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[man narrating] On a warm California day
at Pixar Animation Studios...
a familiar face has arrived
for a morning meeting.
Let's go sit. Come on.
We'll talk about the day.
-Hello. Nice to see you.
-How are you?
-Come sit next to me.
-I know...
[narrator] Bob Iger is the CEO
of The Walt Disney Company,
which owns Pixar.
And these meetings,
the kind where he gets to talk ideas
with his creative people...
are the kind he loves.
Well, I get to draw in the story.
[chuckling] At least let me do that.
There are always new things
on the horizon to talk about.
New concepts, new technology.
Wow, it reached the Philippines.
New possibilities.
I mean, the stories, by nature,
are so hard to crack.
And you never know when an old story
about his days in charge
of programming the Olympics on ABC
might be good for a laugh as well.
Everything starts to melt.
The bobsled run is melting.
And I've got nothing to put on, except
maybe Sweden versus Romania in hockey.
[people chuckle]
[narrator] But ultimately,
he's always sure to remind his colleagues
of their greatest objective.
A lot of what we do, what we make,
is to inspire audiences,
but it's just as valuable to us
and as fulfilling to us
when we inspire the people
who work for us too.
[male Pixar employee] Yeah.
[Iger] First of all,
I get motivated by great creativity.
-That's--
-[chuckling]
It's, you know, so much a part
of what we do as a company.
I get motivated by working
with an incredibly large and diverse group
of extremely talented people
that come to work every day
with a passion for what they do.
[narrator] On any given day,
in so many different places...
you'll find countless ways
that people at Disney,
the cast members as they're called...
contribute to a common mission.
[Ranft] The collaboration
is where it's most exciting.
[Mylniczenko]
We're very compassionate people.
You want to be able to solve problems.
[Roberts] I got in the habit
to be optimistic.
[Goldberg] I never thought
I'd be good enough to work at Disney.
[Lee] Every year for my birthday,
I would ask to go to Disneyland.
[Gonzales] It was that idea of adventure.
[Baker] Star Wars was something that
I never thought I would ever get to do.
[Meinerding] It is a joy that
we get to work on stuff that we all love.
[Girdich] I can create something
that I never thought could exist
in the physical world.
[Magudulela] I still get chills
when I'm... [chuckles] singing.
I feel like we're giving them a gift.
[narrator]
These are the stories of what they do...
and what it means to them.
This is One Day at Disney.
Walt Disney,
the name so ingrained in the culture
it's almost easy to forget
it once belonged to a man...
who in the 1920s began a company founded,
more than anything else...
on the power of imagination.
[Iger] Anytime a child goes
to his or her first movie
it's a memorable experience.
In my particular case, my grandparents
took me to see Cinderella,
when, I believe, I was four years old.
In Brooklyn, New York,
seeing a classic Disney film,
I think, was maybe fortuitous
because it stuck with me my whole life.
[Brown] Iger is one of millions
who can tell that kind of story.
But across every generation,
Walt Disney's original passion has endured
at the company's heart...
animation.
[Goldberg] I'm one of the guys
who gets to draw Mickey.
I take pride in the fact
that the studio trusts me enough.
It's kind of like being handed
the keys to the castle.
I remember the first time
that I drew Mickey in a public forum,
Roy Disney, Walt's nephew, was with us.
And I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, my God,
[chuckling] I better not screw this up."
When I was very young,
the first Disney movie I saw was Dumbo.
I was just absolutely struck...
by how wonderful animation looked
and made me feel.
It's life, pushed. [chuckles]
It's making something larger than life.
I was a very focused kid.
You know, knowing at a very early age
what I wanted to do.
I've made my key positions,
and now I'm putting the positions
in between to help flesh out the movement.
When I started making my Super 8 films,
my parents would willingly
give over the dining room table,
and I would lay out all my cels,
drying, you know, [chuckles]
and the living room would become
where I would shoot the stuff
on my downshooter.
Put a new sheet of paper down.
I never thought that I'd be good enough
to work at Disney.
Back in 1974,
I applied to their training program.
And the response was,
"Well, you didn't make it, Eric.
You're not good enough."
In the late '80s, in London,
I was running my own animation studio.
It was a very successful
commercials company.
But I was getting very stressed out
working on commercials.
I go to an animation festival
in Los Angeles, bringing my reel,
and there are a couple
of Disney guys there.
One was Charlie Fink,
who just kept calling me once a month.
"You wanna jump ship yet, huh?
You wanna join Disney's yet, huh?"
Charlie finally dropped the bombshell.
He said, "They're thinking of doing
this film Aladdin.
And they're thinking
of getting Robin Williams."
I just thought,
"Okay, if I don't do this now,
I'm gonna miss the crest of a wave."
My first week at Disney,
and I'm starting to draw
developmental sketches of the Genie.
And here we are.
If you look at Mickey,
he's got this organic way of being drawn
where one line leads to the next.
Same thing with the Genie.
You know, you've got all these lines
that kind of add up to something whole.
So, I started doing Robin William-esque
Genies in my designs.
John and Ron said,
"Why don't you take a couple
of Robin's bits off his comedy records
and animate a Genie to them?"
But first, before we do the play,
I'd like to talk about
the very serious subject of schizophrenia.
-No, he doesn't.
-Shut up! Let him talk!
[audience laughs]
[Goldberg] And I have to say,
it's one of the great joys of my life
to have made Robin Williams laugh.
