In the Hollywood Pictures Backlot one can take part in an "I want to be in pictures" moment. The Disney Animation attraction provides an insider's view exhibiting the number of Disney's animated movies and characters were created. The Hyperion theatre hosts Aladdin -A Musical Spectacular that is a 45-minute live performance with brilliant visual effects for which one has to wait for nearly an hour. The latest attraction of the park is the Tower of Terror after a 1930s hotel which was shown in The Twillight Zone. The most frightening part of this attraction is the service elevator ride which transports one from the basement of the Hollywood Tower Hotel to the 13th Floor and returns back once again at speeds where people scream loudly. (Sights and Activities: Disney's California Adventure)
Bug's Land, which comes inspired from the film A Bug's Life shows an insect's point-of-view. At the Princess Dot Puzzle one has the choice of cooling off or getting soaked by a huge garden hose pipe and can also ride in pill-bug shaped bumper cars. The short show it's tough to be a Bug gives one a 3-D look at the life of an insect. The Golden State celebrates California's history and natural beauty with several regions inclusive of the Bay Area, Pacific Wharf, and Condor Flats where one gets the opportunity to soar over California, a breathtaking simulated hang-glider ride over the Californian terrain. Grizzly River Run is a white-water raft ride that ends in a drop down from a 22-feet waterfall. The film Golden Dreams is a sappy rush through the history, which is hosted by the legendary Whoopi Goldberg. Present also is a 1-acre farm and winery, a nature trail, as well as a tortilla factory. And not to be missed in the night is the Disney's Electrical Parade which is a procession in which all the floats and characters are festooned with numerous tiny lights. (Sights and Activities: Disney's California Adventure)
Entertainment History from another foreign country: Japan
The Walt Disney release of the Japanese blockbuster 'Spirited Away' introduced in the United States. Till date the animated film that surpassed even Titanic in Japan, is a tremendous success in foreign shores. Film reviewers from the New York Times, Chicago Sun Times and Miami Herald had accolades reserved for director Hayao Miyazaki for his attention to detail and craft. However hard core animation fans are not scared by the success of the film. They have grown on TV shows like Voltron and Power Rangers, therefore the magnificence of Miyazaki and other animation directors are not new. Japanese animation, a variety which was once reserved for the TV dens of Star Trek categories and solitary teenagers, presently enjoys hit status in the U.S. Ten years ago, just two animation videos are available in the U.S. And the industry was calculated to be thousands of dollars. However, as per the Society for the promotion of Japanese Animation -- SPJA by the year 2000, the industry here has seen the growth of $100 million. (Anime in America: Japan's animated movies have risen from cult status to cultural force in U.S. Next up for the moviemakers: wining approval from Mom and Dad)
Moreover, this is just the fund generated by the largest 'pure' animation companies like Pioneer, Bandai, AD Vision and manga publisher Viz Communication. Animation films and programs produced by the mainstream companies such as Walt Disney and Fox TV Network are worth an extra $2 billion. This may appear like marked change compared with the profits in Japan, where in 2000, Pokeman in itself produced $4 billion, however the growth in the U.S. particularly in the past three years has been immense, according to Tatsugawa, the founder and CEO of SPJA. Whereas ten years back, there was merely a few animated TV shows, presently every children's channel is flooded with Japanese cartoons which is rising in popularity among the youth.
The first three shows posted on foxkids.com which is the Fox Network Web site, for example,...
Logging on to the Cartoon Network it is seen that several of the shows are Japanese like Dragon Bell, Gundam and Hum Taro for instance. Ken Iyadomi, who is the Executive VP of Bandai Entertainment which is a Japanese toy and animation company stated that the company released 75 animated TV shows and movies in the U.S. last year, which is a great going compared to the earlier years. For the American film companies what draws them to animation if definitely the cost factor. At the time when the cost of producing films in the present high risk industry, animation is a cheap alternative. (Anime in America: Japan's animated movies have risen from cult status to cultural force in U.S. Next up for the moviemakers: wining approval from Mom and Dad)
The movie Titanic costs $100 million to make. In Japan they never had that problem. In case of the fans the appeal is aesthetic. The Japanese animation industry has beautiful artwork. A lot of people hold that the visual quality of Japanese animation is superior compared to that found in American cartoons. Besides, the people are drawn to the story line. While the Video game company owner Jay Minn shifted to San Fransisco from Korea as a child, American cartoons appeared awful when compared to the Japanese cartoon he watched at home. Animation is stuffed with giant robots destroying things or normal people performing supernormal things. Batman and Aquaman appear to be lame when compared. In the U.S. It is the adults who are glued to the animation. A lot like the Star Trek fans in the 1970s, typical animation fans used to be male, tech savvy, 70-80% college educated and within 25 and 30 years old. Presently, the U.S. audience is divided into 50% teenagers and 50% adults as per the recent survey at an SPJA expo in New York.
It has been seen that adults mostly are engaged in white-collar professions; particularly in high-tech own three to six game systems belong to Caucasian or Asian, earn more than $100,000 per year and spend three to four hours of leisure time online everyday. Recently, fans have been getting even younger. The success of animation in the U.S. has been slow. The first turning point came about with the advent of the Internet. Since the middle part of 1980s, fans were able to communicate with other fans that possessed good clean copies of animation. The entire community was based on exchange of tapes. Moreover, as a lot of the originals were in Japanese, fans wrote detailed scripts and thereafter posted them online. (Anime in America: Japan's animated movies have risen from cult status to cultural force in U.S. Next up for the moviemakers: wining approval from Mom and Dad)
References
Cinema Treasures. Retrieved at http://cinematreasures.org/theater/830/. Accessed 24 October, 2005
Game Experts, Technologists, Artists and Scholars Explore the Rise of Digital Games and their Impact on Entertainment in the 21st Century. USC Annenberg Center for Communication and IDSA to Host Entertainment in the Interactive Age. Retrieved at http://www.idsa.com/releases/1_8_2001.html. Accessed 25 October, 2005
Gardiner, Debbi. Anime in America: Japan's animated movies have risen from cult status to cultural force in U.S. Next up for the moviemakers: wining approval from Mom and Dad. Japan. Inc. January, 2003. Retrieved at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NTN/is_2003_Jan/ai_104732914Accessed 25 October, 2005
Sights and Activities: Disney's California Adventure. Retrieved at http://www.fodors.com/miniguides/mgresults.cfm?destination=&cur_section=sig&property_id=183305 Accessed 25 October, 2005
Special Effects. 12 February 1998. Retrieved at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june98/movies_2-12.html. Accessed 24 October, 2005
100 years of movies filmed here. Retrieved at http://www.agatecove.com/100-years-movies.html. Accessed 24 October, 2005
