Walt Disney, technologist [UPDATED]

Walt Disney (front) in his backyard on a model train that he designed and named the Lilly Belle. The train will be part of the new Disney museum. Credit: Walt Disney Family Foundation.

Walt Disney — the man, not the company — was known for his imagination, his artistry and even his business acumen. But it turns out he also had a huge appetite for technology.

He pushed the envelope at his own firm, developing new gadgets to help in the making of his movies. He had a passion for the future, promoting ideas through places like his Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. And he often engaged with engineers from other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., particularly as he developed exhibits for the New York World’s Fair of 1964.

The geeky side of Disney is one of the elements that will be on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco when it opens in October.

Museum organizers — particularly Disney’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller, and his grandson and namesake, Walter E. Disney Miller — gave the press a preview today, showing off the state-of-the-art $110-million facility in San Francisco’s Presidio National Park.

The museum itself makes heavy use of modern processing power, from admissions to displays. To keep tight control of the number of visitors, the museum will sell tickets on the Web for specific times. One could just show up and buy a ticket, “but I wouldn’t recommend it,” executive director Richard Benefield said.

Inside, what Benefield called “every kind of monitor known to man” will be on the walls. And curators have taken advantage of 19 hours of recordings of Disney’s voice to provide a guided tour through his life — his childhood, his early work as a bankrupt cartoonist in Kansas City, Mo., and his most notable achievements, including the creation of Mickey Mouse, “Snow White” and “Fantasia” and his television and theme park operations.

Also on view will be a two-story multiplane camera that Disney used for such effects as rooftop shots in “Pinocchio” and an optical printer used to blend real-life characters with animation in “Mary Poppins.”

Although the museum is not formally affiliated with Walt Disney Co., the company has provided many artifacts and may even provide some technical expertise. After all, its Pixar animation unit is based right across the bay in Emeryville, and a Disney executive told Benefield that the company is stepping up volunteer efforts by employees.

The company even offered to help the museum teach animation classes, Benefield said.

A 110-seat theater in the museum’s lower reaches will open with a three-week screening of “Fantasia.” Later, for the 50th anniversary of "Sleeping Beauty," Disney plans to re-release the film, “and we’ll be showing it in Blu-Ray in our theater,” Benefield said.

Corrected 10:30 a.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that Snow White's 50th anniversary would be celebrated this year. In fact, it will be Sleeping Beauty who will be celebrating her 50th anniversary in November.

-- Dan Fost

Rumors of Disney's new 'Tron' game: TR2N

Internet sensation Jay Maynard, a.k.a. the Tron Guy, at ROFL Con. (Photo credit: dantekgeek via Flickr)

Rumors are racing about a new video game based on the sequel to an old movie about a game. That could mean only one thing: "Tron" is coming back.

Disney is working on a film based on the 1982 science-fiction cult classic, and now Variety's Cut Scene blog reports that Disney Interactive Studios may be working on a Tron video game to accompany the movie.

If it happens, it wouldn't be terribly surprising. Movie-game tie-ins are pretty standard fare, and for a franchise based on the concept of gaming -- well, you get the picture.

You might think Disney Interactive's recent layoffs would throw a stick in the spokes, but Cut Scene says the tentatively titled TR2N will go ahead despite the company consolidations.

The film and game are expected to come out in 2011. But if you're eager to dive into the Tron world, why wait that long? There are plenty of copycats based on the Tron light cycles game.

For anyone who wasn't a geek in the '80s, those are the fictional motorcycles the film's characters rode in the virtual arena. Remember the Snake game on the old Nokia cellphones? It's a lot like that, but with many snakes zipping around.

This free online game, called FL Tron 2.0, will give you a better idea. Underground developers have ...

Stan Lee, Walt Disney Studios launch "Time Jumper"

Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man, X-Men and Iron Man, is revered as a superhero in his own right by comic book fans. Now he's rapidly becoming one of Hollywood's most wanted.

Lee's comic book creations have been box-office gold this summer, with "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" grossing $313 million and $139 million, respectively. 

So, the Walt Disney Co. used the forum of Comic-Con, the annual comic book convention in San Diego, to announce that it was deepening its partnership with Stan Lee's POW Entertainment.

