News / Walt Disney Studios Park

They were first seen in 1994, in the legendary pre-show video for Walt Disney World’s Tower of Terror. Now, the five souls lost to the fifth dimension have made the same mistake in Paris. All hope is not lost, however, as the final sections of the attraction’s official website have opened to reveal a unique challenge to pluck them from The Twilight Zone. The prize: entry to a prize draw for park hopper tickets.

As revealed in our tour of the new website last week, several new rooms make use of some clever web-Imagineering to bring to life the rest of The Hollywood Tower Hotel. The parts of the hotel you’ve imagined or seen mentioned on the guides next to the elevators, but never seen for real. The five new areas are all found in the upper “floors” of the website, beginning with the Presidential Suite…

Beginning your adventure, a newspaper appears with the rules of the game and your objective. First: find the lost actress. The photos of the five missing souls can be seen in the top-left of the screen. They’re all played by new actors, not those in the attraction’s pre-show video or ghostly corridor scene, but great care has been taken to ensure they match those seen wandering the Walt Disney Studios Park hotel itself.

The bellhop makes an appearance in each new location. In the Presidential Suite, dressed in luxurious fabrics with a large bed and atmospheric lighting, he appears just briefly before lightning shoots through the windows and the room is thrown into darkness…

You’re left alone with the bellhop and a candle, which you then have to wave around the darkened room to find the translucent missing Actress.

Find her, and another newspaper pops up as her photograph comes to life in colour, the actress smiling at having been pulled from the fifth dimension. Click “next” on the newspaper and you’re taken straight to the next new location…

The “Makeover Room”, where the bellhop appears to spend much of his spare time. Well, how would he get those muscles pushing elevator buttons? You’re looking for the dashing Actor amongst the antique beauty equipment and exercise bikes here.

The next location is perhaps the most surprising. Who knew an underground railway ran right under The Hollywood Tower Hotel, with its own service elevator access? The ‘Basement‘, strangely located on the 8th floor, is where you’ll find the Housekeeper.

Look out for the passing trains, their designs in-keeping with the period, and the advertisements for the hotel along the platform. It’s worth noting that you get only 30 seconds — and one appearance — to click on each ghost and retrieve them from The Twilight Zone. Miss your chance, and the bellhop suffers. At the underground station, he’s taken up into a bright white light.

The most familiar view is the Central Corridor, which the camera quickly moves along, passing several bellhops and luggage trolleys along the way, as you search for the Little Girl.

Finally, the Games Room is similar to the hotel’s lobby, with ghosts appearing and reappearing at their tables to check their bingo numbers against those called by the bellhop. You can spot the five missing souls here…

…and even see the Housekeeper win a game!

Miss your chance to click on the final missing soul, the Former Bellboy, though, and the entire room — the entire website — collapses on one side, lights leaning to the left and furniture sliding to the side of the room! You’re then taken back to the Lobby, where you can revisit the room for another chance to complete the game.

Once you’re done, submit your details for a chance to win some free park tickets.

Taking visitors deeper into the environment than any Disney website beforehand, the completed site for Paris’ Twilight Zone Tower of Terror not only effectively advertises the thrills, atmosphere and themeing of the new attraction, but builds upon its world. Whilst there’s an obvious limit to how much can — and needs to — be constructed within the ride itself, taking the fictional hotel online has allowed Disneyland Resort Paris to take the concept further than ever before. Now, when guests step inside the real hotel at Walt Disney Studios, they’ll be remembering all of these locations — hidden away, high up in the Tower.

This is Imagineering for the 21st Century.

— www.disneytowerofterror.com

Sent out across Europe last week were some snazzy blue invitations for exclusive Annual Passport Dream previews at the new Walt Disney Studios Park attraction, allowing some of the resort’s biggest fans a chance to join in and interact with an animated Stitch with little queue on the weekends before he officially goes live.

Scans by Titash, Disney Central Plaza forum.

Featuring Stitch ripping aside some of the resort’s new trademark wrapping paper, decorated with Hawaiian flowers, the invitations announce “You are invited for a chaotic (Chaos-Stitch) live encounter”, with the attraction’s logo and more details on the reverse. This is the third time in the space of one year such an invitation has been sent out.

