Disney Exhibition at the DDP

I love Disney; I go to Disney World almost any chance I get, so when I saw that there was going to be a special exhibition of Disney at Dongdaemun Plaza I knew I had to go and check it out! 

I was kind of surprised by the line when my friends and I got there, and it was a little crowded inside too. Then again it was on a weekend, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by all the people.

The first part of the exhibition was playing an opening video showing clips from the movies along with character sketches and storyboards to show the difference of the animation from beginning to final product.

After watching the video, we went to go look at the art pieces. The first characters to show were obviously Mickey and friends, along with the production of Steamboat Willie (which is now part of the opening of every Disney movie). They had sketches of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto from the old shows and a few newer sketches of what they look now, it was cool seeing the differences from back then to now!

After the looking at the main set of characters it went on to the movies and information on how they were animated! The first movie was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which had concept designs of Snow White, the Dwarves, and the Evil Queen, along with background illustrates. They also had the Evil Queen’s mirror hanging on the wall too!

Pinocchio was the next movie to follow, again it there were concept designs of the characters but this time they also showed a little on how the movie was animated and how depth was added into the movies as well!

The movie I was surprised to find within the exhibition was Fantasia, as it’s not a movie very many know. The movie mostly focused on animation and music and they had video showing how the different stories within the movie were focused around the songs being played. It’s probably one of my favorite movies!

The next set of movies they showed were Bambi and Dumbo and showed how they brought in live animals for artist to see how they should draw and make the characters move in the movies.

There were so many different movies! They had Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King for the old 2D animations before it moved on to the newer 3D animated movies. I was surprised to find that there were a few movies missing like Aladdin, Lilo and Stitch, Fox and the Hound, Hercules, and a few others but the exhibition was still wonderful!

The 3D animated movies started off with Tangled as it was one of Disney’s first 3D movies. I loved looking at all the concept art and sketches for Rapunzel and looking at the background illustrates too!

After Tangled it moved on to Frozen, another movie where I love the concept art and sketches of the characters, they even had models of Anna, Elsa, and Olaf! Also, they had a few pictures from the Frozen 2 trailer as well! Next movies to follow were Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, and both Wreck-It-Ralph movies.

I liked looking at the Moana section because they should how the animators and the rest of the crew working on the movie went to the Polynesian islands, so they could make the movie and characters right. They even had some sketch books from the artist on display too. 

The Disney exhibit was amazing, and it’s must for Disney fans as you get to look and see how you’re favorite movies were made too! I think it’s also nice experience for artist and animators to go too so they can see what steps were taken and how the process of animating and character design works too!

The exhibition lasts until August 18 so if you’re in Korea you should go check it out! Tickets are only 15,000 won. Plus, it’s only a few stops away on the subway too!