On November 7th, guests visiting the Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris heard new music as they made their way into the park. A new background music loop was unveiled for the entrance plaza of the second park at Disneyland Paris. The loop is inspired by the experiences guests will have once they are inside the park. This includes music of Frozen, Toy Story, Marvel movies and more!
Music is such an important part of the Disney experience both in the movies and in the parks. As a part of the ongoing transformation of Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Imagineering has put together this new collection of musical pieces to welcome guests as they enter the park through La Place des Frères Lumière.
Mike Fracassi, Senior Music Producer at Walt Disney Imagineering, recently sat down and shared about the new music that guests can now experience at Walt Disney Studios.
Can you lift the curtain on the process of creating new background music for one of our theme parks and what is your role in that process?
We first ask ourselves, how can music support the storytelling and emotion of the environment and experience? What is the music supposed to accomplish and how do we want our guests to feel in the space?
When Tom Fitzgerald, Portfolio Creative Executive, and John Dennis, Executive Creative Director, asked me to work on the new background music program for Place des Frères Lumière, I was immediately excited, as I had put the original music programs together for the whole park back in 2002. It’s been a privilege to support the Paris parks all these years, and Walt Disney Studios Park was one of my first projects at Walt Disney Imagineering.
Tom had a good vision for what the music wanted to accomplish. From there I started pulling together music ideas and built out a playlist to review. We then continued to refine the playlist selections and sequence to get it all working and sounded good. One of our editors, Megan Duncan, did a great job shaping the sequence to get the different themes working well together.
Many stories have been brought to life throughout the years at Walt Disney Studios Park, how do you choose in the end the right instrumental cues from these stories that will fit the mood you’re trying to create?
The entrance plaza to the park is the first impression to our unique celebration of cinema at Walt Disney Studios Park. The park has grown and evolved with so many new stories and characters, it was time the entrance music reflected the Park of today… and with a peak into the future.
The new entrance music is an exciting and energetic overture to your experience, celebrating the characters and stories found in the park. We chose familiar and memorable themes to help build the anticipation and excitement of what awaits you on the other side of Disney Studio 1. On any given stroll through the Plaza, you may hear an endearing theme from a Disney or Pixar film, or an epic theme from a Marvel film.
The park is going through an amazing transformation and we use music to bring our guests along for the journey.
What is your favorite track that you can’t wait to hear in the Park?
That’s an unfair question! There are so many great soundtrack themes in the new Plaza background music, but few are as invigorating as The Avengers.
This new background music can be heard now as guests enter Walt Disney Studios park through La Place des Frères Lumière. Are you excited about it? What do you think about what Mike Fracassi had to say about it? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
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