Mom wants to be an Imagineer. That's what she decided a while ago. Oh we fried the computer. We didn't, it just fried itself. We have to get a computer still.
Mom read brother's letter to him and read it again to herself. She thought about it and wants to finish a degree and be an Imagineer when we grow up. She has time to follow this but I say she will just be real old then but I think it is still neat. Something she read in brother's letter made her believe she can still do it so she will be working on it. We get to still Imagineer but we need to do something about the garage. We don't have good room.
Fairy Godmother is going to send us to Disneyland this summer if we do a task for her. Happy us! Mom is coming up with some Imagineer plans for us all to work on. I am the artist and Brother is the engineer. Mom is going to join a train group soon and I think she wants to do something with a Christmas parade next year.
We took a school break from Imagineering but we're still around. We'll update soon.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Brother Gets a Letter!
Guess what! Guess what! Brother got a letter from Walt Disney! Not the Walt Disney, of course, that would be scary... And not from the Audio Animatronics department in Imagineering either, but still, he got a letter from the Disney Company! He has added it to his collection of official letters from official places and put it right on top of his Lego letter.
They said they couldn't use our ideas for rides because they have to come from Imagineering itself. Boohoo, they are great ideas! But he got a packet that talks about how Imagineers got to be Imagineers. They also said they bet he'll be a famous Imagineer some day. I beat we will ALL be famous Imagineers! Mom too!
We just read on Twitter some great stuff about what Disneyland is going to do to Fantasyland. I wish they WOULD use our ideas! We have them because we would love to see them. When we looked at what Brother got from Disney, we got a great idea. Mom should be an Imagineer! After all, she was the one who started all the ideas for us, and then lets us grow our own. She is very creative. We have been on the news a few times over the summer because of creative fun stuff Mom has done. Really, she did it all because we are driving her NUTS, and both she and Grandma don't have work and she is freaking out because everyone is starting at a new school.
When Mom read the Imagineering article, she got real excited to see that not everyone in Imagineering has a college degree, and even some didn't make it through high school but were still a good fit for Imagineer. Mommy has done a little bit of lots of things, writing, tv, electronics and hard work at stores. When we were babies, she worked during the night stocking shelves while we slept. She said it was HARD work on her body but she did it and just napped when we babies napped. She was like, I could be an Imagineer right now! So we have packed a bag to move to Disneyland. Mom hasn't though. She said someone talked about working long long hours for days and days to get stuff done, and she can't do that with us now. She promised she'll try in college and between then she said she might finish her computer degree and just practice model railroading and building with us. It can count for ALL of us!
Isn't that exciting everyone!! YEAH!
They said they couldn't use our ideas for rides because they have to come from Imagineering itself. Boohoo, they are great ideas! But he got a packet that talks about how Imagineers got to be Imagineers. They also said they bet he'll be a famous Imagineer some day. I beat we will ALL be famous Imagineers! Mom too!
We just read on Twitter some great stuff about what Disneyland is going to do to Fantasyland. I wish they WOULD use our ideas! We have them because we would love to see them. When we looked at what Brother got from Disney, we got a great idea. Mom should be an Imagineer! After all, she was the one who started all the ideas for us, and then lets us grow our own. She is very creative. We have been on the news a few times over the summer because of creative fun stuff Mom has done. Really, she did it all because we are driving her NUTS, and both she and Grandma don't have work and she is freaking out because everyone is starting at a new school.
When Mom read the Imagineering article, she got real excited to see that not everyone in Imagineering has a college degree, and even some didn't make it through high school but were still a good fit for Imagineer. Mommy has done a little bit of lots of things, writing, tv, electronics and hard work at stores. When we were babies, she worked during the night stocking shelves while we slept. She said it was HARD work on her body but she did it and just napped when we babies napped. She was like, I could be an Imagineer right now! So we have packed a bag to move to Disneyland. Mom hasn't though. She said someone talked about working long long hours for days and days to get stuff done, and she can't do that with us now. She promised she'll try in college and between then she said she might finish her computer degree and just practice model railroading and building with us. It can count for ALL of us!
Isn't that exciting everyone!! YEAH!
