Didier Ghez Talks

The Man behind the Book...

DLP.info: First of all: congratulations to your great book - we really enjoyed the little bit we were already able to see before this interview. But on to one of the most burning questions: much of the book is based on interviews you conducted with Imagineering. What can you tell us about them?

Didier: I conducted 75 interviews, out of which 60 in the States that were done in 2 weeks. That was quite fun, basically 2 weeks of just doing interviews and then getting home and labeling the tapes. Then it took about 6 months to do the transcripts of the interviews before writing the book.

DLP.info: Did you have to call any of the Imagineers back after hearing the interviews again or were you able to simply refer back to those tapes?

Didier: For most of them I didn't have to call back. However after I came back from the US I did call all of the architects of the hotels to interview them as That wasn't done in California and I had already interviewed Tony Baxter for 3 hours even before the interview for the book. [But even that process wasn't without its problems as Didier explains] Eddie Sotto gave me a 4 hour interview that ran on 3 tapes and I realized, in the middle of the second, that the tape was recording slower and slower and slower as the batteries were running out . [Fortunately] they managed to save the tape in the audio department of Imagineering but I had to transcribe it with him speaking very speeded up. He [also] redid some of the interview - it was really cool that he did that, but most of the rest was understandable. I was going crazy: the whole chapter on Main Street was included in that interview and part of it was impossible to listen to before Imagineering had worked on it.

DLP.info: Now that the book has been printed it looks sure to be a hit with Disney fans. But when you started the project five years ago did you find it hard to find a publisher?

Didier: Well we didn't find a publisher. Alain Littaye who is credited as being the co-author of the book is actually the person who set out the project on the table. He had this project and needed someone to write the texts and thought I could do the job. So he went and negotiated the rights with Disney. Then he went around publishing houses that could do it. All of them said no, or said yes but with certain conditions, a shorter book with fewer pictures, with less text and so on. But Alain said he really wanted a book with enough pages to show everything we wanted to show - enough concept art so it really made reading it fun, enough text so that it went into depth in each of the lands and all of the concepts, so that it can tell the full story.
After having looked for a publisher for quite a while Alain said "OK I can't find a publisher, but I want to do the book, so I'm going to take the risk and am going to publish it myself". So he created a publishing house called Nouveau Millénaire Editions / New Millennium Editions and did it himself.

DLP.info: We understand there is also to be a limited edition version of the book. What can you tell us about that?

Didier: The difference between the two editions is the limited edition is going to be on a special type of paper. It will be hand numbered and contain five special prints, one will be an introduction and four [will be] beautiful renderings of the second gate, the Walt Disney Studios, which can be framed. [It] will [be] limited to 2000 copies in French and 2000 in English.

DLP.info: The project was in production for a long time and during its progress the new Walt Disney Studios came to life - so did you ever consider adding them to the book too?

Didier: Yes, we thought about doing that. However doing that would have delayed the project a couple of months and we couldn't delay the project any further as it would have put the whole book at risk.

DLP.info: So maybe we can look forward to a book about the Studios at a later date?

Didier: I don't know about a whole book. But if this one is successful, when we do a second edition there is a chance there will be a chapter on the Studios.

DLP.info: With so much fantastic work in the book what would you say in your
opinion would be the highlight for a fan looking through?

Didier: The parts of the book that I really, really love are two pages of what
Space Mountain could have been: [the] original concepts for Space Mountain with the inside of the attraction, the Nautilus and the volcano and all of that. I also love the double page on the hotels that were never built - as I love all of the stuff covering concepts that were never built). Another one of my favorites is the double page that shows all of the big posters that are to be found in the Discovery Arcade. I have always been a huge fan of these posters so I love to see them all printed together.
In terms of the anecdotes, there are so many of them that I have not one but a couple of favorites. Even some of the Imaginers only learnt about them when they saw them in the manuscripts. One of them is that in the queue area of Star Tours when you look down while in the droid room there are some huge black machines - you really have to look to see them. Those are actually the old computers that were used to program and run the Pirates of Caribbean in Disneyland California. They were about to throw them away because they were replacing them with smaller units, which were a lot more modern. The archives were saving the one which was used to run the auctioneer, but the other ones were to be discarded. One of the Imagineers thought "I need something for the new queue area of Star Tours, I need something just like that" so they actually saved them. So those computers date back to 1967 when the attraction opened there. You can see [them] in a lot of books where Bill Justice and Wathel Rogers are working on these machines.
Another [story] I love is this one: when you are in front of the Main Street Transportation Company and look at it carefully you will see that it is actually a recreation of the silhouette of the Disneyland Castle. Those are probably my two favorite tid bits.

