Week 10: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

When I was younger going to Disneyland was such a huge, rare, and amazing occasion. It was always built up into a big day of churros, dole whip and a dozen rides. When I moved to Irvine for college I got a Disneyland pass and now I go several times a quarter. Just recently I went to Disneyland and was pleasantly surprised to see that all the Christmas decorations were up. I watched the fireworks show and as the show came to a close the castle lit up with all these beautiful lights. The castle is lit with bright pink lights on each of the towers. These pink lights define the towers which prevents the castle from being completely engulfed in white lights. White icicles/twinkle lights cover the top of the whole castle. The bright white lights give the illusion of snow even though snow is something that we would never expect in southern California. If I were trying to create the illusion of snow on a house/castle on stage I don’t think I would use this many lights. I would probably use icicle shaped lights for the rims of the house but when creating actual snow I would use foam falling from the ‘sky’ while using light blue lights to create the background.

What’s great about this whole setting is that we know it’s not real, it’s not real snow, it’s not real icicles and yet we don’t care. It’s real to us, we know that they’re just pretty lights but with the whole atmosphere of Disneyland your imagination runs wild and you believe that everything is real instead of manufactured. It reminds me of a stage, whenever something is put on stage you believe it, you believe the story and the characters even though you know in the end that it’s only a play. It’s wonderful to let your imagination believe in these things because it allows you to accept the beauty in it.