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Jr. Imagineering Update
We are still Imagineering! We had a week and 1/2 of vacation but we didn't forget our goal. School will start soon too, Mom thinks we will go to a homeschool charter this year since we can't afford our old school and this way she can help us better. We will practice the homeschool stuff and all to see if we kids will actually follow along in homeschool. we might be a hand full for mom we are called double trouble around town for a good reason!
We borrowed a bunch of Disney Classic dvds from the library including a Chip & Dale dvd. Some are so classic that Chip has two front teeth and Dale doesn't talk at all. We have to think of the Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, we don't have a story or anything. We thought up one of Chip and Dale, where you will ride around a forrest and look in at their tree house while they hunt for nuts, annoy Donald, and hide from Pluto.
We haven't heard back from Imagineering yet, but we are hoping we do! We sent two letters now, the second Brother sent one to Audio-Animatronics to ask for advice on where to start for the Mine Car dark ride cars. Also, we asked for a new map to Disneyland so we can draw all over it.
Our dark ride has a audio animatronic dwarf driving the individual mine cars through the mine. They need to look real, talk, and look around. They will have special pexiglass around them so no one gets into the mine where people can't see them and touch them. They could bite. We should program them to bite if a bad person tries to mess with them or tag them or look under their coats to pull their wires.
For our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad, we found the original maps for Disneyland had Edison Square to the right of Main Street going between Main Street and Tomorrowland. If they have anything backstage there, we are going to pretend to put everything underground like a Utilidor, and build on top of it the Ode to Walt Disney. The ride portion of this railroad needs a live, upperlevel view of the real Disneyland Railroad Depot. It also needs space for the model railroads, gallery and shopping. We are adding a retail line of Disneyland model railroad trains and parts. After Brother and Mom went to the National Model Railroad Convention, he really, really wants to buy a model train of his own. He wants to make a model monorail and people mover thingy too. Actually, Mom suggested it, and inventing model rollercoastering. She said, "Why don't we just invent model rollercoastering, where you make a model of a rollercoaster the same way you build a model train?" We think that's the best new idea for our project since we thought up Club Penguin Headquarters.
In a little bit, we will make an actual schedule and deadlines for our Imagineering projects, blogs and updates so everyone who likes to read this doesn't think we gave up.
We borrowed a bunch of Disney Classic dvds from the library including a Chip & Dale dvd. Some are so classic that Chip has two front teeth and Dale doesn't talk at all. We have to think of the Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, we don't have a story or anything. We thought up one of Chip and Dale, where you will ride around a forrest and look in at their tree house while they hunt for nuts, annoy Donald, and hide from Pluto.
We haven't heard back from Imagineering yet, but we are hoping we do! We sent two letters now, the second Brother sent one to Audio-Animatronics to ask for advice on where to start for the Mine Car dark ride cars. Also, we asked for a new map to Disneyland so we can draw all over it.
Our dark ride has a audio animatronic dwarf driving the individual mine cars through the mine. They need to look real, talk, and look around. They will have special pexiglass around them so no one gets into the mine where people can't see them and touch them. They could bite. We should program them to bite if a bad person tries to mess with them or tag them or look under their coats to pull their wires.
For our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad, we found the original maps for Disneyland had Edison Square to the right of Main Street going between Main Street and Tomorrowland. If they have anything backstage there, we are going to pretend to put everything underground like a Utilidor, and build on top of it the Ode to Walt Disney. The ride portion of this railroad needs a live, upperlevel view of the real Disneyland Railroad Depot. It also needs space for the model railroads, gallery and shopping. We are adding a retail line of Disneyland model railroad trains and parts. After Brother and Mom went to the National Model Railroad Convention, he really, really wants to buy a model train of his own. He wants to make a model monorail and people mover thingy too. Actually, Mom suggested it, and inventing model rollercoastering. She said, "Why don't we just invent model rollercoastering, where you make a model of a rollercoaster the same way you build a model train?" We think that's the best new idea for our project since we thought up Club Penguin Headquarters.
In a little bit, we will make an actual schedule and deadlines for our Imagineering projects, blogs and updates so everyone who likes to read this doesn't think we gave up.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The National Model Train Convention
Over the weekend Mom and Brother went to the National Model Train Convention where they learned a lot about model trains and model making.
