Disneyland Paris still keeps drawers of film and slides that hardly anyone has seen. Marie-Geneviève Masseron manages the resort’s media library, and her team is digitizing the collection in chronological order, starting with 1991. They’re working through 1993 right now.
Masseron joined the Audiovisual Broadcast teams at the end of 2008 as manager of the photo library. Back then people came in person to browse the photographs, plenty of which still existed as film, slides or ektas. The resort transitioned to digital photography in 2002 and expanded digitization from 2015 onward. Her role widened when video came under the same roof, since most of that footage had been stored on tapes and reels by a separate studio.
What is in the Disneyland Paris archive?
Finished photos, video from shoots and filming sessions, and decades of older material held for heritage. Masseron catalogs approved images alongside her colleague Emilie. Indexing is the whole job: official attraction and location names, copyright or trademark notices, and an accurate description of the subject, the place and the people in the frame.
“The more precise the indexing, the better the chances that someone searching for that photograph or video later will be able to find it,” Masseron said.
Requests come from departments across the company, and the marketing side keeps her busiest. Right now she’s deep in Halloween at Disneyland Paris and Christmas work. More recently the library has also been heavily involved in managing productions and post-production related to Disney Adventure World, and it has delivered a huge amount of photo and video content for press, marketing and sales teams and agencies.
What is still waiting to be digitized?
A tremendous amount, by Masseron’s account. The “small photo library” still holds film and small- and medium-format ektas. Graphic designer Christophe scans the batches, cleans off dust, and makes slight color adjustments or restores some of the original vibrancy. They pick the best frames off the original contact sheets first, since some shots misfire and others repeat.
Not all of it goes public. Many of those photographs no longer have valid distribution rights, or show elements that have since become outdated, though a Cast Member can still request a specific image.
Then there are the surprises. The team recently turned up photographs from a concert at Billy Bob’s featuring country musicians who were apparently very well known.
What’s stayed with Masseron most is the aerial photography shot before the park was built. You can watch simple fields turn into a fully developed resort in a very short period of time.
She’s just as interested in the newer material. Images created today could count as heritage next year, and the library even preserves videos that used to be shown on hotel televisions.
Source: Disneyland Paris News
Discover more from Theme Park Shark
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