The scheduled times are:

Saturday 8th March — 13:45 to 18:45
Sunday 9th March — 13:45 to 18:45

Saturday 15th March — 13:45 to 18:45
Sunday 16th March — 13:45 to 18:45

Holders of the ‘Dream’ Passeport Annuel need only show up at the attraction with their pass to gain entry. One friend is allowed to join you, provided they’ve got a valid ticket to enter the park.

So, what can you expect from ‘Stitch Live’? Let’s a take a look at the some of the first reviews already appearing online from Cast Members who have attended the first unofficial previews — “unofficial” because their full previews are not due to begin until next week. These are taken mostly from Disney Central Plaza forum, translated from French.

Fabricologie takes us through the new attraction:

“Little has changed with the decoration compared with previous visits to the Disney Channel studios. Past the double-back queue, you find yourself in the first waiting area behind the walls of blue glass bricks. Then, the doors open and you enter the pre-show room. After a short speech from your host, you see a promotional video for Disney Channel (Hannah Montana, High School Musical 2, Kim Possible). Around 10 minutes of waiting like that before entering the studio itself.

“Children are invited to sit themselves on the floor at the front, along a carpet with a pattern of ocean waves, whilst the adults sit on metal benches in a circular arc. Stitch appears on the screen, and children watch it as if watching a DVD until the moment when he picks on someone sitting in the room and begins to interact with them — it’s very funny! Everyone can take. The sense of direction in the actor is essential in this attraction.

“It is a little too short to allow everyone to take part, of course, but there is the screen to watch. I spoke to Stitch myself and can see that it’s great fun.”

Kinoo highlights that these specific previews are designed to help the show “settle in” and improve, as he says:

“Obviously, you shouldn’t expect the same kind of effect as [the opening of] Tower of Terror. Stitch is good enough for me, to be honest I expected worse. The 3D of Stitch is in “cell shading” which remains faithful to the original 2D character. The show changes a lot depending on the actor who is “working with Stitch”, English definitely being better for the moment.

“The general story of the show is rather basic and interactivity with Stitch could be improved and extended, but in it’s current state I think children will just go crazy for it. I can’t wait to see the reaction of their parents.”

Dlrpmaniablog commented:

“I was also there with the first of the first and, well, it’s great. The English version I saw was very easy to understand! The games of light are fun and besides — for the premiere, it was quickly explained that an Imagineer who worked on the attraction was present and looking forward to seeing our reactions. Well… mission complete! Despite some childish jokes, it remained very engaging. In short, everyone was happy!

“Except… the pre-show, which spoke about everything on Disney Channel was a little grating/dull. OK, so we’re in their studio, but it could have been done a bit differently. Finally, the animation lacked a little fluidity from time to time. They noted the concern at the end and said it will hopefully be improved.”

Grandmath summarised:

“The initial reactions are excellent for the French shows. For the English, which attracts the English-speaking as well as Dutch, Spanish, etc. it is more difficult because not everyone will entirely understand Stitch when he speaks. That was the risk…

“Personally, I really like the show. I think I prefer Turtle Talk with Crush, but of course I will wait and see in the long run (however, I would not wait more than 20 minutes for it). The animation is really beautiful and the voice very well done, but there are some long periods without interaction where it becomes a little like a DVD and risks becoming boring in the future. But, I’ll wait and see — with plenty of guests, and when the actors are comfortable in their roles, it should become far more engaging!

“It’s nevertheless a wonderful technical achievement which finally makes it possible for children to interact in a realistic way — not with a giant plush toy, but the real character from the animated film.

“You can only find that at Disney!”

Extra Magic Hours, half board vouchers, more Disney characters… Just a few of the positive changes we’ve seen at Disneyland Resort Paris in recent years. Another, without doubt — better advertising, and not just in “our” world — inside the resort, too. Since June last year, new and future attractions have been promoted on giant billboards next to the resort hub, plus posters and banners along the moving walkway to the main car park, just as new attractions and entertainments have been for years along the parking lot tram route at Disneyland in California, and other resorts.

For new guests, these have provided the vital information that the new attractions are all located in the second gate, whilst on the “return journey”, they promise of things still to come — such as the latest addition, ‘Stitch Live!’.

