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The Dream Makers project – a bronze statue that will be unveiled for The Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary as well as Hong Kong Disneyland’s 18th birthday – demonstrates the company’s efforts to nurture young creative talent – including Imagineers from Hong Kong – and provide them with opportunities to shine.
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Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse are sitting on a bench, facing the Cinderella Carousel and gesturing toward the Castle of Magical Dreams, welcoming visitors.
This is Hong Kong Disneyland’s “Dream Makers” bronze statue, which will be unveiled next month for The Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary as well as the Hong Kong theme park’s 18th birthday.
A team of passionate Imagineers – young designers and sculptors from Hong Kong and the United States – shared their stories behind the project.
The inspiration for Dream Makers comes from the moment Walt Disney took his two daughters to a merry-go-round at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. As he watched them happily, he was inspired to create a place where parents and children could have fun together.
In the concept design for Dream Makers, Walt Disney, in his 50s, and Mickey Mouse sit on a bench and chat.
Walt Disney faces the merry-go-round, representing the origins of Disney, turns slightly and gestures toward the castle, representing the future.
Hong Kong Disneyland’s Castle of Magical Dreams and Cinderella Carousel, which form the backdrop for Dream Makers, were renovated in November 2020 and December last year, respectively.
Kendall Elliott, art director for the project, said the idea behind the statue is not only to celebrate Disney's 100th anniversary but also to start a new page for Disney in its next century.
“What else can we build? What other stories can we tell in the future? Duality is where we really started, and it is the core of our stories,” Elliott said.
“Continuing the 'duality' theme, we started to think about: 'Well, what’s the one word we can use, like partners or storytellers?'
“But we couldn’t tell the duality story with just one word. So we started to think that, Walt is a dreamer. He comes up with all of the ideas and the stories. But he can't do it all by himself. He has to get other people to help him out.
“So these doers, or makers, eventually become the Imagineers right? They are the people who think the impossible is possible and so they take their dreams and make them real.”
The Dream Makers project demonstrates the park’s efforts to nurture young creative talent and provide them with opportunities to shine.
“Storytelling comes with details,” said Sandra Liang Sun-wan, a creative designer from Walt Disney Imagineering Hong Kong and also the illustrator of Dream Makers.
Not only did she feel honored to have the opportunity to work with experienced illustrators and sculptors from the United States, Liang said, but she was deeply moved by the team’s passion and Disneyland’s “story-oriented” philosophy when working with the US team online.
“We have thought of so many postures for Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. We had once thought of them having eye contact with each other. But considering the interactiveness with visitors, we decided to make them face the Cinderella Carousel,” Liang said.
“Aesthetics is important, but more important is how we convey the story.”
There are two book-shaped plaques on both sides of the Dream Makers.
Designed by Hugo Liu Hap-hoi, a graphic design associate of Walt Disney Imagineering Hong Kong, one plaque describes Walt Disney's inspiration for creating Disneyland, while the other records a quote from his speech during the park's 10th anniversary.
The plaques feature Walt Disney's signature style, reflecting the design concept of a handwritten diary. Liu did extensive research to find a suitable Walt Disney signature style and had to consider the limitations of casting the font as well as Chinese characters in bronze.
Hong Kong Disneyland's creative producer, Denise Tse Yuen-hang, said the Hong Kong team even put on suits in order to observe the wrinkles on Walt Disney’s suit.
When asked about “Easter eggs” – like on other Walt Disney bronze statues – Tse said a Smoke Tree Ranch badge on Walt Disney’s tie depicts his determination.
Walt Disney was a member of Smoke Tree Ranch, where he built a property and later sold it in order to place a down payment on Disneyland in Anaheim.
Tse said passion has been the driving force of the team to fulfill the Dream Makers project within one-and-half years, when Hong Kong was in the midst of the pandemic in April last year.
Echoing Tse, Walt Disney Imagineering’s director of creative development, Jo Phoa felt the statue was a momentous project for the Imagineer team in Hong Kong, that The Walt Disney Company trusted the Hong Kong team with creating the concept for the statue goes to show how much the team has grown.
Phoa said she was very impressed when she visited the sculptors in the US and saw how they captured Walt’s spirit and emotion, and that the “Dream Makers” statue represents Walt Disney’s “can-do spirit”.
