Free 'Christmas Carol' train rolls into Oakland this weekend

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jun 22, 2009 | by Karen D'Souza

Hear that whistle blow? Christmas is coming to town early this year, folks.

High tech meets the 19th century when Disney's "A Christmas Carol" Train Tour pulls into Oakland's Middle Harbor Shoreline Park this weekend replete with faux snow flurries, Victorian-era carolers and a cavalcade of high-tech spectacles from the wizards at Hewlett Packard.

It's all part of an unprecedented publicity stunt to plug Robert Zemeckis' new 3-D movie version of Charles Dickens' 1843 cautionary tale of the haves, the have-nots and the haunted starring Jim Carrey as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. It's arguably one of the most elaborate promotions ever staged by Disney or any studio. And that's no humbug.

"The challenge for us was to come up with a promotion as memorable and ground-breaking as the movie," says Bob Gault, vice president of special events at Disney, "something that would do it credit."

The holiday flick doesn't hit the big screen until Nov. 6 but Disney is betting the vintage four-car Amtrak choo-choo, which has been decked out with eye-popping interactive displays, will be novel enough to stoke the interest of the family demographic in general and the generation weaned on "Thomas the Tank Engine" in particular. HP, for its part, gets to show off its technological razzle-dazzle. 'Tis always the season for savvy marketing, no?

"This project is particularly exciting because it is the first time HP has partnered with Disney to support a film," says Michael Mendenhall, chief marketing officer for Palo Alto-based HP. "The HP technology used in the making of 'A Christmas Carol' has enabled Disney to push the boundaries in performance capture technology."

The price is right

For the record, Disney will not disclose the price tag for this rolling theme-park attraction that uses a homespun 19th-century gimmick (the whistle-stop tour) to sell a movie stuffed with cutting- edge technology (face morphing, anyone?). The locomotive is slated to chug 16,000 miles through 36 states before making its final stop at New York's Grand Central station on Oct. 30. Oh, and did we mention that it's free? In hard times, that's a price even a penny- pincher like Scrooge can get behind.

"It's fabulous, it's fun and it's free. In this economy, that's a winner," says Gault, whose office was also responsible for the aircraft carrier screening for "Pearl Harbor." "It's a two-hour experience for the whole family."

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it, but the sunshine draws the crowds. In Los Angeles, where the barnstorming tour kicked off in May, almost 50,000 people showed up, causing huge lines and a five-hour wait. Disney estimates that 1.5 million people will come onboard nationwide.

Of course, the bottom line is the box office, and the train tour includes a 10-minute 3-D sneak preview of the movie (screened in an inflatable bounce house-like theater). But high-tech addicts may be most jazzed by the behind-the-scenes look at performance capture techniques. This process takes a live actor's expressions and transforms them into animated renderings with 360-degree visceral impact. The computer nails every last twitch and flutter down to the pores on an actor's face.

'Polar Express' on steroids

"The HP wizards of technology came up with this amazing performance capture process that's right on the cutting edge," Gault says. "This is like 'Polar Express' on steroids. It's a cross between animation and live action that is like nothing you have ever seen before."

In one car, there's a virtual reality studio, dubbed "Mission Control," with a mannequin in a rubber suit and a Borg-like helmet bearing four cameras that illustrates the working environment behind motion capture (the actors call it "mo cap").

It's this high-tech alchemy that allows Carrey to shape-shift through seven roles (from Scrooge to the spirits of Christmas past, present and future). There's also a digital portrait gallery showcasing how the characters were developed, from digital tableau to big screen.

For tykes and teens the must-see may be the face-morphing photo booths (24 in all) where you can have your face blended with cute little Tiny Tim, the fearsome Ghost of Marley ("There's more of gravy than of grave about you!") or Scrooge himself. Colin Firth fans (read: the women on board) may be disappointed that Fred Scrooge, Old Ebenezer's kindly nephew, is not an option. The portraits are then e-mailed to your home as a souvenir.

"The HP TouchSmart computers can make anything look real," says Gault. "It's a big hit with kids. Now you can morph your face like Jim Carrey."

Great expectations led Elizabeth Aguilar, 21, a Sacramento State University student, to sign up as a temp worker for the train's recent stop in quaint Old Sacramento. She hit the face-morph kiosk three times: "You know if it's from Disney, it's going to be good, but this is hecka cool."

Like Aguilar, 77-year-old Lewis Ellison is also a Disney trainee, riding the rails to learn how to guide visitors. Unlike her, he prefers the costumes to the whiz-bang effects. He's also a little nostalgic for the days when Dickens' words could stand on their own.