Disclosure: I was provided an all-expense paid trip to the #TomorrowlandEvent in Los Angeles California in order to facilitate this post; however all opinions and admirations for the genius work of Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof expressed are my own.

I’m sure you’ve seen the incredible trailers for Tomorrowland by now. We interviewed Director/Producer Brad Bird and Producer/Writer Damon Lindelof while we were in LA earlier this month. They were quite a pair of characters!! That was a really fun interview.

The thing about movies is that you just go and watch them. You don’t consider everything that GOES into making the movie – but it’s VERY interesting to see. What’s even more interesting, is getting to know the minds that create the movie and the thought process.

 

 

How Disney Brings Tomorrowland to Life…

The very first question, right off the bat, asks that very thing.

Q. How did the information from the Disney archives help you to bring tomorrowland to life on the big screen?

Damon answers: “I think that we are both fascinated with Imagineering and particularly Walt’s futurism. A lot of that stuff was rampant in the early days of designing the Parks itself. And in tomorrowland obviously he came up with the concept in the 50s and 60s but I think that this sort of treasure trove of roads not taken, the part that Brad and I particularly zeroed in on was the 1964 world’s fair where there were a number of attractions like Mr. Lincoln, carousel progress, Magic skyway, Small World, and we just felt like it would be really great to see those on the big screen kind of re-create that feeling. Our initial ambition was a lot higher but again the world’s fair as what they represented at the time, particularly in the 60s, the connection to Disneyland that was really the stuff that we kind of locked in on.”

Then Brad Bird finishes the answer with: “But it’s also that world’s fairs in and of themselves were a thing where people would bring together their brightest minds and talk about the future. And they were semi regular event where people came together from all over the world and kind of traded ideas. And they had a utopian aspect. And when we were talking about what happened to the idea of a positive future we kind of started to notice that that great future sort of disappeared around the time the world’s fairs disappeared.”

 

 

Coffee Fuels the Storytelling…

I love a guy that loves coffee and can tell a story! This pair can certainly do that!!

Q. You both are very creative and it seems like you just love storytelling. So what do you do to feed that creativity?

Brad answers, “Coffee. Yeah. It doesn’t have to be Starbucks either, by the way.”

Then Damon chimes in, “I think, you know we watch a lot of TV. We go and see a lot of movies. And we tell our wives and children that that’s work. (everyone laughs). But it is the idea of constantly sort of surrounding yourself. I do feel for me in particular and I think that Brad shares this, is we sort of grew up in that culture and the idea of saying like, I want to do this one day. But where we start almost every time that we get together is oh, did you see this? Did you read this? What do you think about that? And I think that we are so steeped we are fans of this material ourselves. The fact that we get to make it. I think in a lot of ways this movie as Brad was just saying is a little bit of a response to these other you know, to the sort of apocalyptic storytelling that we’ve been kind of barraged with. And we love the Hunger Games. And I want to see Mad Max.”

 

 

Photo Credit: Disney Wikia

The Discovery of the 1952 Box…

Isn’t there always something intriguing and interesting about a discovery of something unknown? The guys were asked about the 1952 Box and how it was their inspiration.

Q. Can you tell us more about the discovery of the 1952 box and how that inspired you in the movie?

Damon answers, “Yes, probably 80% of the items were completely and totally uninteresting. But the ones that were interesting to us felt like, what if we were kids in third grade and someone put this box in front of us and said, tell us a story about the things that you find in this box. How would they all connect? And we took some things like the design for the, it’s a small world ride and Flushing Meadows in 64. And this weird kind of like disk that might have been an animation that Orson Welles might have had some interest in. And we said, what if Walt Disney was a member of this secret group of geniuses. And Tomorrowland itself was actually a cover for a real place that they built in an alternate dimension? And then we were kind of off to the races. And the box became just sort of you know, just sort of became a part of it.”

 

When the interview was over, we all piled up for a group shot with this dynamic duo! Seriously, such nice guys and I love how their imagination works!!

 

Mark Your Calendars for the PG rated, Family-Friendly Movie, Tomorrowland – Friday, May 22nd!

Plan on taking the family to Tomorrowland on Friday, May 22nd. It’ll be in theaters everywhere!! Think “retro futuristic”. That’s sort of the theme for the movie.

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Visit the official TOMORROWLAND website: www.Disney.com/Tomorrowland