DLP.info: Within the book there are a lot of marketing photographs but there are also lots which we may have never seen before. Were they taken especially for the book ?

Didier: There are pictures that were made especially for the book by Alain Littaye who came to the park [and] gained access to a lot of the attractions to take some special shots. Also in the book are nine very special pictures of Disneyland Paris taken from the sky. [These were] taken by Yann Arthus Bertand who is famous for a book called "The Earth From The Sky" which sold really well around the whole world - his pictures are quite spectacular. And of course we have 250 concept drawings, concept paintings and pieces of art from Imagineering.

DLP.info: Now that you return to the park after a number of years do you look at the park differently and see all those things that you learnt about during your interviews?

Didier: Well, I can tell you after the interviews the first thing I did was come to the park to see the things [that] I was mentioning earlier, like the computers in Star Tours and the Main Street Transportation Company ... or the columns in the Boardwalk Candy Palace. In the book Eddie Sotto talks about how difficult it was to fill those columns with candy, and how in the end he realized he didn't have enough transparent candies so he had to fill one column with non transparent candies. You have to find which one of the columns is the one with those relatively non-transparent candies!
[After] having interviewed all of these people and gotten all of these anecdotes, some of them I already knew but some of them which were brand new to me, I was like "OH WOW! I need to go back to the park and see these things".

DLP.info: You must have had hours and hours of information so how did you choose what to include in the book and what to leave out?

Didier: We tried to fit in as much as possible. What's not in there are anecdotes about attractions, restaurants or boutiques which have disappeared, because Walt Disney Imagineering thought it was better not to put those in. [And while] we have quite a few anecdotes about how concepts evolved, concepts that were completely not built were not included. But those are the only two [things] that we didn't include. All the rest, be it through the text or be it through the captions, is included. So be sure to read the captions.

DLP.info: "Our" Park is often referred to as the most beautiful, would you agree?

Didier: Yes, simply because of the sheer amount of detail and sheer quality of the story everywhere. The amount of detail they put into the story and the way they thought about the story to make it as coherent as possible. And Discoveryland at night, which for me has always been a favorite, is also so beautiful that it helps make it the best park. Although I still have to visit Tokyo Disney Seas.

DLP.info: Well, on the subject of story maybe one of most intriguing ones in the park has to be Phantom Manor. It's certainly one of the most talked about subjects..

Didier: Why did I think you would interview me on that ? [laughs]

DLP.info: Everyone loves the story of Phantom Manor as it is probably the first attraction Disney has built with such a detailed but also mysterious back-story...

Didier: You will learn in the book everything that Walt Disney Imagineering wants you to know. You will learn more than any "normal" person knows about the back-story. But you will not know everything. There are a couple of reasons for that, one is when you get into too much detail in a back-story you loose a little bit of the magic. Walt Disney Imagineering wanted to talk about the back-story but not in so much detail that you will loose the magic but still in enough detail as possible so you can build upon it and try building a whole coherence by yourself. [It's] a little bit like when you're on a movie set, you see the set but if you go around you realize the set isn't built completely.
On top of that the story of Phantom Manor has been built, but to a certain extent. There is an extent where even Imagineers don't have it in writing. Even if you ask them really in depth they will tell you "use your imagination .."

DLP.info: Can one say you are the fan's eye in Imagineering and in archives where the normal fan never gets into?

Didier: Yes, you could say that. Basically I had two dreams in my life: one was to visit the archives of Walt Disney Imagineering, which I did. The other one, which I haven't yet fulfilled, is to visit the Animation Research Library which is the same kind of archives but for animation.

DLP.info: If guests haven't seen the book yet what would you most like to tell them about it?

Didier: Go to the website www.dlpbook.com where you can browse through it and see what the book is about, and how it's done.
I think that if you like the park [you will love] seeing 750 new photographs, artist renderings, concept art and also the text which goes into every single detail about the park. If you want to see the park with a completely different look and have the impression of never having visited the park before, get the book.

DLP.info: Thanks Didier for taking the time to give us this interview We wish you all the best with the new book, which we are sure will be a great success.

Learn more and order the book now at www.dlpbook.com

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