvements at all? In fact, why bother to even have a stage show -- guest surveys will show that nobody buys a WDW ticket for a castle stage show. Why are they wasting their money here when they could just be cheap and skip the show altogether? The continued faulty logic about Disney being too "cheap" to do one thing or another is ridiculous. The company spends billions of dollars a year on improvements like these new articulated characters. And now we're complaining that the company is "cheap" because they didn't roll out the technology to every single character in the park simultaneously? What kind of logic is that? I honestly don't know why some people even attempt to be enthusiasts for Disney parks when every discussion turns into some irrational notion about negative feelings toward Disney parks and how they are operated.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I think the talking heads are cool. Really adds to the show nicely. I mentioned this in another thread, but I would imagine if you cut the music and soundtrack to that show in front of the castle, you'd hear the mechanics of the masks working and clanking and so forth. That's going to be the toughest thing to bring the 'talking heads' off the stage and into the more intimate one-on-one experience. If you've ever been in 'It's a small world' or 'Pirates' or 'Haunted Mansion' when the ride stops and the soundtrack gets cut out -- it's amazing how noisy the audio-animatronic machinery is.
Originally Posted By DlandDug Back in the Disney Decade, when the Muppets were first brought into the fold, the life sized performing characters of Kermit and Miss Piggy had articulated faces. There was some fuss when they made joint appearances with Mickey and Minnie. Seems the mice looked like poor botoxed cousins next to the smiling Henson creations...
Originally Posted By Dlmusic <<And now we're complaining that the company is "cheap" because they didn't roll out the technology to every single character in the park simultaneously? What kind of logic is that? I honestly don't know why some people even attempt to be enthusiasts for Disney parks when every discussion turns into some irrational notion about negative feelings toward Disney parks and how they are operated.>> I'm sorry you got the impression I was accusing Disney of being cheap. In fact I was trying to point out all the factors that would go into making walk around characters do meet-in-greets a reality. I don't think Disney would justify the budgets now, which I may or may not disagree with depending on what attractions they would greenlight. That doesn't mean that I think Disney is "cheap."
Originally Posted By dixielandings after watching the video a couple of more times they have put a lot of effort into hiding their right hand and especially goofy you can see the finger and thumb touching together in time with the mouth movements I cant see yet how their controlling the eyes
Originally Posted By Nobody Thanks to dixielandings, I couldn't stop looking at the hands. I was mesmerised. It was like they were doing their own little hand-puppet show, with invisible puppets. If they are just simple on/off contact switches, perhaps they could just rig some mouth-pieces to do the same thing from inside the costume. Since these shows all use pre-recorded vocal tracks, I would think the ideal situation would be to have a wireless setup that triggered the actions based on the audio. Just a thought. Other than that, I think this is a big improvement for shows like this. Mickey in Fantasmic! would be a good application as well. (I hope to see this implemented at Disneyland.)
Originally Posted By jomach08 First off, I think they look awesome. About the controls, to me it would make more sense for it to be pre-programmed. For one, it would require less of the performers. Also, it would produce perfectly synced mouth movements and audio. I can't wait until they roll these out more places(ie. Fantasmic, although he doesn't do much talking, but still eye movements would be cool).
