Newly Captured Audio

Hey everybody! Chief and I have a Sound Cloud page where you'll be assaulted with hours of audio that we recorded in Horizons etc. Here's the latest:

http://soundcloud.com/hoot-and-chief/horizons-space-drop

This is a big one. We were into capturing long loops of various scenes by dropping our tape recorder off on the ground under the ride vehicles. We'd come back later and retrieve it. This clip, for example, would be like what you would hear if you fell out of the ride vehicle and broke both your legs. You'd pretty much lay there listening to this loop until you bled out and went to Jesus.

Things to listen for in this clip:

00:00 we run our mouths about where to leave the recorder.
01:08 Chief lays it on the ground
08:29 Breakdown spiel
19:07 We retrieve the recorder

we then ride to the "Choose Your Tomorrow" Star Field and leave the recorder again until it runs out.

Last of the Lost

Horizons fans, it looks like this is our last clip.

By this point we knew enough about what we were doing to concentrate on our list of things to document. Chief and I would come up with a rough plan for the night and then work on getting what we wanted. You can see this in the part where I run up the stairs to the lady in the bathtub. I photograph a whole body shot of her and then I get a shot of her pink shoes. Both shots listed on the "to do" list. The same list I had just stared at for 9 hours during my mind numbing desk job.

There were a lot of times when we would go all the way to EPCOT Center only to find that the park was crowded. Finding a big enough gap was hard and some nights it didn't happen at all. We'd stand in the Horizons load area for hours waiting for a chance. This video is a great example of a short gap. Not much time to document things. Things get much better on our second attempt coming up next.

A special thanks to Chris Wallace for this comment:

Chris WallaceJuly 18, 2012 11:15 AM

DO YOU REALIZE HOW HELPFUL THIS IS TO ME?! More than ANY other ride through video Ive seen. You captured so much of the stuff guests ARENT supposed to have looked at - which is exactly where the "blind spots" in my reference have been. That god almighty you guys had the forethought to video tape the "unimportant" stuff, or shooting from afar (before or after the scene had passed) to get more things in the frame. AND THE LIGHT!!!!! Do you realize there was virtually no way for me to know how those dark transition areas really looked? Or how they were textured? Now I know! (the lumia transition scenes from the omnimax theatre and the seam between the projection wall and the reflective soffit!!

That's exactly why we decided to share this stuff in the first place. Use it, people! HORIZONS RESURRECTED 

This would be the last time we ever rode Horizons without leaving our ride vehicle. This trilogy of trips, which happened in the same night, gave us the basic info we needed. We watched the tape over and  over. The very next time we rode it Chief was the first one out. That's coming up next.

Follow us here. This is the second ride through and something VERY important happens. It starts with Chief attaching his huge light to the top of his video camera which is cool in itself. By doing this we decide not to ruin the attraction for other riders so.......the Monolith appears......and we decide to wait for a six car GAP before and after our ride vehicle! So other riders wouldn't see our spotlight! ( :49) THAT, for you new visitors, also meant that WE couldn't be seen which led to us jumping out and the rest is history. 


At 2:11 you can see my audio recorder. The strip of white tape is so I can see to pick it up on my next ride through, Mike Lee style.

In the grand scheme of things this video should have been the very first to be posted here. THIS is from the tape in which Chief and I learn that Horizons is going to close (again) so we head out to get a couple of rides on tape.

What you're about to see is the evolution of how we went from normal behavior to our exploration phase. It's like watching two apes at the very moment they learn to use a stick to eat more ants. All of a sudden the Monolith appears. The two apes start to walk erect and use more advanced tools............and climb right out of their ride vehicle!

Lost Video Part Two!

LOST VIDEO Part One

You never know what will turn up in the Hoot and Chief Archives! I thought this tape was 80's porn but upon further inspection I found some lost footage from Horizons! Part two coming soon!

Wow, look at what has landed at ThemeParkConnection

It looks like ThemeParkConnection has just gotten in another piece of Horizons history, have a look at their facebook page here. It appears to me this could actually be the model that was hanging upside down in one of the bubble windows, you know before you picked what kind of journey you wanted to go on at the end. We showed some pictures of them back in this post.

Direct link to their wall photo.

Cant wait to hear what kind of price this is going to go for.

Horizons fans, a treat for you ...

... someone at Disney loves us! Check out this incredible picture ...



And when you are done checking out that amazing little tribute, you might as well check out my other pictures over on Fresh Roasted Corn, unless of course you hate the little Orange Bird. But who in the world could hate such a cute thing?

From our pal Applewhite

http://freshroastedcorn.blogspot.com/2011/12/refreshing-works-that-you-should-own.html

Walt and the Promise of Progress City

Order up! Now here's a book that is top on the Hoot Gibson Holiday wish list.


"Walt and the Promise of Progress City is an amazing new book that explores how Walt Disney—the master of fiction—was determined to bring new life to the non-fiction world of city design and development and, in doing so, fundamentally improve the Great American way of life."

If you're into Horizons you'll be doing yourself a huge favor by learning more about the original EPCOT. Not "center" not lower case "Epcot". I say that because Horizons was the tail end (last) of the Walt Disney style visions of the future. I can't wait to get mine and further school myself on EPCOT the city.

Paperback

Kindle

More on the Horizons Remote Cam

You may or may not already know about the camera that was mounted on top of the Horizons building. Either way it doesn't matter BECAUSE IT'S GONE FOREVER! But, yes, there was a cool camera mounted to a GE GP-66 industrial robot arm. This rig could be controlled from the GE lounge for the amusement of the employees of said GE. I once heard a tool remark how cool it was to zoom in on girls asses on the other side of the park.





PS. I left the cool little blurb from another page on the left side.

Space Mountain

I never go to Disney Parks unless I can get in for free. Yesterday I did just that. I went to the Magic Kingdom for the first time in a year or so.

I haven't been on Space Mountain since the big update but I was very impressed by it. Overall it seems like they shit canned all of the goofy-ness that came with Fed Ex and the "New Tomorrowland" (The kinda junk that made RYCA-1 seem great in comparison) and brought back the same feeling that the original 1975 version had. The audio and art direction were a breath of fresh air in a park that usually makes me bitch all day.

The post show speed ramp still needs help though. It would have nice to see a new version of The Home of Future Living but it's just another low budget show built on the core of the shitty "RYCA-1 Dream of a New World" that replaced HOFL in 1985.

One Scene DID make me happy. The last show scene before the green screen television which features a futuristic living environment, a robot butler, and a backdrop painting of a future city. It ain't much folks but I'll be damned if it didn't give me a jolt of the Horizons feeling all over again. It was like having loved your granny very much, she dies, and years later you see a pretty good wax figure of her at a museum.

Look at these video grabs. The robot is just an old AA armature with some shit slapped on it BUT STILL, it's a robot serving drinks! In a 70's-esq bachelor pad!

Besides, we would have all bitched if they used our old pal here who happens to sport the same footwear.

Rounded bench seating, a sleek table with crazy future shit on it, clear acrylic chandelier....... are you seeing it?



The backdrop was first installed in 1985's "RYCA-1". That makes it only 2 years younger than Horizons. As you see it's a very 80's vision of tomorrow which is perfect in this case. I've never liked it until now.

Like I say, it ain't much but somebody deserves a prize for coming up with this scene. with my luck it was probably Jeff Kurtti.