[screams]
-Oy!
-[bones crack]
Ten thousand years
will give you such a crick in the neck!
[Goldberg] I was in the right place
at the right time.
Animation, all of a sudden, is hip again.
Aladdin was getting towards that peak
of what people call the Renaissance.
Welcome to my wall.
[chuckles]
The Shanghai assignment was great.
They wanted to decorate a restaurant
in Shanghai Disneyland,
la Hirschfeld/Sardi's.
I even got to do modern characters
like Anna and Elsa.
Whenever I have to draw characters
from the Disney canon,
I always feel all those people
who created those characters
looking over my shoulder saying,
"Do it right."
[chuckles]
Often, they would straddle two drawings
like this with Gaston and LeFou.
Every one of these movies has a theme
and they're universal.
How many people of our generation
grew up dealing with death
because they saw Bambi's mother die?
[calling] Mother?
I've got no strings
To hold me do--
[Goldberg] With Pinocchio, it's,
"Always let your conscience
be your guide."
In the case of Aladdin,
the theme was, "Be yourself."
And even though, yes,
they do deal with serious subjects,
you always walk out of a Disney film
delighted and feeling like...
"Yeah, that was great.
I think I'm gonna see it again."
[chuckles]
Walt Disney's name is the company's name.
I'm reminded every day
that I come to work,
when I drive onto the Disney lot,
of the company's heritage.
I never lose sight of not only
the significance of that
but of just how fortunate
I consider myself.
Now we want you to share with us
our latest and greatest dream.
That's it. Right here.
Disneyland.
[Brown] When Walt Disney
built Disneyland in the 1950s,
the park was designed
to inspire a timeless sense of adventure
for visitors of all ages.
Look it. I got something for ya.
-You're gonna pin that onto your shirt.
-Oh, you wanna wear that?
-Wow. You're gonna wear it on your shirt?
-[Gonzales] That's a conductor badge.
Ours is not just a mode of transportation,
as I don't like to think of it that way.
Come on in, guys. Welcome aboard.
Here at Disneyland,
we try to recreate that idea of traveling
to get to somewhere new,
somewhere exciting.
Just the sound of that whistle.
[train whistle blowing]
[train bell ringing]
The wood burner.
Big plume of smoke
coming out through the top.
It never gets old.
It will never get old for me.
You hop on that train set, and boom,
and you just automatically
go right back in time.
It was that old idea of adventure.
That's one of my favorite parts
of the job, actually.
Welcome to Disneyland Railroad roundhouse.
We have four different sets of tracks.
We're standing in front
of locomotive number four.
This locomotive was built in 1925
by the Baldwin Locomotive Works company.
And it was brought here
to Disneyland in 1958
and put on the line in 1959.
Part of our rite of passage
when we first joined the railroad
is working night shifts.
At the end of the night, we'll have to
polish any of the brass that you see here.
When I was two years old,
probably one of my earliest memories,
my grandfather bought me
a train set for Christmas.
And, of course,
me being the little sneaky kid that I was,
I found it in the closet.
And I remember staring at that train set
for almost a month straight.
And, finally, Christmas came,
and you know, I opened it up,
"Oh, surprise, surprise.
There's a train set."
I still have it to this day.
In high school, I used to sneak out...
get on the Green Line, go to the Blue Line
and go to Union Station
and just study and do my homework
in the terminal.
Used to just sit there
and kinda take it in.
Think about the heyday in the '40s.
And the steam engines that were
coming in and out of that station.
All aboard!
[Gonzales] Through college,
I was working on cars
and taking apart motors
and anything I could get my hands on.
Naturally, I came here
when I was going to college,
looking to even get a glimpse
of the steam engines.
Now I get to run them
which is a dream come true.
People often say
it all started with a mouse,
but I firmly believe
it all started with a train.
Walt was coming out to Los Angeles,
and that's where he drew up Mickey Mouse.
It was on a train that he did that.
Often, he would come out
from his apartment
that's right here on Main Street,
hop on a locomotive and take it away.
Some people didn't even know
they were being pulled by Walt Disney.
He was just, you know,
a big kid playing with his toys.
[train whistle blowing]
Good morning.
It's unbelievable what I get to do,
be it I'm sitting inside the cab
of a locomotive.
It's also the people, not only
my coworkers that I get to work with,
which are like-minded
and they're a lot of fun to work with,
but also the guests.
-Make sure you visit Mickey Mouse's house.
-Okay.
It's satisfying everything I ever thought
I would wanna do in life.
It's pretty neat.
I wanted to be
a television news anchorman.
Twenty-five thousand tickets
were sold in advance for the concert
which will feature the Grateful Dead,
the Allman Brothers and The Band...
I aspired to be Walter Cronkite.
I discovered early on that the likelihood
of my being Walter Cronkite...
[chuckling] was pretty, pretty low.
And so I redirected
and ended up in production.
[Brown] These days in New York City...
one of Iger's colleagues
who fulfilled her dream
of getting in front of the camera...
-Morning.
-Good morning, Richie.
-Good morning, Ms. Roberts.
-You're on your best behavior, aren't you?
...wakes up long before dawn
to be ready for work.
[Roberts] I love this job.
-What's up, Elvis?
-Good morning.
I love saying, "Good morning, America."
Think about that. I get to set the tone.
We get to set the tone for America.
All right.
The hours, as you saw, going to bed early.
