With a final concept drawing ( LEFT ) and an artist concept painting ( RIGHT ), the design was approved by Michael Eisner . IMAGES COURTESY OF MIKE CONRAD
GET OFF THE CASTLE ! With all the concepts refined , Eisner approved the castle cake construction , and Conrad became the Art Director for the ambitious task of bringing all these sweet dreams into reality . Applying drawing to enormous inflatables and fiberglass sculptures is easier said than done .
One of the challenges was the famous forced perspective of Cinderella Castle . With three levels shrinking in height to make it look taller than 189 feet , the scale of each cake element had to be adjusted accordingly .
Conrad remembered the trouble he ran into while trying to measure each level : “ A small team of us went up into the castle one day with measuring tapes and cameras to get a better handle on where the various parts would have to be installed , including what kinds of anchors would be needed to keep them in place . We were almost done when one of the doors flew open and a guy in a necktie stormed out , demanding that we get down off the rooftop immediately . Impressively ignorant of the nuances of the Disney hierarchy , I asked who he was . He replied , ‘ Al Weiss , President of the Park . And we can ’ t have people climbing around on this thing in full view of the guests !’ I humbly admitted that he had a great point , and we all climbed back inside and down the stairs so we wouldn ’ t be destroying the forced-perspective illusion we were all up there to preserve !”
But Conrad had what he needed as a result of his “ unauthorized rooftop expedition .” After creating scaled drawings of the reallife placement and color of cake elements , it was time to actually bake , er , make the pieces . The cake castle would be constructed of two main elements : fiberglass and inflatables .
100 MAGICAL ISSUES
Reference drawings to help work out the appropriate size and scale of the décor elements . IMAGE COURTESY OF MIKE CONRAD