Minicot - Building Epcot in our backyard

[drice]

Its been a while since I've been here but thought you might all get a kick out of this. My brother and I got this idea to recreate Epcot at his house on 4th of July. The biggest part of the day was our Soarin ride, yup, we really tried to recreate it.
You'll also see another video attached to it which was our attempt at Illuminations and Mexico. Anyway, hope you enjoy and would love to hear your feedback :mickey:

Moderator notice - I am so sorry, but we can not allow links to You Tube, as per the Terms of Service Agreement. I realize this is linking to something that all of us WDW enthusiasts are interested in seeing. drice, it is very nice of you to want to share your tribute to Epcot with Intercot members. We can not allow the link to an outside website and maintain our family friendly policy. It is too difficult for the mods to police. So anyone interested in seeing drice's video should send him a private message and ask for the link. I hope you can all understand that this link policy is meant to protect our youngest members. No one is in trouble here, the link just had to go. I will also close down this thread, as it makes less sense now without the link.

Donna - aka Chipndalegal

[tinkerbellybutton]

Oh my goodness! Thanks so much for sharing that. Want to come to my house and build one for us next? ;)

[brianlw71]

Bravo:clappy: Well done.

[Rodders]

Kudos my man. Those are excellent projects :mickey:

[drice]

Oh my goodness! Thanks so much for sharing that. Want to come to my house and build one for us next? ;)

Hehe, I have to admit building it was a lot of fun, but also tiring :) My brother and I both agree'd this was more fun than our full time jobs so if the price was right ;)

[goofysbabe]

It was awesome - thanks for sharing. I wish I had the thought process and the helping hands to do something like this. Keep up the good work :)

[drice]

Sure will. We've talked about what we'll do next year, think I better keep it under lid as it might be a little pie in the sky.

BTW - I will post more details soon, theres more to the ride than meets the youtube video eye.

[dsnyfan001]

Wow! I just have to say that was a awesome to watch!! What a true Disney Fan!! That looked like you had so much fun doing it too. I want to see more lol!!! Keep up the great work!!!:mickey:

[biodtl]

That is SO COOL!! You are a true imagineer!

[wdw4us]

That was great. Thanks for sharing.:mickey:

[WinnipegDisneyFanatic]

Nicely done! That was amazing.

And hey...if you get bored down there, there's a backyard at my house you can do the same thing to, if you wish...;)

Chris :hatter:

[Imagineer1981]

Awesome!!!

[WDW24]

Very nice! :mickey: :thumbsup:

[brownie]

Well done!

[disneygeek84]

Oh my goodness! That was so awesome! You did an awesome job, not only at Soarin' but also on the Illuminations, too!! I can't wait to see what else you have planned!!

[casey@bat]

I loved that! When I watched Illuminations, for a few seconds I thought it was just a video of the fireworks and lasers from EPCOT! That's how good it was!

[Jeri Lynn]

What a great job! Thanks for sharing and bringing a little disney to my computer!

[sunny_stace]

Wow!!! That is fantastic! How wonderful to have a peice of WDW right in your backyard!

[caryrae]

Boy with the lights on you part 2 video, do you go crazy at Christmas time? Where in MN are you from? I live in Stillwater.

[drice]

Hey, thanks all, your words are very encouraging. We knew the only people that would really appreciate this is people who have been on Soarin.

caryrae - We put this on at my brothers house in Buffalo. Hey, I'll be biking into Stillwater tomorrow, beautiful town! If you're going to be in the Buffalo area soon let me know, we'll give you a fast pass! We don't do the Christmas light thing but definatey got our inspiration and a lot of technical knowledge through others who do.

Theres a lot you can't see in the video, like the two fans that came on and off at appropriate times. We we're going to do the scents but didn't find a good way to do that this year. Next year ;)

[TwoTinyWings]

Thanks so much for posting this and sharing the videos. You guys are very creative and clever, and it looks like you had a lot of fun putting everything together. Some of the highlights for me:

- the Soarin' queue, complete with pre-ride briefing video (very Warburton-esque)
- the clever editing in the rider load sequence
- the sync during Illuminations - not only in time with the music, but highlighting bits of the music as well
- the crowd reactions during Illuminations
- the Mexico decor/theming (serape, etc.)

Nicely done! We definitely had a great time watching the videos on youtube last night.

[BandMan]

I was particularly impressed with your Illuminations show, but I gotta ask:

Did you have a special permit or something because I know those fireworks are illegal in Minnesota.
:paranoid: :spy: :fworks: :drill: :nono:

[Mousemates]

Way too cute...:thumbsup:

[buzznwoodysmom]

Wow, that was amazing. You should be very proud of that. I am sure it took tons of time and creativity! Well done!

[chrisb26]

That is very awesome! I loved both that and the Illuminations video both show all your hard work. It turned out great!

[trudisneygal]

That was completely fabulous! Now you've got us wanting to re-create WDW in our backyard! I especially liked the Sorin' pre-show, and the lighted walkway. Very nicely done!