I'm a sports hound and have to go to bed
early and miss some of the late games.
Ah. It's a small sacrifice.
It's gonna be a magical day.
Sal. Getting ready.
-This is teamwork here.
-What up, troops?
-Good morning, Robin.
-Oh, my God.
I mean, I wish the camera
could go all around to see
what it takes to put on a show
like Good Morning America.
-What's up, people?
-Good morning.
Teamwork, discipline, determination.
I took that with me from playing sports.
This is my glam fam.
This is Elena, Petula, D'Andre.
It helped that I worked at ESPN,
that I had this love for sports.
Sports, knew it cold.
I never worked a day in my life at ESPN.
Shh, don't tell anybody that.
We're leading with the terrifying story,
it's the Denver story...
Coming here to ABC,
I loved that it pushed me.
I know. I got an e-mail during the show,
and it was really good.
My knees were knocking under that desk
when I was sitting next to Diane Sawyer
for the first time.
But then the athlete in me came through
in realizing that I had done my homework.
[whispering]
George Stephanopoulos. George.
I had earned the right to be there.
And I'm so grateful for the support staff
that I had to help me.
-One Day at Disney.
-Hi, guys.
[chuckles]
Optimism is a muscle
that gets stronger with use.
I got in the habit at an early age
to be optimistic.
[director] Five, four, three...
I almost feel like
we are a Disney attraction.
Like, people really look forward
to seeing us.
The news is very serious. The information
that we're conveying is very serious,
but there's also a component
of our program
where you can spend time
with the audience.
-[crowd] Good morning!
-How are you?
They've come from all over, not only
the country but all over the world.
-Just got off the airplane.
-Just got off the airplane?
And, boy, are my arms--
And, boy, are my arms tired?
I draw energy from them.
-Nice to have you all here.
-Thank you.
I'm curious. Curiosity.
I never-- I never lose sight of that.
I'm always-- I'm thirsty for knowledge.
[Brown] So, every story is a chance
to learn something new
and the best ones
offer the chance for even more...
like the call she got
from Washington in 2012.
There's word on the street
that President-- then President Obama--
was going to change his position
on marriage equality.
I was picked to do the interview.
So, I sit down across from the President
of the United States of America,
and I say to him, "Have you changed--
Mr. President, have you changed
your position on marriage equality?"
It is important for me
to go ahead and affirm that
I think same-sex couples
should be able to get married.
It was a very special moment
to know that you are part of history,
so I'm feeling pretty good about myself.
We have a producer over to the side
who has little blue cards
with little, you know, time cues
and little notes and everything.
Did you discuss this with--
I think she's gonna say,
"You rock! You're the best!"
It said, "Lipstick on teeth."
So, when I said the statem--
when he made the statement,
I had lipstick on my teeth,
which made me think of my mother's saying,
"When you strut, you stumble."
'Cause I thought I was all that.
I got the big get.
Got the big interview.
"Slow your roll, Robin."
[Brown] The truth was that there was more
on Robin's mind that day anyway.
After overcoming breast cancer
years earlier,
she'd just been told that she had
a rare and serious blood disorder.
I had... [clicks tongue] Wow.
I was at the doctor.
No one knew that I was there.
This was before I did the interview.
It was a day before.
So, after a long, long exam,
basically, a doctor said,
"You're gonna die in a year or two."
So when I'm sitting across from him
and he's making this statement,
and it's making national news,
my mind is racing, "Am I going
to even be around long enough to benefit,
as a gay woman, what this man just said?"
These two lines here,
so it makes it easier to draw blood
and also to administer medication
like the chemo that I'm about to have.
[Brown] She decided to film her battle
and bring millions of ABC viewers
on the journey alongside her.
The fact that I was out of work
for five, six months,
when you get a call from the very top
of the company where you're working,
and Bob Iger was one of the first calls
that I received
and had his full support, did not have to
worry about my job or anything like that.
And I thought about people who go through
something like this, who have to worry.
-Going home now!
-[people cheering]
It's tough enough
you're just fighting for your life.
[Brown] Hope in the face of adversity.
A theme right out of a Disney movie,
and the moral of the story
that Robin Roberts lived.
Everybody's got something.
Everybody's got something.
My mother used to say that
to us all the time
when we were like, "Woe is me. Woe is me."
She was like,
"Honey, everybody's got something."
Something that can be seen as a roadblock,
I used as a hurdle.
Yes, you are. That's what I love
about the morning, you never know.
[applause]
I didn't go through all this
just to hang around.
A minute 30.
That's why I say I'm a thriver,
not a survivor.
[male announcer] I would like
to thank Robin Roberts for being here.
[audience cheering, applause]
I was at ABC Sports for 13 years.
When I moved from sports to entertainment,
you know, they were both similar in that
the most important thing
about entertainment,
whether it was ABC or anywhere,
was essentially telling a great story.
[Brown] After a long rise up the ranks
of ABC and then Disney...
Bob Iger was promoted to CEO
of the company in 2005.
If you look at Disney's storytelling,
the quality of optimism exists
in almost every major story
that's been told by this company.
One of the artists tasked
with bringing these stories to life
is Pixar's Jerome Ranft.
While Pixar is known
for computer animation...
every day at its headquarters,
Jerome does things the old-fashioned way,
with his hands.
It's subconscious and innate.
I just love to make stuff.
Being a sculptor just fulfilled that need.
