#3: Lights! Camera! Hollywood!

47 Years after the original Main Street, U.S.A. opened in Disneyland California, a new take on the Disney tradition of a welcoming, themed street opened at Disneyland Resort Paris. The heart of Walt Disney Studios Park is something quite different to Walt Disney’s elegant and consistent salute to turn-of-the-century American life. Stepping into a Hollywood boutique takes you to the beaches of California. A wander through the restaurant takes you from Schwab’s Pharmacy to a tropical Tiki bar. Most shockingly of all, the moment you take a closer look at the colourfully themed façades and realise they’re simply movie sets, the magic ends. Or does it?

Disney Studio 1 from afar – you can’t miss it

Let’s start the same as every guest to Paris’ studio park, on the esplanade. Diverting your attention away from the miniature Eiffel Towers and possessed wind-up kittens of the street sellers is the huge behemoth of Disney Studio 1. Only the Future World pavilions of Epcot and the enormity of Soarin’ Over California can measure up to a Disney showbuilding like this. If it had been a real studio soundstage upon opening on 16th March 2002, this would have easily been the biggest in Europe, with a floorspace of 2450 square metres and a capacity of 49000 cubic metres. Interestingly, though, the original Disney-MGM Studios Europe plans called for not one but three soundstages, lined up together to create a far lengthier, diagonal Hollywood Boulevard.

Hollywood Boulevard at Disney-MGM Studios Europe

The diagonal boulevard would have led guests toward the heart of a park placed further away from Disneyland than the current Walt Disney Studios, with a more realistic approach to the Imagineering than the movie-set style of the final Studio 1. This Hollywood Boulevard would have almost been the street from Disney-MGM Studios Florida with a roof over its head. A wider boulevard, raised sidewalks, automobile props and grander, less obviously false façades would have been trademarks of the street, but - and you’re probably seeing a trend through these articles now – this wasn’t to be.

World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland, sidewalks not included

Whilst the Disney-MGM plans were obviously the main basis for Disney Studio1, we probably shouldn’t forget an even earlier inspiration for the entire project – Tokyo Disneyland’s World Bazaar. This odd, semi-American covered “Main Street” serves as the entrance to the first Japanese Disney park, providing shelter from Tokyo’s unpredictable weather and fulfilling the requirement for a grand entrance to a park with no trademark Disneyland Railroad. The idea was later ignored in the early 90s for the similarly weather-beaten Paris location, with a more traditional, detailed, outdoor street and the two covered Arcades being designed instead, leaving the idea open for the second gate.

With the (re)birth of the Disney Studios Paris project in 1999, the covered boulevard plans were snapped up again immediately. A more sensible (considering the budget) single soundstage was chosen, but once again the Hollywood Boulevard soundstage became the axis of the entire park. It’s quite unique in Disney Imagineering in that every single guest has to walk through the building to get into and out of the park, but in reality it serves the same purpose as the Disneyland Railroad Station or Disneyland Hotel next door, blocking out the real world once you’re inside the body of the park. Its entrance even features the park map dispensers, a trademark of Main Street Station.

Disney Studio 1 front façade – from sketch to reality!

But this building certainly isn’t just functional, it has a good amount of Hollywood style pasted across its façades, too. Mixing the sumptuous Spanish Revival style architecture of the Place des Frères Lumière with a more efficient Hollywood soundstage style, the Imagineers certainly managed to add magic to the massive front wall, more than 700 metres square. This isn’t really an Imagineering creation, though, it truly is right out of the golden age of Hollywood. To say Disney Studio 1 was loosely based on Disney’s original Hyperion Avenue soundstage would be a severe understatement – the similarities between the two buildings are incredible.

Photographs of the original Hyperion Avenue Walt Disney Studios

Whilst Walt Disney began moving productions to his far larger, new Burbank studio on 24th December 1939, the memory of his original studio – where the Silly Symphonies, Mickey Mouse and Snow White were all created – will now live on forever at the new Walt Disney Studios in Paris. Disney Studio 1 is certainly a more whimsical and exaggerated version of the original, but the “Walt Disney Studios” and Mickey Mouse moviecamera insignias (added at a late stage, after the building was completed), make this a perfect tribute to the place where it all began, and one of many nods to earlier Disney Studios to be found throughout the park.

Disney Studio 1 interior concept art

Of course, it’s inside the soundstage that the magic really begins. The main concept art above set the tone and style of the new Hollywood Boulevard throughout its creation, with stylised Hollywood sets, nighttime atmosphere and large props hanging from the ceiling all key factors in the final design. What changed since this initial concept, beyond the raised sidewalks and 1920s vehicle, was the scale of the street set. Not in terms of size, but instead the landmarks it included. The set changed from a simple recreation of a glamorous 1930s Hollywood to an all-inclusive timeline of Hollywood styles and architecture, leading guests from the 1920s Brown Derby to a 1960s Polynesian theme bar, creating a more dream-like vision of Hollywood through the ages. This is a Hollywood that, for the most part, did indeed exist – albeit across a wide spread of 20th Century decades.