These new banners replaced those for Crush’s Coaster and Cars Quatre Roues Rallye on 20th January 2008 as, for the fourth time in the space of 12 months, we see the words “Nouvelle Attraction” next to the Walt Disney Studios Park logo.

The advertisements take on a colour scheme of mainly reds and blues, with the same ‘Stitch Live!’ logo as the new attraction marquee overlapping from the banner in the same style as elements of the earlier Crush and Cars advertisements.

In the car park (or “parking lot”) itself, new posters have also now been installed in the display cases, a rare event for a new attraction until recent months.

These give a closer look at the new image of Stitch being used to explain the concept of the show, which is entirely new to Europe and may prove a little difficult to explain, even once the show has opened — is it a live show with characters? A meet ‘n’ greet?

Whilst from a distance it appears like Stitch is resting on some kind of alien landscape, a starry blue sky expanding above him, the “landscape” is actually made up entirely of human hands, carrying the little blue alien across the audience of the “living character” attraction.

Hard to do that with CGI on a giant screen, admittedly, but hopefully those hands will at least be used for great applause once Stitch makes his debut on 22nd March!

— With thanks to the 15th Anniversary Blog and WDSfans.com for the photos!

Living in the UK or France, it almost feels like Disneyland — and The Twilight Zone — are staging a full scale attack on the airwaves. Whilst the major national networks are premiering the brand new “Celebration Continues” commercial from this Monday, last Thursday, 21st February, saw the launch of an exciting campaign across British MTV channels and, earlier, the French M6.

For the first time ever, members of the public — and of course, Disney fans — will have the chance to create the new attraction’s TV advert themselves. This comes following the “leaked” video of a dog being mutated within The Hollywood Tower Hotel’s elevator and the initial launch of the official attraction website.

MTV channels in the UK began airing a special trailer for the competition last Thursday, featuring presenter Ricky Haywood-Williams wandering the halls of the hotel as he directs entrants toward www.tower-of-terror.co.uk. There are a grand total seven MTV-branded channels in the UK — MTV One, MTV Two, MTV Hits, MTV Base, MTV Dance, MTV R and MTV One+1.

Whilst the short commercials focus on the competition, they also mention to a wide audience all the key points: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Disneyland Resort Paris and Now Open, hopefully sparking interest in the new thrill attraction amongst the important youth audience.

Launched alongside these promos, the “fourth floor” of the official website now features either Ricky Haywood-Williams (for the UK) or Virginie Efira (for France) introducing the competition and its rules. Entrants must create their own home-made videos — featuring all of the required elements, such as the bellhop and elevator — to be uploaded via the website.

The 10 (or 5, depending on which source we believe) ‘best’ attempts will then be open to a public vote between 8th and 12th March to choose the winner, who will win a trip to Disneyland to ride the attraction and see a fully-professional version of their advert made before their eyes by Disney and MTV.

A similar competition to script a spoken radio advert is also available, in partnership with GCap’s One Network of no less than 38 local radio stations across the UK. Members on magicforum also report competitions to win a trip to ride Tower of Terror on the breakfast show of London’s Capital Radio, also owned by GCap.

The final, professionally-created commercials will be broadcast across MTV and the One Network stations from early April, ready for the attraction’s press launch weekend on 4th-6th April, which will include a belated official inauguration.

BrandRepublic, online news source for the advertising industry, brings us an article about the entire UK publicity campaign, which actually looks to be rather exciting — particularly if you live in London.

In a later stage of the campaign, timed to coincide with the opening of the attraction on April 5, Disney has booked a special installation at the Centrepoint billboard in London.

For four weeks from April 7, the billboard will be dressed to appear like the Hollywood Tower Hotel featured in the ride. An integral screen will show the distorted pictures of people previously generated by the website.

The billboard will be supported a nationwide campaign of six-sheet posters and interactive posters in ten key locations around London.

According to Federico Gonzalez, senior vice-president of marketing for Disneyland Resort Paris, the campaign is designed to appeal to 13- to 15-year-olds through media platforms they engage with.
Gonzalez said: “We are delighted to develop a marketing campaign to attract new, older children to Disneyland Resort Paris. Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is a white-knuckle ride and we wanted to create a fast-paced, fun marketing campaign to reflect this.”