I almost feel like it found me,
like, I had this desire.
And I took my first sculpting class
when I got into college.
The first project
was a life-sized self-portrait.
And as soon as I finished that,
I was like, "This is what I'm gonna do."
[Brown] Jerome's passion
has brought to life characters
such as Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc.
And even a fish called Nemo.
I usually get brought on
when they wanna start fleshing out
what these characters
will look like three-dimensionally.
And mostly what I do
is pre-visualize 3-D design
before they spend the time and money
to develop it in a computer.
This one.
You're part of that group of people
trying to solve aesthetic problems
and make aesthetic decisions
that help make these things
become finished projects.
I think Waternoose
from Monsters, Incorporated--
I was very happy with that.
It was very, very complicated.
Very, very challenging piece.
I'm never asked
to do the same thing twice.
I've done three Cars films
and not one of them was like the other.
This was during the production of Cars 3
early, early, early on.
At one point McQueen
was gonna try to be in disguise,
so whatever disguise we did
had to fit over this sort of chassis.
And this was the disguise.
This story point changed
and this whole exercise
of making this sculpture became moot,
but, at the time,
this was what this was being used for.
It's not so much pride.
I feel humble, the fact
that this character's that's owned
by the world now, by you know--
Millions of children
have grown up with this character.
At one point, he was a drawing,
and it went in through my eyes
and out through my hands.
My brother was working at Disney
when I was in junior high school,
so I used to-- I remember going
and visiting him at the Disney lot
and being completely blown away
by these projects.
He says, "You heard him, code red.
Repeat, we are at code red!"
[Brown] Jerome's brother, Joe,
was a legendary Disney and Pixar animator,
who worked for decades
on the company's biggest movies
including some with his brother.
Being able to work with him on any project
was, sort of, a dream come true.
...see it, and he's like, "Ahhh!"
and he starts...
I didn't realize how special it was
until he had passed.
[Brown] Joe died
in a car accident in 2005.
He was just 45 years old.
When he first passed away
and I walked into this building,
it was really hard, and I was questioning
whether I could do it.
He wouldn't have wanted that.
I have my own career and my own
set of standards that I do this work to,
and I think that's what my parents
taught us both.
He influenced me in ways
I'm still sort of figuring out.
I just miss him. I wish he was here.
[Brown] Jerome's continued to grow
his family's legacy at Disney...
but there are fewer and fewer sculptors
working in animation today.
The role I've played here is changing.
In the early days,
the digital modelers they had here
came from a computer background,
and now they're training artists
to use the tool of the computer.
And there's incredibly talented
digital modelers
out there in the world
and especially here.
I wanna be a better sculptor.
That's never gonna-- That--
How can I even put it?
The impulse to be better at what I do
is never ever gonna go away.
What this company is, more than anything,
aside from a collection
of many talented people
and the legacy of Walt Disney,
is a-- is a great partnership...
between artists and technologists.
Jake definitely has his own personality
and you can't help but love him.
When you get to meet him, and see him,
and he's happy to see you,
it's a great feeling.
He's a maintenance droid.
He loves his job. He's very dedicated.
Jake doesn't talk,
so he's more like R2-D2.
He uses sounds and colors
and lights to communicate.
He's got an eye.
Yellow, he's happy. Blue, he's sad.
Red, he's angry.
Gray is, "Please, leave me alone."
[laughs]
So, how are you feeling
about the design, Tanner?
[Brown] Ashley Girdich works
in California...
It's looking pretty good.
Ready for the field.
Okay. Is there anything
we can do while we're...
as a member of Walt Disney
Imagineering Research and Development...
where she takes her knowledge of
technology to create extraordinary ways
for guests to interact
with the best Disney stories.
The day that he went live outdoors,
I was jumping, screaming, laughing.
Having a character roaming around freely,
people were blown away.
Everyone was trying to find
how he was being controlled.
He was his own character,
without a puppeteer in the background.
I think the unreasonable ideas are
the ones we get the most excited about.
Things that we think
are impossible or outlandish,
we do whatever we can to make that happen.
All of the operations partners I've
talked to, that is a good time for them...
I think one of the biggest challenges
is the reputation this company has.
You've gotta be top of your game.
We don't just go out and build a robot
and say, "Now, what can you do with it?"
I take a character and say,
"Can I make this character come to life?"
[people chattering]
-[Girdich] Come in the front.
-[droid beeps]
When we were play-testing
Jake in the park,
we had a couple of children
who would put their hands on his shoulder
and just walk right alongside him.
They see him as their friend
and immediately take to him.
Kids would come up
and just give him a hug.
Sit, wrap their arms around him.
They would give him a kiss.
-[child] Hold me!
-[Girdich] And you realize the power
that these characters have
to inspire wonder.
Hi.
-[chuckles]
-[droid beeping]
We're constantly updating him.
And right now, what we're trying to do
is refactor some of his code
so that he can work a little bit better
than he has in the past.
More responsive, more reliable.
I want him to last forever.
You have to be resilient to try
and introduce new things into the park
and find ways to solve challenges.
We would love to have our characters speak
what we call natural language processing.
In the technology terms,
it's still very difficult,
and especially
in a theme park environment.
Very interesting challenge.
So, we'll see, we'll see.
[chuckles] We're working on it.
My dream would be
to reintroduce some of our characters
the way they are on the screen,
straight into our parks.