The fictional film in production is “Lights! Camera! Hollywood!”, and interestingly the building/attraction itself had the same name until just weeks before the opening of the park, when “Disney Studio 1” was chosen instead.

Clockwise: Last Chance Gas, neon light, stored backdrops, boulevard overview, Alexandria theater

Upon entering the soundstage, you first discover a small backstage area, which “Hot Set” signs flashing and massive backdrops piled up either side. Walking along the boulevard, however, reveals very little to suggest this is only a movie set.

On your right is Restaurant En Coulisse, hidden behind façades of real and fictional Hollywood bars and restaurants. Inside, you’ll find details relating the façades outside (such as the Brown Derby’s caricature sketches), along with various props and neon lights featuring such unforgettable Hollywood picture slogans as “We’ll always have Paris” and “Gotta Dance”.

Restaurants and bars concept plan

The concept plan above shows the final designs of the six locations on this side of the street: Schwab’s Pharmacy, Brown Derby, Club Swankedero, Gunga Den, The Hep Cat Club and the Liki Tiki. Each one is filled with far more details and secrets than ever suggested on earlier concepts, showing again the massive melting pot of Hollywood icons, tributes and styles this project became. The façades were designed by the Disney Imagineers, and built as real sets by the largest film and television set builder in France. Each walk through the landmarks reveals another hidden detail, and through a bit of research (and a lot of Googling) you begin to appreciate the sets so much more.

For example, who would guess that the Gunga Den club was named after the 1939 George Stevens adventure film "Gunga Din"? Or that the 1960s Liki Tiki Polynesian bar, with its bamboo props and frequent rain showers is actually a tribute to Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room?

Left to right: Restaurants and bars at Christmas, Liki Tiki, Club Swankedero

Across the street, Last Chance Gas is a nod to the California gas stations of the 1950s, and a sign that this is where your journey to more movie landmarks begins, as the boulevard snakes off between the Hollywood Hills on the giant mural above the exit doors. Further along, The Alexandria Theatre movie palace certainly can’t be missed.

Last Chance Gas and The Alexandria Theatre’s interior

Its strong Egyptian style is vastly different to the more generic theme used on the original concept art, dominating the facade and even extending inside the Legends of Hollywood boutique, where mummified artefacts surround the cashier desk. Above you, a classic cartoon short set in an Egyptian tomb plays on a giant projection screen above you. But why the Egyptian theme in the first place? And why choose “Lucky in Love” for the theatre’s iconic “now showing” board? Well, it seems “Lucky in Love” was actually an old picture with an Egyptian theme itself, and in the golden age of Hollywood a big movie release called for the movie theatre to be fully decorated to match the feature on show, hence the lavish Egyptian design of this new Hollywood Boulevard landmark. Even the kiosk outside the entrance, used as the park’s restaurant reservations desk and surrounded by large sandstone brickwork worthy of the pyramids, resembles the ticket booth of the movie theatre in question.

This is only the tip of the huge, sparkling, Hollywood iceberg... There are far too many stories to tell here, but luckily lots of them are covered in our full Disney Studio 1 guide, so check it out!

Looking back through the sets at the magic behind the magic

I said earlier “walking along the boulevard reveals very little to suggest this is only a movie set”, and this is entirely true... until you reach the very end. Here, a quick glance back through the soundstage reveals the illusion you just stepped through, as the backs of the sets and their backstage areas are suddenly clearly visible.

Unlike in early concepts, for the final design the Imagineers took each separate façade and angled it slightly to face the entrance doors, with large gaps between each one. Walking into the soundstage you see a dreamy Hollywood Boulevard, but walking into any of the sets suddenly reveals a maze of backdrops, props and hidden corners, brimming with classic Disney details, that all combine to create the “mise en scène” of your walk down Hollywood Boulevard.

Disney Studio 1: From sketches, concept models and construction... to reality

It’s this raw, “backstage” method of presenting a classic Disney themed street that makes Disney Studio 1 such an important part of Walt Disney Studios Park. Walt Disney used to enjoy greatly not just showing people illusions and creations, but taking them “behind the magic” to discover how the tricks were made possible. A large section of his “Disneyland” and “Wonderful World of Color” television shows were dedicated to exactly this, as Walt took viewers behind the scenes at the animation studio to watch the productions of features such as Lady and the Tramp and Alice in Wonderland. The classic Disney feature “The Three Caballeros” takes this one step further, by actually showing the animators on a research trip through South America, getting inspiration and making sketches for the animated film you’re actually watching.

Walt Disney didn’t just want us to be entertained by his illusions and creations, he wanted us to feel a part of them, by finding out how they were created and getting some sparks for our own imaginations. In this way, there’s no better home for an Imagineering creation like Disney Studio 1 than a park named after the master himself.

As Walt Disney said, “I’d rather entertain and hope that people learn, than teach and hope that people are entertained”.

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Published: 14th October 2006 by Anthony