First, they wanted to check out the trains for our family Imagineering Ode to Walt Disney project. If you don't know, we are Imagineering stuff at home, pretending that we're making real rides and attractions for Disneyland. We are doing our own version of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Car ride smooshed between Fantasyland and Frontierland. We are doing an Ode To Walt Disney, which is a train depot and scale train ride that takes guests through the Carolwood Pacific and various Walt Disney Park's Railroads, along with model railroads of every Disney Park Railroad across the whole world.
To learn more about the train attraction, Brother and Mom went off to learn about model trains. Brother took charge and start asking all the vendors there if they had any Disney Railroad train models or the Bachmann Walt Disney's Carolwood Pacific set; which they found! Then Mom told brother they had no money to buy it and he was bummed, he looked hard for it!
Mom gave brother the flip camera to video tape models he thought were neat, and he took a good one of a very nice mountain, bridge, waterfall display at a booth selling model rock making kits. Mom and brother realized we all need to be learning this stuff if we're going to try and make real models in the garage of each of our attractions! We really need to figure how to make the mountain for our Mine Car ride.
Model trains will be the best bet for making the working models. While we finish up the storyboards, which are taking forever and then some, and Mom finishes up the stories for us, because she once wrote stories so she knows how to work my brother and my ideas in, we are going to start model railroading. Plus, Brother really wants his own model railroad set to play with after going to that convention, and Grandpa is super excited to help.
We are still working on getting that Mine Car story online as soon as we can, until then, that's all for now. I am up way to far past bedtime.
First, they wanted to check out the trains for our family Imagineering Ode to Walt Disney project. If you don't know, we are Imagineering stuff at home, pretending that we're making real rides and attractions for Disneyland. We are doing our own version of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Car ride smooshed between Fantasyland and Frontierland. We are doing an Ode To Walt Disney, which is a train depot and scale train ride that takes guests through the Carolwood Pacific and various Walt Disney Park's Railroads, along with model railroads of every Disney Park Railroad across the whole world.
To learn more about the train attraction, Brother and Mom went off to learn about model trains. Brother took charge and start asking all the vendors there if they had any Disney Railroad train models or the Bachmann Walt Disney's Carolwood Pacific set; which they found! Then Mom told brother they had no money to buy it and he was bummed, he looked hard for it!
Mom gave brother the flip camera to video tape models he thought were neat, and he took a good one of a very nice mountain, bridge, waterfall display at a booth selling model rock making kits. Mom and brother realized we all need to be learning this stuff if we're going to try and make real models in the garage of each of our attractions! We really need to figure how to make the mountain for our Mine Car ride.
Model trains will be the best bet for making the working models. While we finish up the storyboards, which are taking forever and then some, and Mom finishes up the stories for us, because she once wrote stories so she knows how to work my brother and my ideas in, we are going to start model railroading. Plus, Brother really wants his own model railroad set to play with after going to that convention, and Grandpa is super excited to help.
We are still working on getting that Mine Car story online as soon as we can, until then, that's all for now. I am up way to far past bedtime.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Storyboarding
We are storyboarding. Imagineers start their rides with a story, and work from there. We learned that Imagineers don't just come up with a story, but they make a big whole board full of drawings, stories, pictures and ideas to make an entire story for their ride or attraction. When they get their whole story down, they make a storyboard, and that storyboard helps them design the blueprint for the ride.
We had a story and all, but when were going to design the ride, we got stuck. It was hard to figure out just which way to make the ride turn and twist. Mom was helping us design the ride, but was having trouble. Then she realized that storyboarding was the answer. She has done these before. No, she has used these before, but not drawn them out herself. We are now drawing out a storyboard for our Snow White Mine Car/Mother Lode ride. We can tell you that it takes a very long time to actually draw out each little box with the story.
We're also coming up with a storyboard for the Ode to Walt Disney train depot, but we're focusing on the Snow White ride first. We will keep posting as we go along here. Now, I have to go so I can get back to drawing and drawing and drawing some more.
More to come!