Dreams are incredibly important, I think,
because they can unify us
to go after something
that, alone,
we might have not been able to do.
Living out your dreams
in the way that our guests do in the park
really is a different way of saying,
"I can create something I never thought
could exist in the physical world."
[woman] Ellen,
you're not seeing the droid.
[Girdich] When you think about
what the outcome is of your work,
it's millions of faces smiling.
I love this guy.
It's a great reason
to get up every morning.
Usually when I'm just drawing,
it really comes from a feeling inside.
It kinda just flows out of my hand.
It's an emotion that I'm trying
to put down on paper.
Some of the favorite things
that I like to draw is my nephews.
I have all these great memories with them
and experiences with them.
I hear them laugh,
and I hear how they play with each other.
And that's kind of where my hand goes.
My parents came from Taiwan.
My dad came here first in his early 20s,
on a business trip,
and he fell in love with the country.
And so, he went back to Taiwan,
and then brought me and my mom.
I definitely grew up as a Disney child.
I remember having one Disney book,
and it was in Chinese,
but it was all Disney characters,
and my mom would read that to me.
And so even though
we didn't really recognize the reading,
like the pictures told the story.
And so we always had
a fondness for images.
I started working in animation,
and I was actually at a fork in the road
because I was thinking maybe
I would go into teaching
because I love working with kids,
and I thought it would be great
to bring art into education.
But as I was preparing for school,
I also just applied all over,
Disney included.
And I remember I got accepted
to all the schools I applied for,
but then I got a call from Disney,
and it was just no question.
Like, I was-- I wanted to work at Disney.
As a senior illustration manager here,
I work with a team of artists
and provide them art direction,
make sure everything's in line.
We take the art direction of the film,
and we create a style of our own
for the books.
The first picture book
that I worked on here was Sofia the First.
I really like this book
because I got to add,
like, little flourish designs throughout
the book to wrap around the text.
And it was really fun to be able
to add the little hearts on the I's.
And it felt more personal.
It's something that I think,
as a child, I would have done too.
I work with the most creative people
that I know.
So, we have the Frozen middle grade cover.
And then, Winnie and I have been talking
about special effects.
When a film is in production,
we start illustrating the books
that go along with the films.
We're thinking, like, a burgundy color
that will match Anna's lining.
So, it's got a very Frozen 2 color,
so all the palettes are cohesive.
There's books that retell the film,
and then there's also books
that are extension stories.
And as a manager,
I guide the team of artists
so that they can illustrate a book
that looks cohesive,
even though
there are multiple hands on it.
So, this is for the Toy Story 4
extension book. And...
One of the things that I really like
working on is extension stories
because you get to extend
the life of these characters
that you fall in love with
when you watch the movie.
Especially, like, when I was younger,
and I would watch this film,
and I would always wonder,
"Oh, what happens after they get married?"
Or "What happens
after this adventure's over?"
We get this foundation to work with,
but we get to take in so many directions.
Yeah, the book is really fun.
And it takes place in a carnival setting,
so it's actually really appropriate.
I think these extension stories
develop this new type of relationship
I have with the characters.
You experience them even in a closer way
because we get to tell,
like, what happens next.
I'm helping Jeff with the Frozen 2 covers.
One of my favorite parts of the job is
we get to collaborate with the filmmakers.
They're the ones that create
this world and these people.
And to have this firsthand explanation
of all this knowledge
is what helps us
make our books so wonderful.
And we had decided on a cool silver ink,
so it'll be shimmery.
And so it will stand out from the page.
You have everything working
in a more analogous color scheme,
which is a more limited scheme,
but it's much more harmonious
to the environment.
You immediately recognize them
as Anna and Elsa.
I think it channels the Frozen aesthetic
quite a bit.
So another one of my favorite books
was Three Little Words.
I really love the message of this book,
and it's to just keep swimming.
I think it's a great, positive message
for little kids,
and it's also something
that I tell myself every day.
What I love about art is
it forces me to find my voice.
It allows me a way to express myself.
And I've learned to love myself
because I learned that everyone
expresses themselves differently.
[Brown] For the artists, and the audience,
Disney creations are ways to connect
with the magic of stories.
And for the man who oversees it all,
there's nothing more satisfying
than seeing the biggest,
most ambitious creations come to life
in almost unfathomable ways.
[Iger] When you can not only experience
the story but live with the story...
that's a very, very powerful experience
to have.
And it immediately thrilled visitors
when it opened the summer of 2019
at both Disneyland and Disney World.
[Baker]
Grand openings are always hard for me
because you're giving a huge piece of your
heart to the world for the first time.
It's hard to turn it over that first time
and to see how the world's gonna react
because you don't know till they come in.
The fans of Star Wars have been
building Star Wars for 45 years now.
There's people that live and breathe
Star Wars every day,
and this land that we've built
now gives them a place
to live their Star Wars story.
I feel we owe them, to give them the best
possible experience they can have.
'Cause this is something that, you know,
they've waited their entire lives
to see this.
[Brown] And so,
as Disney planned Galaxy's Edge,
Eric Baker traveled around the world...
hunting and collecting props
that would convince the most
knowledgeable Star Wars fanatics...
that every detail in the park
was just right.
[Baker] They're getting the thrill
of a totally immersive world
that they're experiencing
for the first time.
This is the first time that we're really
putting it in front of guests' faces.
I mean, to be able to go 360
around something
and really look at it and study it,
"There's that and there's that."