The home entertainment group will work with Lee on a new digital comic book, "Time Jumper." Readers can follow the exploits of a new crew of superheroes, however they choose: online, via mobile phone or old-fashioned comic book format. 

"Time Jumper" blends old-fashioned storytelling with technology that extends well beyond dialog and thought bubbles. In its digital form, it'll include music, voices and fast-paced story-boards.

Now for the geeky narrative details: "Time Jumper" follows the exploits of our hero, Terry Dixon, who is an agent of a secret government organization known as HUNT (short for Heroes United, Noble and True). He has a cellphone called The Articulus that has the one feature you can't get -- yet -- from Apple's iPhone: a time machine.

We wonder if it's possible to travel to a time where there are no dropped calls!

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Chmielewski, a Times staff writer, covers the Walt Disney Co.

Top photo: Stan Lee. Credit: Reed Saxon / Associated Press

Bottom photo: Time Jumper. Credit: Disney

Old media growing more comfortable with new media

Are big media companies getting comfortable distributing and marketing their content to the Web and devices such as the iPhone, as Jon Stewart (pictured above) demonstrated at the Academy Awards this year?

Yes, said a panel of industry leaders at the AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford University on Tuesday night. But there are still issues about how to make money from the Web and avoid cannibalizing their very lucrative existing business models.

The television industry is figuring out how ads can be hyper-targeted online and even presented inside videos without the viewer revolting. But the film industry isn't going the advertising route, said Tom Lesinski, president of Paramount Digital Entertainment. He predicted that the download-to-own model would be the way the movie industry makes money.

Currently, the average household buys six movies a year, Lesinski said. But that number jumps as high as 24 a year when people use technology and services such as Apple's AppleTV, Microsoft's Xbox Live and Vudu, he said. Earlier this week, Amazon.com announced it was introducing a new streaming-on-demand service for buying and renting movies and TV shows.

Bill Gurley, the general partner of venture firm Benchmark Capital and the night's interviewer, asked, How will we watch TV, movie and videos in the next five years, and what should change? He threw out an interesting business suggestion: A good video discovery site that includes the social networking tools and recommendations that can be found on music sites.

Lesinski projected that within five years all movies would be consumed through a digital locker of sorts, stored on the servers of a distribution company and streamed when someone wants to watch them.

In five years, real convergence will happen, said Albert Cheng, executive vice president digital media of the Disney-ABC Television Group. Video will appear wherever there's a screen. "It doesn't matter if it's TV or a phone," he said.

-- Michelle Quinn

Photo: Jon Stewart at the Academy Awards showing how to watch movies on his iPhone. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

'Wall-E' draws design inspiration from Apple

Disney can’t resist making those little self-referential jokes in its films, to throw a visual bone to its die-hard fans. In last year’s film, "Enchanted," the characters dine in an Italian restaurant named the Bella Notte, a fleeting reference to the 1955 animated film "Lady and the Tramp."

In "Wall-E," which opens Friday, Pixar Animation Studios indulges in its own bit of homage to its one-time corporate cousin, Apple. (The two companies shared a chief executive, Steve Jobs, until Walt Disney acquired Pixar.)

The character’s love interest (the sleek, rounded, pearly white robot named Eve) looks as if she could be found in an Apple store. Indeed, director Andrew Stanton told Fortune Magazine that he had consulted with Jonathan Ive, the Apple design guru responsible for the futuristic look of the iMac and iPod.

The lovable, animated trash compactor named Wall-E also is an apparent Apple aficionado. In one scene, he rummages through his collection of trash heap treasures and retrieves, what else, an iPod. He even wakes up to the familiar Mac start-up chime when his solar panels are completely charged.

Wags might call this stuff shameless product placement. We think it may be kissing the ring of Jobs, who, in selling Pixar to Disney, became the entertainment giant’s single largest shareholder.

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Image: Pixar Animation Studios

Jonas Brothers not just phoning it in

Tonight, you might begin to wonder if something dreadful has happened to the tween demographic because they are not out and about. Fear not. Most likely they are watching "Camp Rock," the Disney Channel movie musical starring members of the hyper-popular Jonas Brothers.

