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ShadowBuuProductions In reply to KrisCynical [2014-09-09 14:37:46 +0000 UTC]

thankyou very much for the kind words i'm so happy that it's come across exactly how i intended it to. sounds like you'd indeed have some awesome stories/pictures to share!!! I love seeing the face character's interacting in character.. someday i'll hopefully be able to go to disney world myself.

that other tribute is wonderful <3
i really wanted to communicate a real sense of loss. so many beautifully wonderful and touching tributes had been uplifting and peaceful in nature; but for me it was a small pit in my stomach of quiet emptiness. a palpable loss of one of the greatest lights of honestly human joy and enthusiasm in the world. as much as the uplifting tributes were beautiful, i didn't want to create something rejoicing in the life lived, but of the light that had gone out forever.

thanks again for the wonderful comment!

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KrisCynical In reply to ShadowBuuProductions [2014-09-09 15:56:03 +0000 UTC]

You're very welcome. Dude, I understand. When I got the news I actually cried a little. Aladdin (and thus Robin's Genie) are a large part of why I'm an illustrator now as an adult, and my drawing style was heavily influenced by drawing the characters over and over and over again when I was 12 and made the conscious decision that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. It's always been my favorite animated movie, I have an ENORMOUS memorabilia and fine art collection I've been building for 20 years, and I met my best friend in the world through The Aladdin Mailing List in 1999 (we just had our 15th anniversary in July).

This was a horrendous and painful loss for all of us, I think. Celebrity deaths are always sad, but this one HURT. Michael Jackson broke the internet when he died; Robin Williams broke our hearts.

As for the character stuff, that "in character" interacting for face characters is why they have to go through an audition process for the character where a panel of judges asks them questions and they have to immediately answer in character.

One of the ways that friend of mine would interact IC would be running through the Morocco pavilion (where the Aladdin characters are obviously stationed) yelling for Abu and asking guests if they'd seen Abu anywhere. When he'd be out with "his Jasmine", he'd also interact with guests as her husband. Unfortunately this also came into play when male guests who had a little too much to drink would get a little too fresh with her, then he'd have to step in as the protective husband a la "Hey, hands off my wife."

It's also funny when you hear stories about face characters breaking character for just a moment, which also happened in one story he told me. I met him in 1999 and was still talking to him regularly through 2003 (when I graduated high school), so that included the time right after 9/11. You'd think it wouldn't have been an issue since anyone with half a brain cell would know that the Aladdin face characters had NOTHING to do with Muslim extremism/terrorism, but there was one instance where a couple of idiotic guys were harrassig him about being Arab (thank God there were no children around at the moment!). That was a time that he actually broke character to tell the guys "Dude, I'm not ARAB. I live in KISSIMMEE. My name is Eric SANDIGO. I'm HISPANIC, you idiots! Lay off!"

Some cast members once told me a story of when they were in Epcot on their day off, and they met with Jasmine even though she was SUPPOSED to be out WITH Aladdin at the time. They asked her "Where's Aladdin?" and she gave an in character answer, but then they leaned in and quietly said "We're cast members. So, no, really, where's Aladdin?" She leaned in and quietly said "The lazy bastard overslept!"

If you ever get the chance to go to WDW, talk to every cast member you can, seriously. Just chit chat with them. You will hear some of the coolest stories ever!

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KrisCynical In reply to Manofevil [2014-09-09 13:16:15 +0000 UTC]

Without looking at the link I'm positive you're talking about Time Keeper.

I'm still angry with Disney for closing that attraction. I'm even MORE angry that they closed it to replace it with the stupid Laugh Floor. It's almost as abominable as them replacing Alien Encounter with Stitch's Great Escape. Disney has a knack for replacing brilliance with stupidity in WDW.

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Manofevil In reply to KrisCynical [2014-09-10 23:46:31 +0000 UTC]

Actually I wasn't. I didn't know about [i]Time Keeper[/i] until recently and I agree, it IS brilliant. It, too, may be found on youtube for now. The link I posted, however is "Return to Neverland' with Robin Williams and Walter Cronckite taking a laugh a minute tour of the Disney animation department. It has been replaced by a less immersive version voiced by Eddie Murphy. Nothing against him, but it broke my heart that I couldn't show the Robin Williams one to nieces and nephews when we went last year.

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KrisCynical In reply to Manofevil [2014-09-11 15:11:13 +0000 UTC]

Oh, God, I completely forgot about that monstrosity of a replacement, too. I ADORED "Return to Neverland" and the entire tour experience.

I hate what they did to the entire animation building, period. The last time I took the "tour" and came out to the area where they used to have the windows looking in on part of the animators' area, I almost cried from how badly they gutted it and redered it completely useless. There's no point to having the tour at all now. The thing with Mushu isn't even educational and both times I've seen it, the cast member working it sounded like he was bored to death and did NOT want to be there. It was awful.

I originally went to art school with hopes of being a traditional animator fo the Florida studios, but they shut it all down in 2003 during my freshman year. I went to Ringling because it was on a list of Disney recommended schools. I don't regret that at all, though, because I ended up going in to illustration instead which has turned out to be a better fit for me than I think animation would have been, but still. Seeing the slow death by complete irrelevance that the Art of Animation attraction and tour has gone through was very painful for me on a very personal level.

On at least a little bit of a positive note: all of the animators' desks from the Florida studio are now sitting in the traditional animation classrooms at Ringling (in Sarasota, FL). My roommate was a Computer Animation major and had the key code access to those classrooms so, knowing that I was such a passionate Disney animation nut, she took me in there one day after classes were done and I was able to SIT at one of those desks. It was awe-inspiring to be able to sit at a desk that an actual Disney animator used (and was probably used in the production of Lilo and Stitch since that was the first movie to be produced entirely at the Florida studio).

So... since Ringling bought up all of the equipment from the studio when Disney gutted it, at least the desks are still being used to educate future generations of animators rather than being stacked in a storage warehouse somewhere to collect dust until the end of time.

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ShadowBuuProductions In reply to MaidenMegara [2014-09-06 23:41:51 +0000 UTC]

thankyou a lot i love cosplaying aladdin so much and have such love for RW. 

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MaidenMegara In reply to ShadowBuuProductions [2014-09-07 01:59:24 +0000 UTC]

You should love it, you look just like him! I want to cosplay Jasmine so badly, but she is going to be soooooo expensive.

I love Robin Williams too, he was just so funny. He left us way too soon.

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ShadowBuuProductions In reply to MaidenMegara [2014-09-07 09:08:21 +0000 UTC]

there's always cheaper ways to work things out if you have the patience to search!
I made jasmine's red outfit for my girlfriend, just a matter of going around to different cheap fabric stores or waiting for a sale.
and there's always shortcuts for the top we actually just bought a push up strapless bra and wrapped/sewed the fabric around it.
the wig is by far probably the biggest thing (so much hair) but if you're lucky ebay can have some wonderfully long wigs for sale that you can use and style yourself.
For red Jasmine's wig we actually combined a normal long wig, and a $2 store cheap one just for the ponytail, adding more thickness to it.

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ShadowBuuProductions In reply to crystal-of-ix [2014-09-07 09:08:36 +0000 UTC]

thankyou a lot

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crystal-of-ix In reply to ShadowBuuProductions [2014-09-07 11:40:20 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome a lot

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