And seeing all these pieces they've seen
in the films for years and years.
I mean, there's nothing like seeing
the reaction on the guest's face
the very first time that they walk
into anything that we've done.
It makes every minute of blood, sweat
and tears we put into this worth it.
Um... Sorry.
[chuckles] I get choked up.
I'm sorry. I'm emotional.
I mean, just in this little shop alone,
um, there's over 63 cages
hanging from the ceiling.
And all these cages
are made out of different things.
I mean, some of them, actually, are made
out of studio lights from film sets.
It's an incredible, beautiful mess.
I grew up in a very small town
in North Georgia.
We didn't even have a theater. You had
to go to the next town to go to a movie,
so if you went to a movie,
it was a special event.
I didn't see Star Wars till it had been
in the theater for about a year.
I finally got my parents to take me,
and it had changed my life.
I didn't know what I wanted to do,
but I knew I wanted to be
in the entertainment industry.
Funny enough, I was at a party one night,
and there was a prop master
from a TV show who showed up at the party
and saw some of the stuff
that I had built around my house.
And asked me if I was interested
in being a prop fabricator.
Going from film into the real world
was building stuff
that's gonna last
for the guests to enjoy every day.
When you build it for a film set, it's
something that has to last one or two days
and then it gets thrown out.
When we were in England, we would go
to aircraft scrapyards and stuff
because we were actually shopping
for aircraft parts
to match stuff that was used in the films.
And suddenly, there's a 747
sitting in a cow pasture
that they're tearing the parts off of.
And you would go in and say,
"I'll take all 57 miles of cable
and that seat and that seat
and that control panel." [chuckles]
When a stormtrooper takes off his helmet,
does he hang it on a coat rack,
or does he have a stand he puts it on?
Part of the fun for us was coming up
with these things
that hadn't been seen on camera,
and getting to add to this lore
that we've loved our whole lives.
My grandson thinks I'm famous now.
[laughs]
He's like, "You're famous."
I'm like, "No, I'm not. Not really.
I just make this stuff, you know."
I told my wife the bucket list
is checked off now,
to work on Star Wars. [chuckles]
I'm getting chills talking about it.
[Iger] If Walt could see
the company today,
I believe that
he would be extremely proud of,
not only the fact
that his legacy is still alive
and that the values that he infused
in his stories still exist,
but that we've, in many respects,
followed his footsteps,
which is to keep taking risks and chances
and exploring new ground.
[Brown] The company covered new ground
when Disney's Animal Kingdom
opened in Orlando in 1998.
Today, the park is thriving
as much as ever...
thanks to a special brand of TLC
behind the scenes.
[Mylniczenko]
Perri is a prehensile-tailed porcupine.
She's been trained to allow us
to do ultrasounds on her.
Giving us an opportunity to track
her pregnancy from conception until birth.
That way we could tell that she
was healthy, that the baby was healthy.
So, when there's a fetus,
it makes it a lot easier to see.
And right now, we're just been able
to see her urinary bladder.
And then you can see a hint
of her uterus popping in.
Now we're just doing checkups on her,
but we're also going to be preparing
for a second pregnancy.
Ever since I've been a small child,
I've just tried to help animals
and help heal them.
And so that's just been
an innate part of my growing up.
So far...
There we go.
I came here for a visit
during a vet conference,
and I was just impressed.
I loved the facilities.
I loved the opportunity
to care for the animals as well.
As I got to know all of the veterinarians,
I just thought it was an amazing team.
And because of all of that,
I was really enticed to come here.
I think that's what I love most.
We have a diversity of animals,
both terrestrial and aquatic.
It allows people to really get close.
It allows people
to understand the animals,
and it gives them an opportunity
to care and bond with those animals.
We have folks that come up here regularly
that... know all of the different animals.
Like the gorillas. There are some people
that know all of the gorillas by name.
And the guests will just visit them,
which is a unique opportunity.
We do routine examinations
on many of our animals.
And today we did an examination
on a southern stingray.
-...At 950, so we got a good mark on her.
-Perfect.
This is a female that's been with us.
Her name is Decksy.
PH is 8.6.
So, right now we're measuring
the oxygen level
of the... area that she's in.
Today she's getting her routine exam.
And so, because of that,
we need to do a little bit more.
Let's go ahead and look at her gills.
So, her cardiac contractions are great.
Her rhythm and rate are great.
So, I have no concerns right now.
We took an ultrasound as well,
which gives me an excellent view
of all of her organs
so I can determine health of her,
you know, from the inside.
Yeah, it feels like it's actually healed.
A typical day can mean anything
from doing a pregnancy exam on a scorpion,
to a bird gets an injury
in one of our aviaries.
You do have to get quite creative.
Every day we have to figure out
how to put a bandage on an animal
that wouldn't normally have a bandage.
So, how would you put a bandage on a fish?
Or a very tiny bird that has a broken leg?
How do you fix that broken leg?
And so you come up with toothpicks
and tape, sometimes, to make splints.
And then the conservation piece.
Disney really cares about conservation.
All of us have an opportunity to work
with conservation that Disney supports.
I'm particularly interested
in working with gorillas
in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
with a program called GRACE.
And that's the Gorilla Rehabilitation
and Conservation Education Center
that cares for orphaned gorillas.
We can then have those gorillas
rehabilitated,
and then placed
into a family group of gorillas,
with the ultimate goal
of reintroducing them
to a safe environment.
