Road Trip! Disney on the Internet

By Van Landrum

Van Landrum, Personal Systems database administrator, takes off on another road trip adventure--this time into the world of Disney.'

I was sitting at my desk one day when my editor brought by a brochure on a digital publications seminar. As I scanned the material, I noticed that one of the publishers listed was Disney. I paused a moment and thought, "I wonder if Disney is on the Web?"

"Road Trip!" I yelled, startling those around me, as I jumped into my OS/2 Warp WebExplorer and headed down the Internet. To see if Disney was on the net, I tried to open the URL. Often you can find a company on the World-Wide Web by inserting the company name between and  --Disney was no exception. I was pleasantly surprised as a document began to load.

What came on the screen wasn't Disneyland or Disneyworld but, in fact, Buena Vista Studios in the form of the Buena Vista MoviePlex. The first page was rather plain. It explained that if you have a relatively fast connection to the Internet you should visit the MoviePlex; if you have a slow connection, check out the Press Room. Since my WebExplorer is rather fast, I tromped on the throttle and headed for the MoviePlex.

As the MoviePlex loaded I was surprised at the quality of graphics. (Why was I surprised? This was Disney, after all). The main graphic was rich in color and depth. The Disney folks made good use of an image map of a theater marquee. You just point and click on a title on the marquee, and you are sent to the page with information about that movie (see Figure 1). I selected ''The Lion King. ''



'''Figure 1. Disney MoviePlex Theater'''

On the next page was an image map of the theater screen (see Figure 2). From here you can download Quick Time movie clips of the movie or access a coloring book page where you can download pictures for your kids. Also from this screen, you can go to the Press Room where you can download more Quick Time movie clips and color stills from the movie. I went to the Press Room and downloaded a still entitled "I Just Can't Wait to be King" (see Figure 3).



'''Figure 2. The Lion King Movie Screen'''



'''Figure 3. The Lion King Promotional Still'''

Overall, the Disney site is a delight. Disney offers quite a number of stills and movie clips for free. The Lion King was only one of several movies in the MoviePlex, each of which offered story lines, credits, movie clips, and stills. If you don't have a Quick Time movie viewer, Disney points you to sites where you can download one for free. (Warning: the movie clips are quite large and will require a long wait to download.)

That night I went home and sat my youngest child on my lap in front of my computer, and we cruised the Internet in search of The Lion King. We downloaded all the color photos and used some for backgrounds on my OS/2 screen. She was amazed at how we could get such great pictures from Disney, over a thousand miles away. Maybe Daddy's job isn't so weird after all!

Other Disney Related Sites:
 * Todd's Disney Home Page
 * Walt Disney World Made Simple Home Page
 * Kevin & Dianna's Disney Page
 * Scar's Disney Links
 * Yahoo Disney Search