We had a story and all, but when were going to design the ride, we got stuck. It was hard to figure out just which way to make the ride turn and twist. Mom was helping us design the ride, but was having trouble. Then she realized that storyboarding was the answer. She has done these before. No, she has used these before, but not drawn them out herself. We are now drawing out a storyboard for our Snow White Mine Car/Mother Lode ride. We can tell you that it takes a very long time to actually draw out each little box with the story.
We're also coming up with a storyboard for the Ode to Walt Disney train depot, but we're focusing on the Snow White ride first. We will keep posting as we go along here. Now, I have to go so I can get back to drawing and drawing and drawing some more.
More to come!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Letter To The Imagineers
Did we say we mailed a letter to Disney Imagineering already? We found the address on Disney's website. It was not the mail tube, because that is taking too long. It is a big long blank sheet of paper and it is making our heads spin, all that blankness. But it's all good. Mom is going nuts with it the poor lady. She is getting really into this!
We have the DVD's for Snow White, The Frog & The Princess and Disney's Melody Classics, and we have a long roll of tracing paper. We stopped Snow White where the dwarfs are in the mine and traced the mine onto the tracing paper, and we will move it over to the poster for Imagineering. Mom spent the weekend designing a queue line-that's Q U E U E, and she has written an actual script for the dwarfs in line. It is AWESOME! We kids are starting to think Mom is a real Imagineer. We couldn't figure out how to make a blueprint for the ride and got stuck, but Mom said this is where the storyboard and scripts come into play. She wrote stuff out, and made a story, then we copied onto the tracing paper and know what the mine will look like, and now the whole blueprint for the ride is coming together. The story tells us which way to go.
We ran out of battery for the Flip camera, but we are getting ready to make another video showing our Mother Lode ride off. It is looking cool. Brother has come up with some neat water parts to the mine, and we decided instead of only a few guests going through the Mother Lode, everyone will go through.
We picked a spot using our map from our one and only visit to Disneyland 2 years ago, and our Mine Mountain will go between Frontierland and Fantasyland towards the back of the park, where we see a little walkway. We really haven't seen if there is anything there that we would be designing this ride on top of or not, but that's okay, we're going ahead with it. With Mom's queue line, she has created a mountain that is for Fantasyland on one side, and Frontierland on the other. We added a Pecos Bill ride for Frontierland, and are making the rides share the mountain. We will use Disney magic to hide the mountain from each land, so no one realizes they are one mountain, but think they are two, and no one is aware that they are sharing the mountain or area.
The Pecos Bill ride came from watching Disney's Classics Melodies, and seemed a perfect ride for Disneyland. We are still reading the map to see where the Frog and Princess ride will go in New Orleans, we need a spot for the Tangled Tower, and we need to find out if ToonTown will still be around at Disneyland, to add a Steamboat Willie Ride. We are waiting for a Chip and Dale Classics DVD to come in from the library so we can start work on a Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, and Mom is coming up with a Raccoon Ride and Fox & The Hound ride for Critter Country too. We just can't think of anything for Adventure Land.
We have found a spot for our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad ride and soon we will e-mail Michael Broggie to 'pick his brain' as Mom calls it. Ask questions, get answers, find advice, stuff like that. I, Sister, am drawing, painting and am in charge of art. Brother is building and in charge of robotics, and Mom is turning things into reality. We are having fun, and can't wait to hear back from Imagineering!
We have the DVD's for Snow White, The Frog & The Princess and Disney's Melody Classics, and we have a long roll of tracing paper. We stopped Snow White where the dwarfs are in the mine and traced the mine onto the tracing paper, and we will move it over to the poster for Imagineering. Mom spent the weekend designing a queue line-that's Q U E U E, and she has written an actual script for the dwarfs in line. It is AWESOME! We kids are starting to think Mom is a real Imagineer. We couldn't figure out how to make a blueprint for the ride and got stuck, but Mom said this is where the storyboard and scripts come into play. She wrote stuff out, and made a story, then we copied onto the tracing paper and know what the mine will look like, and now the whole blueprint for the ride is coming together. The story tells us which way to go.
We ran out of battery for the Flip camera, but we are getting ready to make another video showing our Mother Lode ride off. It is looking cool. Brother has come up with some neat water parts to the mine, and we decided instead of only a few guests going through the Mother Lode, everyone will go through.