So, rather than allow this major attraction to be overshadowed by the continuing 15th Anniversary promotions, it appears to be being given a generous publicity campaign of its very own. Something that, in the recent past, has been rare outside of France.

— Are you entering the MTV competition? Let us know on magicforum!

The original commercials for the 15th Anniversary Celebration saw a red carpet flying through neighbourhoods to bring children to Disneyland, passing by the new attractions and new parade along the way. As already seen in various promotional materials, the advertising campaign for “The Celebration Continues” year moves to wrapping paper and classic party decorations, with a brand new commercial produced especially for the event.

Reaching the end of the red carpet, Mickey Mouse stands again with the two children, looking along a Main Street, U.S.A. wrapped entirely in colourful wrapping paper and ribbons, Sleeping Beauty Castle wrapped in pink with a bow forming a “hidden mickey” above the “15″ emblem.

As Mickey Mouse stretches out a ribbon with a little pixie dust, children and characters run into Main Street, pulling giant ribbons and robes to unwrap all the buildings along the street.

We cut to a view from the castle for a spectacular shot of the children “unwrapping Main Street” as fireworks shoot into the sky. Finally, the pink wrapping and ribbons fly off Sleeping Beauty Castle, revealing its 15th Anniversary overlay.

Stepping through the Castle to a courtyard filled with characters old and new and Princesses atop a parade float, the two children set in motion the unwrapping of the most important presents of all — The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, in deep purple paper against a stormy sky, and Stitch Live! in green paper, which sees growls exchanged between Stitch to the younger boy.

We’re reminded of the ongoing Kids Under 7 Stay & Play FREE offer before the camera zooms out of a final scene to reveal the Disney VIPs and Pixar characters dancing under the illuminated “Candleabration” castle, a beautiful twilight sky glowing above them.

The Pixar characters, such as Sulley, Mr. Incredible and Buzz Lightyear, feature heavily throughout — Paris’ very own Rémy can even be spotted hiding in the final shot.

The commercial launched on major UK television networks today, and should make its way, in translated form, to other countries very soon.

Bearing similarities in style to both the previous red carpet commercials and the current “Year of a Million Dreams” advertisements for Walt Disney World which play in the UK and US, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise to hear that they were all produced by the same people — over at Walt Disney World in Florida! This will perhaps explain the use of Florida’s Tower of Terror and a Princess parade float from across the Atlantic, rather than those in Paris.

Well, what a great little present from the creative teams of Walt Disney World! We’re getting out some DLRP Today stationary to write a thank you letter already…

Visitors can access the official website of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror through several different addresses, such as www.towerofterror.co.uk, www.tower-of-terror.co.uk, www.tourdelaterreur.fr or www.tour-de-la-terreur.fr, which all redirect through to the site’s actual location — www.disneytowerofterror.com.

The website opens with an aged, 1939 newspaper front page as the language select screen. Versions are already available for France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain, quite an array compared to past website launches. Named the “Tribune of Terror”, the newspaper’s clever strapline reads “However scary the story, we never let it drop”.

Choose your country and the text on the newspaper immediately changes to the relevant language, with a headline reading “5 People mysteriously vanish from the Hollywood Tower”. Either side, you can see more analysis such as “A new theory on the mystery” along with a story about the premiere of The Wizard of Oz, also in 1939.

The newspaper then morphs into a modern-day 2008 edition, with “The Hollywood Tower Hotel re-opens for business” as its headline. In the masthead, spot an advertisement for “Hotel management school” and a picture of the first Tower of Terror, at Walt Disney World, with the words “Introduction to free fall”. Other headlines on the front page continue their coverage — “Relatives of those who vanished are reunited”, “Retrospective: exhibition of furniture and objects”, “Interview with Burt Umble [spot the pun?], the new owner”.