[Bluesky481]

All I can say is BRAVO!!! :thumbsup:

[Bethis26fan]

That's awesome.

[garthbarth1]

Woderful job!! Made me feel like I was on Soarin' again!:cloud9:

[TINKERBELL_82]

You guys did such a good job!! Bravo!!! :mickey:

Thanks for sharing! :thumbsup:

PS- I had to come back and edit this because I just watched the Illuminations/Mexico video! I can't believe how well everything turned out!! I know how much work that must have been- but what a fun hobby!!!

So whats next?? I can't wait to see more!!!

[CaptSmee]

That's classic! Your Illuminations video had my laughing so hard, yet at the same time I was so impressed with what you did! Thanks for sharing them!

[Sean Riley Taylor's Mom]

Awesome! I am really impressed!:thumbsup:

[disneybob]

Thanks so much for posting this and sharing the videos. You guys are very creative and clever, and it looks like you had a lot of fun putting everything together. Some of the highlights for me:

- the Soarin' queue, complete with pre-ride briefing video (very Warburton-esque)
- the clever editing in the rider load sequence
- the sync during Illuminations - not only in time with the music, but highlighting bits of the music as well
- the crowd reactions during Illuminations
- the Mexico decor/theming (serape, etc.)

Nicely done! We definitely had a great time watching the videos on youtube last night.

Thank you all for the replies.

We will add some behind-the-scenes videos later showing more detail on the set-up. But in short, for Soarin we used a 13 feet wide by 10 foot tall screen and used rear-projection to allow us to get the chair right up next to the screen. We would have loved to use the actual Soarin video, but had to make our own to get the picture quality we needed.

The hallway was constructed using black poly (we were on a budget!), with blue string lights from Menards. We used a 13 inch TV attached to a TV mount for the queue video.

For the lights we used 48 channels of Lightrama christmas light controllers and strung a bunch of lights around trees, poles, gardens, etc. as well as the "leaping lights".

For the Fireworks we used a homemade 32 channel controller connected to a computer to synchronize the ignition. We wrapped the fuses with nichrome wire with the controller sending 12 volts to the ingitors in sync with the music.

Fireworks are a little tricky to get the timing right.

We didn't have the best of camera angles to catch everything...but did the best we could.

[disneybob]

I was particularly impressed with your Illuminations show, but I gotta ask:

Did you have a special permit or something because I know those fireworks are illegal in Minnesota.
:paranoid: :spy: :fworks: :drill: :nono:

:blush: Busted!

Minnesota has legalized ground based fireworks and fountains and such...but yes we went a little above the rules. However, we are in a rural setting with alot of firework nut neighbors....so they are always happy for a show.....

[2Epcot]

Great job on both Soarin' and Illuminations. I was very impressed with so much detail put into everything. Love they sync of the lights and fireworks. Where did you get all of your aerial footage for your Soarin' video? Reminded me a lot of the stuff my brother and I did when we were younger. We did a lots of stuff with multi-layered audio and video recordings, now we both work in those industries .... Keep it up!

[jiifigment]

:jaw: :clappy:


:notworth::notworth::notworth:

[MickeyChick]

OHMYGAWRSH! That is so cool!

[disneybob]

Great job on both Soarin' and Illuminations. I was very impressed with so much detail put into everything. Love they sync of the lights and fireworks. Where did you get all of your aerial footage for your Soarin' video? Reminded me a lot of the stuff my brother and I did when we were younger. We did a lots of stuff with multi-layered audio and video recordings, now we both work in those industries .... Keep it up!

Thanks to all for the compliments, it's been most fun to share this with all of you WDW enthusiests!!!

It was tricky getting the lights and fireworks to sync, mainly because consumer fireworks are somewhat unpredictable...but we were happy with how it turned out. I only wish we could have had more video cameras trying to catch everything.....but we did the best we could.

The footage for the Soarin video was from a few different DVDs, but primarily from a series called "Over Arizona" and "Over California". We also used some footage from the Planet Earth series....namely the shot with the tall waterfall.

[TiggeRia]

They were both awesome--thank you so much for sharing!!! :thumbsup:

[Soul_Power]

VERY cool and creative! Looks like a lot of hard work went into Minicot, but it is SO cool! Good job! :thumbsup:

[Flower]

My goodness - great job on both! They must have taken SO much time to do!

[judoma]

Wow you guys did an excellent job here! :encore: :mickey:

[mouselover93]

:thumbsup:

[Phantasia]

Wow - watched your videos with my BF last night, and we were absolutely rapt! (Well, I only let him watch the Illuminations one -- he hasn't been on Soarin' yet and I didn't want to spoil any of the surprise for him. ;) )

Very, very well done, and I can't wait to see what you do next year!

[CaptainSad]

All I can say is :thumbsup:

If you don't mind me asking.. How did you do the light show? I have one that does Xmas music that I got at Home Depot. Thats all it does. Where did you get the system to do that?