-[Mylniczenko] What do you think?
-[keeper] Probably.
-[Mylniczenko] Okay.
-[keeper] I could leave it right there.
-Does that work?
-[Mylniczenko] That can work.
All of our animals have bitey parts
and scratchy parts. [chuckles]
Yeah, there are times when you just need
to make sure you understand the animal.
But we also have keeper staff
that really know the animals well
and can help us with safety issues.
Oh, yeah.
Good job.
They choose. Right?
They can make the decisions
to come and participate if their--
with their medical care
or they can choose to go.
Hey, girl.
-[Mylniczenko] What a good job.
-[keeper] Good girl. That's very nice.
Sometimes what we do is really amazing.
We get to see animals through birth.
-[Mylniczenko] What a good girl.
-[keeper] Good girl. Good girl.
She's doing such a good job.
We get to see them overcome issues,
and those are amazing things.
Being a veterinarian is probably one of,
in my opinion, [chuckles]
the most rewarding jobs you can have.
Sweetie. It's just for you. I know.
It's just for you. Yummies.
[Iger] We're all, in many ways, in the--
not only in the same business
but doing the same thing,
which is trying to reach people
all over the world
in very compelling ways,
trying to touch people's hearts.
[Brown] In Madrid, Spain,
they'll try to reach people's hearts today
with two performances
of the widely-beloved stage version
of The Lion King...
[trills tongue]
propelled by the gifts
of some amazing performers.
Every start of the show gives me
a different vibe, a different energy.
-Testing, testing, testing, testing.
-All good.
That first call means a lot
'cause you find
the public members screaming.
[audience cheering, applause]
But the minute you start that call,
it's like total silencio. And then, boom.
[applauding continues]
I have their eyes on me.
[singing in Zulu]
[background singers singing in Zulu]
I still get chills when I'm...
[chuckling] singing.
Especially the first song.
I just don't get over with
that first song, "The Circle of Life."
[continues singing in Zulu]
I look at individuals amongst the public.
And the connection I feel with their eyes,
even better when they are crying.
I'm like, "Oof."
[chuckles]
"I feel you."
I'm really proud.
It's a very special role.
I feel honored that I was trusted.
[Brown] Zama's journey to Madrid
began years ago in South Africa...
where she grew up dreaming
bigger and bigger with every song.
[Magudulela] I think I was about five.
I actually composed a song.
That's how much I knew
that I loved singing.
And then, of course, at nine years, that's
when I'm like, "I think I love singing."
'Cause I ended up copying my friend
who sang better than me at that point.
She can sing, I can try and sing too.
I'm going to be competitive.
I just sang and sang until I upstaged her.
[laughs]
[Brown] Zama eventually traveled to London
to support her friend at a casting call.
She caught the eye of the director,
who asked if she could sing.
[Magudulela] My first audition
was not good.
At that point I just finished
my first musical in South Africa.
There was a long queue, and I asked
people, "Okay, what is this queue for?"
"It's, like, auditions, Lion King."
I'm like, "What is that?"
I went to the movie store,
bought myself that DVD.
I thought, "If I do The Lion King,
am I gonna be a cartoon?" [chuckles]
[Brown] Four days later,
she was offered the part of Rafiki...
despite having
no acting experience at all.
I do have moments
where I'm actually meditating.
[chuckles]
I close my eyes.
[chuckles]
-Clearing the mind.
-You know?
I'm glad and grateful
that I've been part of this journey.
Soy listo!
Being around this show teaches me
every day to be a better person.
[singing in Zulu]
I mean, all the songs for me are special.
They tell a certain story.
And... for me, "The Circle of Life,"
I just connect with it.
It's the circle of life
It's like, "Wow,
we're so connected on this earth."
We need each other.
Ooh... [sighs]
It's just too much. It's deep.
[chuckles]
[singing in Spanish]
I just connect with it
as when I came on this earth.
How my family was happy.
And what dramas or what problems
we've been through.
[continues singing in Spanish]
My parents are no longer there.
I always feel they are still with me
when I'm delivering this song.
Because, really,
when I talk to that Mufasa,
I'm not talking to Mufasa,
I'm talking to my parents.
That's why I'm grateful
to be part of this journey
because, really,
I've changed so many people's lives.
You know, knowing that there could be
people who are coming here sad.
When we perform, then they leave happy.
It's an amazing reaction.
I feel like we're giving them a gift.
It just makes me [chuckles] feel blessed.
[Iger] The Walt Disney Company
is almost a hundred years old.
And it's pretty extraordinary
when you think about a company
that's been around as long as ours
that is still extremely relevant
in the world, that, in many respects,
doesn't look anything like the world
that existed back in 1923
when Walt and his brother Roy
started the company.
[Brown] Another company that's withstood
the test of time is Marvel,
which Bob Iger added
to Disney's portfolio in 2009.
Just like Bob Iger,
Ryan Meinerding works in Los Angeles.
He got his start on Iron Man...
and has since risen to the head
of Visual Development at Marvel Studios.
Ryan creates the first visuals
that ultimately inspire
the characters' costumes.
One of the reasons I love movies is going
on that journey the hero's going on
and trying to create the visual
for that character
that's going to lock in
the audience's empathy
and take them forward
through the journey of the film
is something that I, you know,
I'm always going to pick the heroes.
Marvel superheroes are powerful, not only
because they literally have powers
but also because they have lots of flaws.