The animation doesn’t give you too long to read these headlines, however. The page zooms into the lead image — a bleak view of the hotel through twisted gates, taking you through the overgrown gardens and through the entrance doors as lightning cracks overhead. Inside the Lobby, the camera rests on the homepage of the entire site, with the first appearance by our friendly bellhop:

The website is introduced by the bellhop, with various items around the lobby now leading to different floors. Leave the page to run, however, and you’ll see several more clever special effects. Lightning hitting the mirror, the chalkboard turning into a view from the dropping elevator cars, or maybe a ghostly bellhop…

He’s not the only translucent habitant within the website. A little later, you’ll see a happy couple remarkably similar to that in the attraction’s actual pre-show video, shot more than 14 years ago. The elevator doors in the distance glow green as shrieks and screams echo through the halls from a falling elevator. Finally, the child movie star and her mother — also from the pre-show video — appear to check-in. The girl even still has hold of her doll!

Let’s hop into the elevator and ride to our first location. As you travel, scenes blur past the screen. Look closely and you might even spot a few false teeth lost in the Twilight Zone!

The second floor is home to the Library (since the website doesn’t follow the “real” layout of the hotel exactly), where a very polished preview video clip appears on screen via the old-fashioned television.

Click ‘Switch Off’, and you see the full library, lit by elegant Tiffany lamps, with the bellhop picking a book up from the floor.

Despite this area being described as “Discover the Tower of Terror”, there isn’t a great deal of information given, or much of an introduction of what actually happens during the ride. Instead, you’re offered just a few pages from the bellhop’s book to build your own thoughts about the Tower. It even features two pieces of real Walt Disney Imagineering concept art, which we’ve featured in the past.

Up on the third floor, a scene from the attraction’s boiler room is used to promote some Jaw-dropping offers.

The offers pop up with a background of the Tower and Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant. The font/typeface used throughout the website is particularly well tied with the theme.

The fourth floor is home to the Terror Movie Theatre, one of the website’s most important features. Here, you’ll see MTV presenter Ricky Haywood-Williams in the UK version and famous M6 presenter Virginie Efira for the French version. Following the presenter’s introduction, a movie reel is projected on the screen continuing their explanation of this unique competition, allowing the public to dream up their own commercial for the attraction. (Look out for more on this soon!)

The bellhop won’t take us any higher at the moment, so we take a sudden drop into the Basement, where the second key feature of the website is located. In a boarding hall similar to that in the real attraction, a door opens to invite us to step aboard and experience what’s known as “The Tower of Terror Effect”. What’s that? It’s different for everyone, apparently. It’s whatever happens to you when you take that gravity-defying plunge and momentarily slip into the Twilight Zone.

For the website at least, though, it’s just a fun picture manipulation game, introduced with a special logo across the elevator doors…

When the doors open onto the darkness of the elevator shaft, you’re invited to upload a photo of yourself… or at least someone you’re familiar with. Let’s choose this one…

Position the photo and pick your chosen manipulation effect. Enter a headline and some text, and your friend will soon receive, via email, a customised Tribune of Terror with your frightening “Tower of Terror Efffect” photograph splashed across the front page…

Using the latest Flash technology, not to mention a great deal of care and attention toward the attraction’s theme and story, the website builds once more on the successes of past mini-sites such as Space Mountain: Mountain 2 and the 15th Anniversary, put together by the same external firm.

With their ideas such as video characters interacting with environments now perfected, here is the most impressive website for a Disney attraction anywhere in the world.

But, as you’ll no doubt notice, the online Tower of Terror world is far from complete yet. A noticeboard in the lobby advertises a Guided Tour with such future thrills as a Games Room, Makeover Room and Presidential Suite. Originally advertised for 25th February, the launch date has now changed to 3rd March 2008. With equally beautiful, brand new “sets” and locations built especially for the website, these new areas will add a whole new dimension to The Hollywood Tower Hotel, it’s history and legend.

Wait, did you misread that? Not quite a “virus”, but what’s known as a “viral”…

This is actually the very first time Disneyland Resort Paris has used the new — and, occasionally, very effective — method of online video sharing to advertise their resort in Marne-la-Vallée. Create a video with a bizarre or interesting enough “hook”, that just happens to feature your product, and there’s a chance it’ll be passed from person-to-person across the internet. No need to pay a television company for airtime, or websites for advertising space. Just upload the video, and let the viral spread… Readers in the UK will already know of the famous and incredibly successful “Cadbury Gorilla” viral advert, featuring a gorilla playing the drums to a Phil Collins song, with nothing but a purple background to link the advert to the chocolate maker.

