DLP New Generation Festival Grand Opening

It was the New Generation Festival Grand Opening yesterday, with lot of VIP guests and press people and DLP marketing dept had the difficult mission to "sell" a new season with the main new attraction not opening before mid-August.

The high season is beginning early April and until the opening of Toy Story Playland the park's visitors will have only a new show on Central Plaza, a new Ratatouille car in the WDS parade and a new Princess with her prince on the Princess float of the DL parade. I forget a happening at the WDS Monsters Inc photo location, but even with that it's not a lot of new stuff.

We begin the tour by the WDS and the new car in the Stars and Cars parade. The front lot of the park have now New Generation banners, including the main shop at the entrance.



WDS guests can of course see the New Generation characters in the Stars and Cars parade, but also some from the old generation as you'll see in these next shots.







Then arrived the new Ratatouille car with Remy and Emile characters on it.







As usual with this parade all the cars went to the Production Courtyard rotunda where a little show happen during ten minutes. But this time there was a new part dedicated to Ratatouille with dancers dressed as cooks, etc...









Then the cars went back to the entrance/exit...



...but two cars turned on Hollywood Boulevard for a special photo-shoot with the Toy Story car...



...and of course the new Ratatouille car.





It was a good idea as it gave us the opportunity to have some close shots of the cars, with the driver but without the characters.













We went then to the Disneyland Park where a special meeting was organised for the web masters of DLP fans websites and Philippe Gas, DLP CEO, was there and very kindly answered to all questions. After a series of questions about the park's food Philippe answered other questions about merchandise and how the park could create special collectibles for the fans. It seems that the park is aware of the need and is working to deliver merchandise products for the fans which is indeed a good idea.

On Main Street, facades of two shops - Town Square Photography and Disney Clothiers - are under refurbishment and the park had the good idea to "print" a real size picture of each facade on a canvas instead of having the opaque white fabric they put usually during these kind of works. They did it last year on the Emporium and the effect is more esthetic and pretty cool as you can see on the pictures below.









The small train going from Main Street to the Castle was repainted once again and New Generation characters will now take place on it, as you'll see on these DLP marketing shots.





But it's on Central Plaza that DLP guests will discover the new show, with a brand new music and all New Gen characters. Is it better than the previous show? Yes it is, and it was not difficult as last year's show was a bit disappointing. This time it's not the case and the music is better too so if you come at the park, have a look at it!




















Here is a two-part video of the show filmed by MrL4nd







As i've told you Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen now appear on the Princess float of the parade, here is two shots of them.





Because Toy Story Playland was not ready to show to the event special guests, DLP did a big big show last night, which was located at the stunt show arena. No cars stunts, though, but a show with projection effects, hundreds of extras, and some really artistic moments. I've been told that the park spent a lot of money on this show and the show had a standing ovation last night. Pictures below and the one at the top of this article are DLP official pictures.









And here is the official video of the show. After the video, don't forget to check my Disneyland Paris book offer below, i don't want to hurry you to order the book, but i don't have a lot of copies left, really!




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Pictures: copyright Disney and more, Matthieu Bernet / Shootin.fr or copyright Disney, depending of the pictures.

Disneyland Paris marketing campaign for New Generation Festival

We had a look yesterday at the "New Generation" TV Ad but DLP is doing a unusual marketing campaign for the 2010 season. But first let's have a look to the advertising visuals that will be soon on Paris walls or french magazines.

So far there is three different visuals, only in french, and all using "new generation" characters. As you can see the characters are all coming down in parachutes and it's of course a reference to the parachute drop ride that will be part of Toy Story Playland opening next summer.





Then they've released recently a New Generation Festival trailer - a different one, that you can see below...




And some days ago it was the TV Ad that you saw yesterday in my previous article. Another shorter version of the TV Ad have some special 3D animation showing characters from the Incredibles which are not in yesterday's version...




But DLP marketing is doing more than they do usually as New Generation characters are also invading famous french TV shows! This time they don't use animation but characters like one can see in the parks - i.e cast-members inside a character costume. The first one was Mr Incredible who appeared in the evening weather report!..




Then it was the turn of Woody and Jessie in a reality show quite dumb but popular called "The farm celebrities"...




And finally Mike and Sulley arrived in another show called "An almost perfect dinner"...




By choosing another way than the traditional TV Ads what DLP is doing is pretty smart and let's hope it will be successful for the new season!


Pictures and videos: copyright Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris " New Generation Festival " TV Ad

Disneyland Paris did a nice TV ad for the upcoming New Generation Festival. I remind you that the year-long new generation festival will kick off 2 April and will continue through March 2011 with character experiences in both Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios. Princess Tiana to Buzz Lightyear, Remy, Stitch and Sulley, all the newest generation of Disney’s Characters arrives in shows and parades and next Summer, the all-new Toy Story Playland premieres at Walt Disney Studios with three interactive attractions inspired from Toy Story.



Putting the newest stars in the spotlight, Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from Princess and the Frog will join the “Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade” in Disneyland Park, and Ratatouille characters Remy and Emile ride in an all-new car during the “Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars” cavalcade at Walt Disney Studios. Mickey Mouse is also part of the festivities, dancing and singing daily with the new generation characters in an extravaganza “Disney showtime spectacular” on Central Plaza Stage in Disneyland Park, while Minnie will be on board the “Disney All Stars Express”.



At certain times in the Walt Disney Studios, everyone will get permission to be as loud as monster-possible, and screams will fill the air several times daily at “Monsters Inc. Scream Academy” where Sulley will encourage guests to break the decibel meter.

At the new Toy Story Playland at Walt Disney Studios, Buzz Lightyear will invite guests into Andy’s “back yard” to be shrunk to the scale of toys on an enormous playground, with plenty of interactive fun and photo opportunities.

Toy Story Playland includes three all-new attractions:
• Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop, simulating a dive from the sky with Andy’s Green Army Men
• the family-friendly Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin, a whimsical coaster attraction
• RC Racer, featuring a 25-meter half pipe on a U-shaped race circuit.



The TV Ad include in live action 2D animation from WDA as well as 3D animation from Pixar Studios. We can see not only characters from the "new generation" - pictures above - but also some from the old one meeting "new" characters like Cinderella and Lighting McQueen...





...or a fun sequence with Sulley landing in parachute inside Snow White and Seven Dwarfs cottage right when the witch is arriving...





Interesting too is the making of the movie. Directed by Motion Theory Studios at Hollywood, more than 100 extras were part of the shooting and 30 different animations either from Walt Disney Animation or Pixar were done for the Ad.

Matthew Cullen, the director, shoot essentially at the Disneyland Resort in California with some shots of DLP digitally integrated. On the picture below the crew is filming on DCA Hollywood Boulevard...





...but other scenes were filmed inside like the shots with the RC Racer.



The result is quite fun, if not odd, as what we can see of the DLP parks in the TV Ad is a mix of shots of Disneyland in Anaheim with DLP castle! (picture below) In two words, it shows a park which doesn't exist! Also, if you look at the top picture of this article you'll see that Toy Story Playland rides are not at the Walt Disney Studios where they are currently built but at the Disneyland Paris park!



As i suppose you're now curious to see this TV Ad, here it is, and let me know in the comments what you think about it!




Part two of this article about DLP New Generation is now online HERE.

Don't forget to check my Dsneyland Paris book offer below, it's a fantastic book, you'll love it!


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Pictures and video: copyright Disney - Disneyland Paris