Guests at Disneyland Paris can once again brave the dingy dungeon under Sleeping Beauty Castle and make eye contact with the mysterious dragon. For the past few months, La Tanière du Dragon underwent a significant refurbishment with the addition of black light projectors and specially reactive transparent paint, themed lighting and show control upgrades, and enhancements by our figure finishing team.
Jeremy Declerck, Stage Lighting Designer at Walt Disney Imagineering Paris, explains:
“Last July, we replaced all the spotlights and the show control from a technical point of view. We also wanted to enhance the decor. So we installed new lighting to give a better idea of the volumes, while respecting the mysterious atmosphere that reigns there. Our visitors can now rediscover the many details of this cavern, with its various crevices, the mother-of-pearl effects on the rock and the roots hanging from the ceiling.”
Anne-Cécile Houron, Stage Finishing Designer, adds:
“Secondly, during the October closure, we worked on the dragon.
Thanks to the new black light projectors and the application of a paint that reacts to this type of lighting, we created a new effect that makes the dragon’s wrath even more spectacular and more realistic at the same time. The Invisible Black Light paint makes this possible, as it is invisible to the naked eye and only reacts when the black light is switched on. This creates a magical effect for visitors!
The collaboration with the Figure Finishing workshop at Disneyland Paris was crucial and very constructive throughout the refurbishment, from the design of the project and the methodology to the lighting adjustments and programming of the effects”.