Not that they needed one, but a half-million Jonas Brothers fans got a quasi-personal reminder on their phones today from the band members touring in Germany saying how excited they were about the movie. And if a fan wants, she can call the band's phone number, (818) 748-8887, and leave a message about the "Camp Rock" slumber party she's hosting. When she calls, she can choose to receive recorded calls from the boys or text alerts every time they issue a new voice message (the service doesn't work if you call from a number with caller ID blocked).

Connecting celebrities and fans by phone seems positively retro, admits Nikhyl Singhal (we incorrectly spelled it Singhai in a previous version of this post), chief executive of SayNow, the Palo Alto company that runs the service. Surely someone in Motown ...

Disney's Toy Story carnival ride adds video game touches

Since opening in 2001, Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim hasn't exactly unseated Disneyland as SoCal's must-visit theme park. So Walt Disney is giving the place a $1.1 billion overhaul, including rides that feature some of the interactive elements of video games. Opening today is Toy Story Midway Mania, which lets riders wearing 3-D glasses interact with characters from the Pixar movie as they play Buzz Lightyear's ring toss, Woody's Rootin' Tootin' Shootin' Gallery and Bo Peep's dart throw.

Brady MacDonald at our travel blog calls it the best game at California Adventure. Although not as good as some of the Disneyland's finest, he says, he was so into Toy Story Mania that he got a repetitive stress injury (he dubbed it Mania Elbow) from pulling the trigger.

But analysts that Dawn Chmielewski interviewed aren't sure this growing trend of video-game-inspired theme park rides will lead to big bucks. She writes:

Toy Story Midway Mania illustrates the extent to which theme park operators are employing technology to pry a generation of media-saturated kids and adults loose from their computer screens and through the turnstiles. Universal Studios has its Men in Black Alien Attack in Florida, in which guests zap space aliens as they chase them through the streets of New York. Disneyland also has its earlier "Toy Story"-inspired space ride, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, in which players team up to battle the evil Emperor Zurg.

Park operators are walking a tightrope, however, in trying to develop rides that provide the kind of individualized experience that gamers covet -- in which they're competing against each other and influencing the action -- while also appealing to non-gamers who want a more traditional, non-interactive experience.

Read the full story for more details, including how animators created the ride, how the computers synchronize the action and why Disney thinks it will be a hit.

-- Chris Gaither

Photo: Visitors Amy and Chris Katscher from Santa Maria, Calif., prepare to shoot at digital screens during the new Toy Story Midway Mania ride at Disney's California Adventure Park. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Disney's interactive Blu-ray features conjure up ghost of WebTV

At the 114-year-old Ebell Club of Los Angeles, under regal banners proclaiming "Sleeping Beauty" and "BD Live," the Walt Disney Studios the other night unveiled the new, interactive features of Blu-ray movie discs. The presentation -- all flat-panel screens contrasting with the sedate dark wood -- gave me flashbacks. 

And no, it wasn't the celebratory Blu-ray blue martinis the waiters served that got me thinking that way.

Bob Chapek, president of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, described how the 50th anniversary edition of "Sleeping Beauty" would offer more than a pristine restoration when the 1959 animated film is released on Blu-ray Oct. 7. The version for the high-definition player will contain a panoply of the interactive communications features -- chat, video streaming, online messaging, gaming and more -- available through the new BD Live Network.

Think of it as the Ginsu knife of home entertainment (It slices! it dices! But alas, you still have to make your own popcorn.)

Chapek said the studio discovered, with the airing of the Disney Channel's sleeper hit "High School Musical," that young viewers would simultaneously tune in to the musical in their own homes, then keep up a steady banter with friends via cellphone text messages or computer-based instant messages.  Disney seeks to enable this kind of behavior through Internet-connected Blu-ray players (think Sony's PlayStation 3 or the Panasonic BDP 50) and BD Live.

