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Category Archives: Orlando Sentinel
Disney, union extend contract until after holidays
This article comes to us from Jason Garcia at the Orlando Sentinel.
Walt Disney World and its largest labor group, stuck in deadlocked contract talks, said Wednesday that they have agreed to extend their current pact until after the holidays.
Disney’s contract with the Service Trades Council, which represents about 20,800 full-time workers at the giant resort, will now run through Jan. 20. It had been scheduled to expire Dec. 11.
The six-week extension was driven in large part by the calendar. With Christmas approaching — an intensely busy period of the year for Disney World, as children across North America are out of school — making time for further negotiations or staging a worker vote is becoming increasingly difficult.
Disney and the Trades Council have been negotiating since June.
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Disney World reports flat attendance
- Image via Wikipedia
This article comes to us from Jason Garcia at the Orlando Sentinel.
Attendance at Walt Disney World remained largely unchanged this summer, Disney disclosed Friday, even as overall tourist traffic into Orlando began climbing with the opening of Universal Orlando‘s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Disney said its Orlando theme-park attendance was “within a percentage point” of last year’s total during the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, after adjusting for the effect of an accounting quirk that left this year’s fourth quarter with one less week than last year’s.
The grudging disclosure came only after inquiries from the Orlando Sentinel about why the Walt Disney Co. did not report Disney World’s attendance during a Nov. 11 conference call to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings or in its year-end financial report, filed late Wednesday with federal regulators. In both instances, Disney reported year-over-year changes in attendance only for its two U.S. theme-park resorts combined.
It was the first quarter in at least five years that Disney had not disclosed separate attendance trends for Disney World in Central Florida and Disneyland in Southern California.
Click here to keep reading.
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3-D film studio that works on Disney films is moving from California to Florida
This article comes to us from the Orlando Sentinels Daily Disney column.
According to several published reports this past week, a visual-effects studio that has worked on recent Disney films such as “Tron: Legacy” and Tim Burton‘s “Alice in Wonderland” soon will move its operations from California to Port St. Lucie.
The move should bring about 70 jobs to the state, and more are forecast.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Digital Domain Productions Inc., based in Venice, Calif., was in the process of acquiring Westlake Village, Calif.-based In-Three Inc.
In-Three was founded in 1999 and has been at the forefront of converting films into the popular 3-D format. The company developed and patented a process called “Dimensionalization,” which it has used to convert 2-D films. In addition to Disney films “Tron: Legacy” and “Alice in Wonderland,” the studio also worked on Disney’s “G Force” production, too.
Click here to keep reading.
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Disney World’s Festival of the Masters winners
Central Florida made a great showing at this weekend’s Festival of the Masters, with many local artists picking up awards. Among them, Tony Savoie of Orlando, who won the overall Best in Show award, for his collage titled “Palooka.”
Alison Thomas of Deltona placed first in the digital-art category, and David Figueroa of Sanford was tops in the sculpture category.
Other Central Floridians who were honored included Vadim Malkin of Maitland, in the clay category, and Carol Elder-Napoli of New Smyrna Beach for painting.
Peggy Miller of Melbourne Beach and Deborah Barnes of Mount Dora both won awards for their jewelry.
The Festival of the Masters is a free event at Walt Disney’s World’s Downtown Disney shopping and dining complex, off I-4 in Lake Buena Vista. The Festival concludes Sunday. Hours are 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Click here to see a full list of winners. Here is just a few.
Clay
1: Shadow May, Chattanooga, Tenn., “Waterfall.”
2. Vadim Malkin, Maitland, “Tea Dutchess.”
3: Rob Wiedmaier, Platte City, Mo., “Floor Vase.”
Awards of Merit: Timothy Sullivan of Marietta, Ga., “Large Covered Jar”; and Larry East of Decatur, Ga., “Boll of Cotton.”
Digital art
1: Alison Thomas, Deltona, “River Journey.”
2: Robert Heier, Brambleton, Va., “Laconic.”
3: Michael Brown, Antioch, Ill., “Linoen Allee.”
Drawing, Printmaking & Graphics
1: Greg Barnes, Charlotte, N.C., “Evening Color.”
2: Marina Terauds, North Branch, Mich., “Book of Birds.”
3: Gillian Kemper, Oklahoma City, “Borman I.”
Award of Merit: Michael Bond pf River Falls, Wisc., “Solitude.”
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Magic Kingdom makeover: Scary to merry
This article/news comes to us from the Orlando Sentinel.
Under the cloak of darkness, Walt Disney World rapidly turns pumpkins into poinsettias. But it’s not the handiwork of a fairy godmother. Dozens of workers shift the Magic Kingdom from Halloween into a full-on, deck-the-halls Christmas mode.
The stroke of midnight isn’t the deadline, yet a sense of urgency looms. The quick change started immediately after the final Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party last Monday and had to be finished before tonight, the first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party event of the season.
“As soon as the [Halloween] event was over, we took all of the event-specific decor out of the park,” said Katrina Wilder, a Disney World planner for events and decorating support. First to be packed up are themed backdrops for photo opportunities with characters.
Other first-night work includes the removal of jack-o’-lantern decorations from the lampposts on Main Street. Sometimes the dismantling causes paint to chip on the pole, prompting “a mad rush of painters to touch it up,” Wilder said.
Click here to keep reading. Click here to see more Christmas Photos.
Photo credit Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda, Orlando Sentinel / November 5, 2010
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