Disney 100

WHO: client - DISNEY / Yellow Shoes. (image © Disney)

WHAT: Mickey Mouse & Sleeping Beauty Castle for the Disney 100 Celebration Artwork . Photography by Matt Beard

WHERE: Disneyland Resort, CA

WHY: What an honor and a photographer’s dream come true, to be asked to photograph the most famous celebrity in the world…Mickey Mouse, of course!…for Disney’s 100 year celebration.

We have been working with the Disney brand for several years, and couldn’t say YES fast enough, when asked to create the images for this once-in-a-lifetime historic event. We tackled this project with a 3-person crew (photographer and 2 assistants), and had to get set up on the fly, and ready-to-go during the filming of the commercial campaign at Disneyland, in Anaheim, CA.

Arriving “on stage” around 11pm after the park closed, the film crew was well under way getting set up for their motion shoot. Doing our best to stay close by and out of the way of the film crew, we found the perfect area off to the side, next to the Royal Theatre. Knowing the images were likely going to be stripped out and put on a dark background, we set up a black duvatyne backdrop, and brought in Profoto10air strobe lights, so we could shoot fast and get the best quality.

We had no idea when we would get Mickey for the stills, since the film crew usually takes priority in these situations, so we waited patiently and continued to test our lighting and cameras to make sure we were ready to go. As soon as Mickey was ready for stills, (about 4am) we had about 15 minutes to get as many shots as possible.

The shoot went great! Mickey is a PRO, as everyone knows, and we were able to get so many great images in a short period of time.

We finished up and headed out as soon as we finished shooting, because…believe it or not…we had another shoot back in L.A. at 7:30am that same morning. That’s how we roll!