We picked a spot using our map from our one and only visit to Disneyland 2 years ago, and our Mine Mountain will go between Frontierland and Fantasyland towards the back of the park, where we see a little walkway. We really haven't seen if there is anything there that we would be designing this ride on top of or not, but that's okay, we're going ahead with it. With Mom's queue line, she has created a mountain that is for Fantasyland on one side, and Frontierland on the other. We added a Pecos Bill ride for Frontierland, and are making the rides share the mountain. We will use Disney magic to hide the mountain from each land, so no one realizes they are one mountain, but think they are two, and no one is aware that they are sharing the mountain or area.
The Pecos Bill ride came from watching Disney's Classics Melodies, and seemed a perfect ride for Disneyland. We are still reading the map to see where the Frog and Princess ride will go in New Orleans, we need a spot for the Tangled Tower, and we need to find out if ToonTown will still be around at Disneyland, to add a Steamboat Willie Ride. We are waiting for a Chip and Dale Classics DVD to come in from the library so we can start work on a Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, and Mom is coming up with a Raccoon Ride and Fox & The Hound ride for Critter Country too. We just can't think of anything for Adventure Land.
We have found a spot for our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad ride and soon we will e-mail Michael Broggie to 'pick his brain' as Mom calls it. Ask questions, get answers, find advice, stuff like that. I, Sister, am drawing, painting and am in charge of art. Brother is building and in charge of robotics, and Mom is turning things into reality. We are having fun, and can't wait to hear back from Imagineering!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Carolwood
Have you heard of the Carolwood Pacific Railroad Company? We hadn't until yesterday, catching some downtime between cousin playtime. Researching Walt Disney and railroads for our Imagineering project, we found this: http://www.carolwood.com/ and this: http://www.carolwood.org/.
We followed a link to this site, which talks about Walt Disney's barn, some call it the birth place of Disney Imagineering: http://ocresort.ocregister.com/2011/03/18/exploring-walt-disneys-steam-train-barn/72807/
This is pretty neat stuff, and we just can't wait to turn our projects into reality.
Our mail tube is getting done. It was hard to get started-a big long poster sheet of blank white paper was hard to work with. So much blankness, no one knew where to start. We have as many Disney Imagineering books as the library offers in our house, one due today, and we are finding lots of inspiration from them to get our white paper less white and mailed. With all this Imagineer stuff around, Mom has decided she wants to be an Imagineer herself!
Mom has spent the past week learning about folks like John Hench, Mary Blair, and 'The Nine Old Men' to help the project stay alive. We hit a bump as soon as we started trying to make our imaginary rides real models. Where do we even start? We thought of a Mine Car ride, we have pictures in our heads, but how can we make that real enough to show the real Imagineers our stuff? We don't know. We have been reading, watching The Science of Imagineering dvds, Disney Parks dvds, and looking up stuff online, and it looks like we just might be able to do this! Go us!
Once we mail off our stuff, we hope to hear back from Imagineering and get pointers and win friends.
We followed a link to this site, which talks about Walt Disney's barn, some call it the birth place of Disney Imagineering: http://ocresort.ocregister.com/2011/03/18/exploring-walt-disneys-steam-train-barn/72807/
This is pretty neat stuff, and we just can't wait to turn our projects into reality.
Our mail tube is getting done. It was hard to get started-a big long poster sheet of blank white paper was hard to work with. So much blankness, no one knew where to start. We have as many Disney Imagineering books as the library offers in our house, one due today, and we are finding lots of inspiration from them to get our white paper less white and mailed. With all this Imagineer stuff around, Mom has decided she wants to be an Imagineer herself!
Mom has spent the past week learning about folks like John Hench, Mary Blair, and 'The Nine Old Men' to help the project stay alive. We hit a bump as soon as we started trying to make our imaginary rides real models. Where do we even start? We thought of a Mine Car ride, we have pictures in our heads, but how can we make that real enough to show the real Imagineers our stuff? We don't know. We have been reading, watching The Science of Imagineering dvds, Disney Parks dvds, and looking up stuff online, and it looks like we just might be able to do this! Go us!
Once we mail off our stuff, we hope to hear back from Imagineering and get pointers and win friends.
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