Haunted Mansion Holiday Media Opening
Page 22 of 29

Steven Davison Interview

Steve Davison, the Creative Director for Haunted Mansion Holiday.
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Steven Davison was the creative director of Haunted Mansion Holiday. We had the opportunity to briefly interview him at the event. The text of his interview is shown below. The first part of his interview is also available on video:

Video: Steven Davison Interview (2 minutes)
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Steven Davison: Welcome to Haunted Mansion Holiday. What do you guys want to know?

LaughingPlace.com: Give us the two minute spiel.

SD: Haunted Mansion Holiday is the place to see Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas come to life. But there’s one section of the film we chose and that is when Jack Skellington the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown flew off as Sandy Claws to prove that he could take over Christmas in his vision. But the first place he happened to land was right behind me, here at the Haunted Mansion. So he started at the front, went all the way through the attraction all the way through the graveyard and decked for Christmas. But when Halloween creates Christmas you’re going to see a few flaws. So its probably the wildest thing that people can experience this season because everyone is so used to going to the mall, we see Santa, we see pretty angels. Here there is a whole twist on it because you’re going to see snow but what happens when a whole group of ghosts and Jack Skellington get a hold of the snow? You get snow angels, you get 20 ft pumpkin trees, you get a whole new fantasy to experience here at Disneyland.

LP: Do you have a personal favorite part?

SD: I love the manic plant choir. Falala. That’s one of my favorites. I love the end where we just got to recreate the finale. You know the famous singing busts? The whole idea to just come and put a pumpkin head on them and do a whole new effect with them made me tearful. I just thought it would be a lot of fun to come in and play with that.

LP: Was it difficult to convince Disney to do this project?

SD: Actually it took a couple of years to kind of do this whole transformation and to get them to understand it a little bit. It is a big departure for us. It is one of the wildest things I think we’ve ever done. And when you go and say Halloween is going to take over Christmas, what does that mean? And it took a lot of design work and pushing forward to say, "trust us it will work". They did. And here we are today with Haunted Mansion Holiday.

LP: What has the guest response been so far?

Huge. Huge. huge. huge. I hear, and I don't know what this means, but 70% of the people coming are coming to see it.

LP: Is it bigger than you expected?

SD: yes.

LP: And there is anything it you're disappointed in at all?

SD: Actually I'm not. You know, I'm overjoyed. I'm just gleeful we did it.

Steve Davison shares the story of Haunted Mansion Holiday with LaughingPlace.com
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