Disney’s Hollywood hot-dog video was first posted, without explanation, on the official 15th Anniversary blog. Clicking “play”, you’d be forgiven for thinking host Tristane was just showing us some nighttime CCTV images from around Disneyland Park, filmed during this past Christmas season. The lights are still twinkling, but not a soul is around…

Suddenly, something runs across the frame… a wild dog! Do they really roam the park at night?! How strange…

Next, we’re on a glittering, illuminated Hollywood Boulevard. The dogs runs across from Toon Studio towards… yes! We can see where this is going now…

The Hollywood Tower Hotel. In their preparations for the public opening, it looks like the bellhops were more than happy to test the service elevator with un petit chien…

Emerging, a few faster-than-gravity drops later, as a stretched-out sausage dog. Maybe this is why the parks’ hot dogs are so expensive?

Rather than television advertising, the marketing directors are, for the first time, trying to directly capture some the elusive, younger “iPod generation”. Or in this case, rather, the “YouTube generation”. After all, it’s the young thrill-seekers to whom The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror should appeal most. Their word-of-mouth amongst friends, video sharing and parental persuasion to visit, hopefully, the pay off.

How is it doing so far? The original video displayed here has been seen 5,164 times on the Paris-based Dailymotion, most popular for video sharing in France, whilst a fan’s re-post of it on YouTube has gained just 1,397 views. Most impressive, however, is this duplicate posting of the video back on Dailymotion, currently standing at a very impressive 74,327 views!

As well as an inventive teaser for the new attraction, the viral video aims to give a little inspiration for a unique new competition recently launched across several of the resort’s international markets, allowing visitors to the attraction’s official website to imagineer their own teaser which will then, crucially, make the reverse-leap from the internet to television.

Here’s the official DLRP Today idea — show a gorilla (preferably the Cadbury “gorilla”, or a close relative) wandering the parks and climbing aboard the service elevator. When it drops into the Fourth Dimension and the doors open, none other than Phil Collins steps out into the boiler room. He’s got a soft spot for the resort, after all.

No, we don’t expect to win.

So you presumed that, just because The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is already operating at two other Disney resorts and looks rather like the one in California, we’d be seeing all the same old publicity photos to advertise the Parisian version? Yes, so did we. Not even the brilliantly remastered key visual seemed to make it any less likely.

As it happens, we couldn’t have been more wrong. Just a few weeks after we brought you those clever publicity shots of Mickey and Minnie’s first trip to their new, nearby Hollywood, Disneyland Resort Paris has released another series of far more sinister images. There are screaming on-ride photos, atmospheric lobby scenes and, first things first, spectacular establishing shots…

Moonlight breaks through the rolling clouds above The Hollywood Tower Hotel, bathed in purple lights, as an antique motorcar pulls up the drive with another set of willing victi— err, “guests”. Such high regard for the theme and period of the attraction is exciting to see — a CGI motorcar? Maybe one day Walt Disney Studios will have ambitions for its own, real Hollywood vehicles.

Inside, we’re introduced to the starring family, famous reception bell in the foreground. They’ve clearly been practising their “concerned/intrigued” facial expressions very well…

Whilst, on the other side of the reception desk, we’re introduced to a wonderfully sadistic-looking bellhop. This photo in particular is sure to see a great deal of use, with such atmospheric lighting and well-positioned actors. The deeper red of the bellhop costume, compared to the magenta of their American cousins, lends the entire attraction a darker feel from the outset.

The family edge nearer to the service elevator doors as a ray of smoky white light slices through the scene.

Not only atmospheric and good to look at, the photos also do very well setting up the story and explaining to first-timers the sequence of events inside the Tower, such as the fateful steps through the elevator doors…

Again well-lit with perfectly positioned actors, from a very unique and effective angle.

They’ve remembered the classics, too — several “on-board” photos are included in the set, featuring the family and other guests screaming at the elevator drop, as the bellhop nonchalantly sits beside them.

It might appear that Disneyland Resort Paris have been late to begin advertising the attraction, with holding it back until an April 2008 press launch, but these past months have clearly been well-spent preparing an excellent campaign — and these images, they’re just a drop in the ocean…

— All photos © Disney.