So once you've gone to Disney's BD Live website (available at launch) to register, you can use the "movie chat" feature to talk with friends using a laptop, a cellphone, a handheld device like the Blackberry or a virtual onscreen keypad. The chat session appears onscreen, over the movie. (One can almost hear the faint sound of teens everywhere tapping OMG! as they contemplate their private conversations being displayed on the big-screen TV, for parents and siblings alike to monitor.)

Another feature, called "movie mail," lets you upload and send a 30-second video message, superimposed on a pre-selected clip of the movie. The recipients receive notifications when they turn on the Blu-ray player, then can watch it onscreen, in a sort of picture-in-picture mode.

The Sleeping Beauty disc also boasts an online trivia game, in which players in far-flung living rooms can match wits in real time, while the movie is playing. Which seems to, well, upstage Maleficent and the storytellers, but I guess I'm being oh-so-over-40 and out of the demo.

While it's certainly laudable that Disney is seeking to use new technology to modernize the home entertainment experience, I felt like it was 1996, and I was listening to Steve Perlman tout WebTV Network, which sought to unite the Internet and the TV in what amounted to a shotgun marriage.

I mean, does anyone want to read instant messages from the couch?

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Images courtesy of Blu-ray Disc Assn. and Disney

Disney puts movies online for free

"The Wonderful World of Disney," the venerable prime-time TV show originally hosted by Walt Disney himself, is getting its geek on.

For the first time, Disney.com plans to stream full-length movies online. The films will air on TV, on the Disney-owned ABC network's weekly "Wonderful World of Disney" program, every Saturday night throughout the summer, then be available for free -- that is, paid for by advertising -- on the company's website. The lineup includes Pixar films "Finding Nemo" and "Monsters, Inc.," and such family comedies as "Freaky Friday" and "Princess Diaries 2."

The Disney Channel original movie, "Camp Rock," also will be available for streaming on June 23, after its June 20 TV premiere. Think of it as a bonus Jonas Brothers feature, which includes an online chat and games.

Here's the full schedule:

“Finding Nemo” –- currently available online through June 13

“Monsters, Inc.” –- airs on ABC June 14 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com June 16-20

“Haunted Mansion” -– airs on ABC June 28 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com June 30-July 4

“Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen” –- airs on ABC July 5 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com July 7-11

“Princess Diaries 2” -– airs on ABC July 12 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com July 14-18

“Freaky Friday” –- airs on ABC July 19 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com July 21-25

“Peter Pan” –- airs on ABC Aug. 2 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com Aug. 4-8

Disney is no stranger to using its popular television show to promote new technologies. In the late 1960s, the program was renamed "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color," to tout network broadcasts switching from black-and-white to "living color."

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Photo: "Finding Nemo" image courtesy of Disney

Disney combines Internet, game units

For years, Disney has had a digital divide that's, pardon the pun, simply goofy.

Its video games have been licensed or developed by Disney Interactive Studios, which falls under Disney Consumer Products. Meanwhile, online games such as Toontown Online and Disney Pirates of the Caribbean were created by the Walt Disney Internet Group.

The division had more to do with legacy issues (console games were initially licensed products, just like toys or stuffed animals) than any deliberate business decision. Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger has long talked about uniting Disney's interactive media groups into one energy-drink-fueled division.

That day arrived yesterday, in the form of a letter obtained by PaidContent.org. In it, Iger said he would immediately combine the groups under a new unit, the Disney Interactive Media Group, to be headed by Steve Wadsworth, who was recently named Hollywood's top digital power broker. Graham Hopper, the executive vice president and general manager of Disney Interactive, will work with Wadsworth.

It's unclear how the consolidation will affect the 1,000 people who work for Disney Interactive, which is headquartered in Glendale, or the 1,700 people at the North Hollywood-based Internet group.

Disney spokesman John Spelich declined to comment on the consolidation, saying only, "Bob Iger's note speaks for itself."

No one knows what made Iger do this now. Company insiders point to the collaboration that produced last month's Nintendo DS version of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian game, which incorporated an online community dubbed DGamer. It was joint effort, in which the game group focused on the hand-held game, with the Internet group developing the online community. 

It made bringing the digital groups together seem a timely move -- and a no-brainer.

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Pirates of the Caribbean Online screen shot courtesy of Walt Disney