Report: Pirates of the Caribbean Special Event
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O'Day: The next one is an odd one. I’m not sure I get this one. Some of Marc’s sketches were a bit outlandish. Looks like a very weary pooped out pirate.

Baranick: I think he actually did become the pooped pirate. This is after the fact.

O'Day: And the next sketch I actually believe made it into one of the incarnations of Pirates.

Davis: Walt Disney World.

Tim: This next one is my favorite. It really shows off Marc’s storytelling ability.

O'Day: Poor fellow, taking the blood oath. This next sketch is very atmospheric. Alice, do you wish to comment on Marc’s style?

Davis: Marc was a very powerful draftsman and he loved to do characters and I think he enjoyed the pirates more than just about anything because of all the characters in it. To watch Marc draw was always unique because most people when they start to draw start drawing with the head and then do the body and so on. Sometimes he’d start with a knee or an elbow or something else and fill the figure in. But he wanted to stage things just so and that would be the point of where he wanted people to look and that’s where he would start and if it happened to be a knee or an elbow that’s where it would start.

O'Day: Now he worked very closely with Blaine Gibson in creating the figures and we have clip here of Walt once again with Julie going through WED and they ended up with Blaine and you’ll see some of Marc’s sketches on the walls.

Blaine Gibson tells Julie about their work on full scale Pirate figures.

Walt illustrating the poor Pirate who is trying to escape with lots of loot.
One foot on the dock and one foot on the rocky boat.  In the final clip that is pictured above
the Ambassador wishes that poor pirate good luck.  Walt replies, "Well he can't make it.
The show would go to pieces. He has to stay there all the time."

O'Day: That poor guy is still there rocking back and forth.

Baranick: I hope so.

O'Day:Yeah, let’s hope. Now Alice, when you’re designing the costumes for Pirates of the Caribbean, were there any special considerations you had to take into account because these figures were moving? It was not like dressing a mannequin. So what did you have to do in the design of the costumes to accommodate the AA figures?

Alice Davis working on costumes

Davis: Thank God for Velcro. (audience laughter) The costumes had to go on over their heads because their feet were bolted to the floor and some of them, their knees are bolted to the floor and like the man on the cannon all the controls and that all come up through his stomach and chest. So his hands were together and bolted to the cannon, his wrists were together, his ankles were bolted to the cannon and you have to put the clothes on over. And some of the clothes you look at them and you’d think I’m some kind of nut because the costume for the one on the cannon was like a gorilla suit cause you have to hem the legs, you have to cut the fabric so that you won’t have a big bunch of fabric in one spot. And then you have other ones like the pirate on the winch and going up and down. His knees are bolted to the floor but his buttocks have to go up in the air 18 inches. So it was quite a problem to figure out how to do it without making it look like his pants were full when he’d come back down. (audience laughter and applause) There were a few other problems I won’t even mention.