Originally Posted By DBitz2 I'm surprised that no one has mentioned anything here about the filming at Disneyland for this year's WDW Christmas Day Parade special. So, I'll provide a brief accounting. They filmed much of the day on December 10th. First thing in the morning, at a lovely stage setup in front of the Castle, they filmed Josh Groban singing Silent Night. Later, most of the cast from the High School Musical movies did a number on the stage. I didn't watch that, but, CM's said Zac Efron didn't participate. About 12:30 or so, they began filming the parade segments. This year they had a stage at Christmas tree point for Ryan Seacrest and they filmed the parade coming down Main Street towards Ryan. It was a bit out of the order of normal performances and not all of the floats or units were used. It looked like Woody and Buzz had new toy block floats that they were riding on. A highlight was Tinkerbell ice skating on the ice rink float! They inserted the Ratatouille pre-parade unit that has been preceeding POD's lately and a couple of units from POD's. Goofy was riding on the Santa float, and though I didn't see it from my vantage point, it has been reported that it was one of the articulated characters and his mouth moved as he talked with Ryan. The parade taping took about 2 1/2 hours. A CM stationed at the Castle told me that there would be more taping in the Park (all night, she said), but, it looked to me like everything was being struck, so I left, as the Park was very crowded. It may be that they shot some footage of the Castle snow lighting effects after the Park closed. Ive seen info that there may be some more filming on Sunday, 18th. A certain popular young star, possibly. Ryan also said something about a Dancing with the Stars performance coming up later in the broadcast in one of his commercial throws, so possibly that will be done in CA. Hopefully, they'll include some DL teaser or behind the scenes spots in the special. It's nice that they're including DL again. For awhile, they focused only on WDW.
Originally Posted By NJ AP November 10th. We were there last weekend, too, as it was the last day of our trip. It was not as crowded as feared, but after a nice quiet week at DL, there were suddenly people all over the place. Taping was a slow process -- as always. I enjoyed seeing Tink ice skate. The neat thing is we were able to see back stage.
Originally Posted By One4Disney My dh works in lighting sets. He was called last week to work at DL. Unfortunately, he was already booked with another job on those days . I wonder if it had anything to do with this?
Originally Posted By Mr F I was Emile in the Ratatoullie Unit for the Filming. The filming was going fine at first until my chin fur came undone and fell down and was flaping around as I heavily Animated (Since this would be my first ever TV Appearance, I though I should be a GREAT job!). Anyways, you could see my REAL chin the whole time, which I did not realize. That was not the only problem, the zipper came undone on the front of Remy and by the end of the route you could see the padding hanging out under the fur and the chest of the girl who was playing him. This was a shame too since they took a lot of close-up shots of us. Since this incident happend, I would be suprised if the Rats end up in the final cut since I don't think Disney would spend the money to digitaly hide my chin! All the Ratatoullie dancers were mad at me since they will probally not get to be on TV now, but oh well, there's always next year!
Originally Posted By NJ AP Mr. F -- I was at the end of the parade route. None of that was noticable to me. I enjoyed watching your float go by. Look forward to seeing "your" movie one of these days.
Originally Posted By DBitz2 Sorry for the typo, yes, I meant November 10th. Christmas is coming fast enough as it is without jumping ahead! And, they did tape Miley Cyrus on Sunday.
Originally Posted By Mr Toad of Toad Hall Our company was hired to provide the video scenic elements for the Miley Cyrus performance on Sunday 11/18. I always like it when I get a chance to work in the park. It was fun to see and chat with some of the cast members who are only used to seeing me as an AP holder and did a double take when I was there working. We had a fun time and the DL folks were once again a pleasure to work with. And for any who thought the video towers were an ugly blight in front of the castle for that day, please don't hate me for it. We were only doing what was requested of us. I have already heard from a couple of friends who hated that the castle was partly obscured by the towers. One of the oddest parts was that we were allowed to tear the entire stage down in mid afternoon Sunday, using a forklift and then pushing a lot of large pieces thru the crowd towards the Inn Between (behind Plaza Inn). We were escorted by a lot of extra "Stores" CMs who were around that day for crowd safety and control, but the whole thing was a little surreal. Apparently Marketing gets away with doing a lot of things that Entertainment would never ever be allowed to do. I felt a little guilty because we were definitely guilty of some "bad show". Oh well!
