Disney has provided me with an expense paid trip to Los Angeles for the #MaleficentEvent and #FireAndRescueEvent in exchange for my review of the events of the trip. No other compensation is given. The opinions and experiences in my posts are 100% mine. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
PLANES: FIRE AND RESCUE is in theaters now! Have you taken the kids to go see it? We just went this week and my family LOVED it! Check out my review for the top 6 reasons you need to get to the theater pronto. As part of the incredible PLANES: FIRE AND RESCUE press junket I participated in in May I had the opportunity to chat with Toby Wilson, Art Director for the film. He’s such a talented, cool guy and I loved learning about what exactly went into building a National Park from the ground up.
“To create a believable story it takes a lot of research.” – Toby Wilson, Art Director PLANES: FIRE AND RESCUE
Toby told us that as a kid he camped a lot so designing Piston Peak National Park was right up his alley. It takes a TON of research, lots of visits to our beautiful National Parks for inspiration, and a serious creative streak. On those tours of Yellowstone and Yosemite the filmmakers came up with features they wanted in their park. You can see some of them on the map above and postcards below.
Whitewall Falls is so beautiful in the movie. They really made it totally realistic. Piston Peak National Park is 16 square miles big, and home to 2.5 million pine trees. Wowza!
Toby revealed a lot of little detail in the film you may or may not catch. Here he is showing us (if you can see on the screens above his head) that the tree bark is actually a tire track. I would probably never have caught that and I love how they sneak these little details in!
The flowers in the park are actually radiator fans. A little tough to tell in this pic, but look for it in the movie! Another cool thing he told us is that in the beginning of the movie everything starts out blue and green, all is well with the world. Soon it turns red with fire. Blue + Red = Purple. So every time there’s a scene change in the film they threw purple into the color scheme. Did you have any idea how much thought goes into each little piece of the movie?! Amazing!
The back of Harvey’s bumper shows a map of the USA and apparently he’s visited every state but Oklahoma. Why Oklahoma? Because that’s where Director Bobs Gannaway is from! Such fun little details hidden everywhere.
Can you see how they ‘Planseified’ the interior of the Grand Fusel Lodge? Keep your eyes peeled for these things when you see the movie. It’s so fun to catch the details that Toby and his team threw in to really make it feel authentic. And if you were wondering (we were!), Toby’s favorite character is Maru. He got to make him who is is, and when you go see the film, you’ll LOVE Maru so you’ll also know what a totally cool guy his creator is!
Follow PLANES on Facebook and Twitter and go get your tickets! I can’t wait to hear what you think!
PLANES: FIRE & RESCUE is in theaters NOW!
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