(WWW) Disney World Wide Web (report on "tour") 1/2
David I. Tomita
description of the Walt Disney WWW site for the curious.
I'll describe The Lion King virtual theater in some detail which
will give you an idea of what the other virtual theaters
have in store for you.
To quote: "To enjoy this Web to its fullest, you will need
a Web browser that supports forms, a QuickTime player,
and a JPEG viewer. As for hardware, you will want 16-bit
video (a video card that can display thousands of colors)
or better, and sound support."
THE ADDRESS FOR THE WALT DISNEY WWW
THE BUENA VISTA PICTURES WEB
This takes you to the page titled "The Buena Vista
Pictures Web". From here you can look at "domestic
releases", "foreign releases", find the locations of
browsers and players in the Internet and see the credits for
the folks who put this together (Great job!).
BUENA VISTA PICTURES DOMESTIC
Clicking "Domestic releases" brings you here. From here
you can branch off to the "Movie Plex", "The Press
Room" and to the places in the first page.
"Movie Plex" is where you can preview movie clips and
trailers to Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures and
Hollywood Pictures. The warn you that you will need a
fast connection and patience (very true). What you need
is a graphical Web browser, a JPEG viewer and a
QuickTime player.
"The Press Room" is where you view press kits for current
features along with the entire digital library for this site.
MOVIE PLEX
Click this and you get a nice picture of a movie palace,
Buena Vista Movie Plex. The marquee currently
(12/1/94) lists the following: The Lion King, Quiz Show,
Santa Clause, Low Down Dirty Shame, Ed Wood, and
Puppet Masters. You can click on the doors to enter the
lobby or click on any of the movie titles to go straight the
info on them.
THEATER LOBBY
Clicking on the doors brings you here where your options
are: Movie Brain (this brain with shades in a glass case),
Hollywood Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone
Pictures, and a podium/stand that is marked "Stella" with a
sign on it saying "OUT TO LUNCH". There is also an
"Exit" sign to back you out.
WALT DISNEY PICTURES
Clicking "Walt Disney Pictures" brings you to three movie
posters with Mickey Mouse icons on the "wallpaper".
Currently the posters are for: The Lion King, The Santa
ClausE, Squanto. There is also a castle symbol (the one
you see before Disney movies) but if you click it, it just
says "oops" (maybe in the future it will lead to more
posters). There is also a "lobby" sign that backs you out.
The Lion King
Clicking the TLK poster brings you to a view inside a
theater. You can see silhouettes of Disney characters in
front (Hey! Goofy take off your hat! Oops, that's me!).
On "screen" are six options.
Trailer: Part 1 is 1:11 minutes and 3.7 megs/QuickTime;
Trailer: Part 2, 1:08 minutes, 3.5 megs/QuickTime;
Promo: Circle of Life, 1:32 minutes, 4.5 megs/QuickTime;
Promo: Hakuna Matata, :43 seconds, 2.3
megs/QuickTime;
Promo: Hyenas, :51 seconds, 2.7 megs/QuickTime and
Coloring Book - B/W Line Art.
There is also a paper airplane flying near the screen which
takes you to a screen where you can leave "Notes To
MoviePlex Manager On: [whatever movie theater you are
in].
The movie clips take sometime to download and I wasn't
able to view them because of memory limitations so
maybe someone else can describe them. I looked at the 13
second Patinkin interview in Squanto and it looks okay
when viewed in a small window.
Coloring Book
These are JPEG pictures of line art from TLK. The words
they use are "Feel free to download these images and use
them with you (sic) favorite illustration program." These
are really cool! The images you can get are: The Hyenas
(all 3), Poster (the main characters perched on Pride
Rock), Scar (two side views), Mufasa and Simba (Mufasa
on his back with Simba snuggled in his arm), Rafiki ( Two
head shots), Simba and Nala (Adult Simba sitting proudly
with adult Nala snuggling his shoulder), Simba, Timon
and Pumbaa (overhead view of the 3 in the jungle) and,
Zazu (3 different poses). I liked all of them!
[CONTINUED IN POST 2/2]