Spider-Man and Peter Parker are relatable
because he has real-world problems.
He, you know,
has problems with girlfriends.
He has problems with his Aunt May.
He has problems in school.
I pitched the idea of having
Spider-Man's eyes be emotive.
They would move
and essentially be able to understand
what Peter is thinking
under the suit through his eyes.
And that was one of the things
that I'm most proud about,
having solved here at Marvel.
That's one of the best parts
of working on this job too
is just working from those great icons.
I was trying to think of different ways
for Thanos to attack Doctor Strange.
I was thinking,
maybe he could destroy planets or...
A lot of us that work here in the Visual
Development department are fans.
And just make it come through
like portals or comets or whatever.
Just raining down on Doctor Strange.
[Meinerding] A lot of what the characters
are about are sort of ingrained in us.
Being passionate about finding
new ways of representing them
-in a storytelling context...
-I think they're really great.
...just keeps driving me forward.
If I could talk to
the 13-year-old version of myself
and tell him what I'm working on today,
I don't think that he would believe me.
Having worked on a character
like Captain America or Iron Man...
people love them.
And if you do justice by that character,
people will continue to love them,
and I'm excited by that.
I loved these characters
from when I was very young.
I started buying comics,
probably when I was ten or 11.
And then all through the '90s, I was
reading comics when I was a teenager.
So, I started pretty, pretty young
with the characters
and I've, sort of, been fortunate enough
to end up with a job
that really allows me
to play into my fanboy tendencies.
It used to be that a person like me
would be doing pencil drawings
that would need to be approved
before something got made.
[Stegon] The final pose
that we're interested in,
some of the initial pose wasn't dy--
quite dynamic enough.
He feels too stiff.
Maybe he doesn't feel menacing enough.
Because he's a very powerful character,
so he needs to feel powerful.
It's using computers
and being able to get high resolution,
more finished images.
We're able to actually
accomplish something
that's as close
to the finished thing as possible.
All together, it probably took
about 30 or 40 versions.
And the main purpose of that
was to, essentially,
put it into a 3-D maquette,
that was gonna be 3-D printed,
as a final sign-off
for the directors and the producers
to see the character,
and you know, be able to walk around it.
We're working on around three films a year
and adding more projects to that as we go.
Finding ways of accomplishing that,
both from an artistic standpoint
of actually solving problems,
design problems, artistically,
also working with my team to art direct
and help them solve problems as well.
And working with visual effects
and the costume departments
to really take our designs and help them
get resolved in a really amazing way
is enough to keep me busy
through the whole week
and into the weekends and-- [chuckles]
As an artist, there's also just a sense of
wanting to do better than the last time.
Every artist wants to keep growing.
We're always having new chances
to reinterpret the characters.
We're having new places for them to go
with the stories the filmmakers
are coming up with.
And we're really getting the chance
to push ourselves.
This is the Captain America hero costume
from Captain America: The First Avenger.
It's, sort of,
his culmination in that film
for blending,
being a symbol and being a soldier.
It was also the first time I was trying
to incorporate the stripes as straps,
turning them in, pulling them off of it,
just being on the costume.
And turning them into something that
was part of the utility of the costume.
So, to transition from the World War II
aesthetic to the end of Cap's journey,
so he's already had, I don't know,
probably six costumes
in between this and the first
Avenger costume and this one.
One of the challenges we had on this suit
was really making these scales work.
A lot of my job
is hopefully inspiring people,
but it's also just letting people
solve problems.
We did a whole bunch of iterations where
it would look perfectly fine in the front.
But the moment that, you know,
you would go into a three-quarter view,
those lines started to diminish
and not look as great.
One of the things as an artist is failure
comes as a fear with every brushstroke.
-Yeah, straight lines on a compound curve.
-Yep.
[both laugh]
You're starting from a blank page
and you're building it up.
And a lot of times, you'll take a misstep.
You'll go the wrong direction...
There's, like, an odd banding shape.
[Meinerding]
...and have to course correct.
So, I sort of deal with failure
at every moment, I feel, of every day.
When you see it on screen you just say,
"Oh, cool, he's wearing the scales."
But the amount of engineering and artistry
that goes into making these things
really come to fruition is incredible.
I had hoped it would look very good,
and it turned out better
than I could have ever expected.
Every part of this ride has felt like,
it can't get bigger,
it can't get more amazing.
And somehow the filmmakers and
Marvel Studios make it all come together
into something that's even bigger
than what came before.
It's nostalgia for me. It's really weird,
the characters hold a lot of nostalgia
because I love them
from when I was younger.
And now I've been working at Marvel
for a little beyond 13 years,
and those memories are, you know,
things I'll cherish
for the rest of my life.
[Brown] Every day, across the world,
in theme parks and studios,
on stages and sets,
the people of the Walt Disney Company
are all part of the same idea
that's guided the company
since Walt himself dreamed it up.
[chuckles]
-They're telling stories.
-Soy listo!
They're inspiring people.
And they're proving over and over again,
the power of their imagination.
I'm the same guy that I was when
I graduated from Ithaca College in 1973...
that went to see Cinderella
with my grandparents.
I love a great story.
I also happen to love what I do.
I just-- Look, I get motivated
by the fact The Walt Disney Company
occupies such a special place
in the world.
We primarily, in our storytelling,
manufacture happiness,
is the way I like to describe it.
That's pretty motivating.