BEHIND THE SCENES - Pirate Fairy Directors!

Sniffle.... my last L.A. trip post. This means I have nothing more to talk about regarding my trip. My trip is officially over you guys! Wahhh!

Today's post is about my Q&A session with The Pirate Fairy Director Peggy Holmes and Producer Jennifer Cook. If you have the DVD or Blu-ray, you can see their smiling faces on the special features as they introduce the deleted scenes. These ladies are adorable!

Jennifer Cook and Peggy Holmes. Image © Disney.

What was neat about talking with them after our screening is their passion for the characters and the story. They talked about Pirate Fairy like it was one of their children, and in a way, it is. It took months of planning and hard work. Peggy Holmes begins by describing the tale of Zarina in that she "wanted to tell a story about a girl who makes a mistake... everyone makes mistakes."

Again, my techy-geekness strikes and I recorded the entire presentation with these two ladies. You can listen below! There is also a little sneak audio peek of Tom Hiddleston's special feature from the disc from his recording session for the "Frigate That Flies" around the 9 minute mark (which you will want to turn your speakers down for... sorry about that!).


There is also discussion about the adorable little Crocky. Here's the hard truth: everyone loves Crocky. Period. Not only is he downright adorable but he rescues the fairies from a trap, AND he becomes infamous in the stories of Peter Pan! How can you NOT love him? As you'll hear in the presentation, it took a few tries to get his design just right. What we get is nothing short of cute overload! There is even a special feature devoted entirely to Crocky!

Image © Disney.

Finally, I wanted to share something I now treasure as I look at it every single day above my desk:

That, my friends, is a piece of art featuring the background scene from inside Skull Rock, and it is autographed by Jennifer Cook and Peggy Holmes! You know, I have been looking at it for a few weeks now, and it wasn't until the Blu-ray finally arrived at my house and I re-watched it until I realized that it was inside Skull Rock. Yeah, major derp on my part! But I now have a place to start hanging some of my cool stuff I get when I go on these trips... next to my Pirate Fairy art!

I just want to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who made this trip possible for me: Sabrina, Gabby, Marshall, Click Communications, and Disney. I've made so many amazing memories as well as some incredible and life-changing contacts with this trip. I also want to give a shout out to my new blogger buddies over at DAM Bloggers, which is a page you should all pop over and like. It features some of the best parent-bloggers the web has to offer. To make a long sappy speech short, thanks to everyone I've worked with and here's to the next time I hop on a plane to sunny California!


Disclosure: I received a trip to Los Angeles as well as a review copy of Pirate Fairy in exchange for this post. Please see my Disclosure tab for more information.

BEHIND THE SCENES - The Pirate Fairy Character Development

This is the second to last post about my Los Angeles trip. Getting near the end of these posts makes me itch to jump back on a plane to go to LA again for something or another. (You see that, Disney friends? I'm ready to come back! Please?) These trips are fantastic, a lot of fun, and I've made so many amazing new friends and contacts. I want more!!!

The foyer of DisneyToon Studios.

Yet another one of the neat things I got to do was to sit down for a presentation about the creation of the new character, Zarina, a fairy who becomes a pirate. The character designers had to figure out a way to make her bridge the gap between fairy and pirate, without making her lean too heavy to one direction or another.

The foyer of DisneyToon Studios.

As I've said previously, I love Zarina's pirate costume. I could see myself wearing it to the local Renaissance Festival. Especially her nifty pirate coat... which, as you'll hear in the presentation below, designers designed from the "cuff of a pirate's coat." How neat is that? (And you'll hear a room full of bloggers go "Ohhhhh!" as the idea clicks with us, haha!)

Image © Disney.

One of the questions I asked while I was there was "where did the fairies get their swords?" because the fairy swords were so ornate... and I got my answer: hat pins! Ornate hat pins from the Victorian era would have indeed made perfect fairy swords! I loved how the character designers took everyday objects and made them pirate-y for the fairies.

Image © Disney.

Below is the full half an hour presentation we were treated to, featuring character designers and animation supervisors, all with a background of the cool Skull Rock they had on display in the lobby! Be sure to turn your speakers up! You'll be treated to neat secrets such as which pirate had a secret hobby of sewing and made Zarina's outfit? I won't tell, you have to listen!





Disclosure: I received a trip to Los Angeles in exchange for coverage of The Pirate Fairy release. Please see my Disclosure tab for more information.