The good guys of Retro WDW did a stunning job of restoration on the legendary Walt Disney World presentation movie titled "Project Florida - 1971. Thanks to their awesome work we now have a pristine copy of this long awaited movie, filmed in 1969 to present the WDW project. Here is what Retro WDW has to say about it:
"This is one of the rare films we've all been waiting for...Project Florida. Produced in 1970 the film was presented on NBC's The Wonderful World of Disney, following the conclusion of The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin Part 3 on January 31, 1971. Its primary goal was to educate and excite the public about the construction and soon-to-open Walt Disney World. Since then, aside from a portion of the film released the DVD Magic Kingdom: Imagineering the Magic, the film in its entirety has been oddly absent from any other formal or informal presentation means, sans a screening on May 24, 2011 at D23's Destination D. Other than that, the only viewable footage was a horrible VHS to digital transfer on YouTube, so bad that at times you forget its even in color.
That has all changed...by chance we were able to obtain an original 16mm print of the film that was stored properly and was in great shape, but we had a minor problem - all the audio was in Portuguese. After scanning the film frame by frame in HD we implemented filters to stabilize, remove grain/scratches/dirt, crop, sharpen and color correct the film. Then our own How Bowers took the low-quality existing available audio and performed audio restoration, removing the warble and background noise as well as equalizing. The last step was the hardest, matching the frame rate of the Portuguese film (filmed at 24fps) to the timing of the English audio. Put it all together and what you get is the most pristine version you have ever seen of this film. You are truly going to be amazed and will see more detail than you ever have in the past."
And amazed you will be indeed. Not only you'll see plenty of original artworks, the now extinct preview center, WDI Imagineers at work in Glendale, back in 1969, but also the giant model for WDW Magic Kingdom - yes, the big red structure you see below in the background of the model was the one of Marc Davis legendary Western River Expedition attraction that never was...
But also the model of the Asian Hotel with a Thai architecture which was never built...
The first architectural design for the Polynesian Hotel...
The also never built Venitian Hotel...
And the Persian Hotel which also never was.
Go ahead, watch this awesome video which never looks so good and make sur eto visit Retro WDW website HERE.
Project Florida - 1971 from RetroWDW on Vimeo.
But years before the Project Florida movie was shot, in 1965, Walt Disney's with his brother Roy did the famous Walt Disney World announcement press event in Orlando, the day on which everything started for the "Project Florida" that will become Walt Disney World 6 years later. make sure to read the article till the end as i have for you the full video of this 1965 press conference, which has never been available in its entirety as generally only a minute or two were available.
So, everything began on this memorable day with the arrival Walt getting down from his limousine and arriving at the press conference center with Florida governor Haydon Burns.
Here is a few shots of Walt with his brother Roy and governor Haydon Burns sit at the press conference table.
Below, after the announcement, Walt, Roy, governor Haydon Burns and General William E Potter.
So far, the pictures above shows what you may have seen before. But what you've probably never seen are the coming pictures, showing the cocktail party that happened after the press event, with Walt, Roy, and Governor Burns greeting people.
The funny thing is that you can see that they all wanted to meet Walt and have a photo shoot with him! On the next pics, just like after a wedding (!) everyone comes to salute and congratulate Walt!
On the next picture, Walt, Roy, and Governor Burns and his wife.
I bet you've never seen Walt with so many women around him!
No jealous, on the next one it's men surrounding Walt and Governor Burns.
Okay, and now on with the show with the rare full video of this 1965 WDW announcement! Please note that the video has no sound until 1.40 min and then the sound begins with the press conference.
Also, you'll see how funny it is to see Walt doing all what he can to avoid to disclose ideas of the WDW project when journalists ask him questions about it. Another not-to-be missed moment is at the very end of the conference. Walt, Roy and the Governor stand up and start to move out of the table but not Walt! He's suddenly intrigued my one of the microphones on the table...you'll see it, it's at the end and there is something truly extraordinary in it, here is why.
Normally, in each video in which we can see Walt, the show has been staged and Walt is "playing" Walt Disney as the great showman that he was. But, basically, it's a perfect "under control" Walt that we generally see. Now, in this 1965 press conference, and although he looks a bit tired, for most of the time he is the Walt "playing Walt" that we know. But at this very last minute we can see a totally different Walt that we don't see in regular shows. Instead to move out of the table for a picture session, he is suddenly intrigued by this microphone and if you look well - i should say if you "feel" well - for a few seconds his mind is totally "out" of the press event. Any corporate guy would have make sure that the "corporate show" would have had no flaws till the end and would have kept a "corporate" attitude. But not Walt. Suddenly, it's just like if the press event had ended and all his mind is "in" this microphone mystery (apparently it seems to be about a Virginia seal on it, or so ).
And what i like in this moment is the true simplicity of Walt. There is something very true from him happening at that moment, no ego, nothing, just something very simple, and you understand that it was probably in the same way that he was looking at new ideas, projects, models, etc.. that were presented to him at WED enterprises. His natural enthusiasm was important but you need to have this without-ego-simplicity to have genius, and here is a very rare moment during which we can have a glimpse of it.
Pictures and video: copyright State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/
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