Movie Memories at Disney's Hollywood Studios
A Quiet Night
A quiet corner of the Hollywood Boulevard area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios at night reveals some nods to a couple of movies in Walt Disney World, as seen during the 2019 Band and Chorus Disney Trip.
While we were at Hollywood Studios on this particular evening, we were walking around the area near Echo Lake, approaching Hollywood Boulevard to leave for the evening. If you can’t tell, the building straight ahead in this photo is the Keystone Clothiers building. Echo lake is to the left.
The area was quiet and mostly deserted. Since there are no big attractions right in this immediate area, you can often find it rather quiet, actually. But it was getting close to time for Disney’s Hollywood Studios to close. So most people were either trying to get one last right on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, or they were on the other side of the building watching the Star Wars: The Galactic Spectacular projection show on the Chinese Theater.
Movie Reminders
In addition to the deserted feeling of this photo (besides that stroller that someone left on the left), the other thing I like about this photo is that it contains reminders about two of my favorite movies.
The first one is rather obvious, as it is the Maroon Studios billboard on top of the building with Maroon Studios’ three biggest stars: Baby Herman, Roger Rabbit, and Jessica Rabbit. As you probably know, that billboard refers to the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I believe it has been there since the opening of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. See this photo from July 1989 for proof.
The other movie reminder might not be quite as obvious. There is a small snack place right under the Maroon Studios billboard, although that place was closed for the evening when I took this photo. The name of the place is Peevy’s Polar Pipeline, and it features frozen Coke products. The place gets its name A. “Peevy” Peabody from the movie The Rocketeer, another one of my favorites. I would guess that these days not that many people get that connection, since that movie is over 28 years old now. But I still like it.
It is always pretty cool to find little things that many people do not notice. Just like finding a quiet area in a Disney park.
Bible Verse
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. - Psalm 145:8-9
About the Photo
This is one of those photos that benefited from the use of a 50mm prime lens. Even though it was well after dark, I was able to get this photo without a tripod. I had the aperture of the prime lens open all the way to f/1.8, with a setting of ISO 640. With all of the light from the streetlights that you can see here, that required a shutter speed of only 1/60 second, which is easy to do as a handheld photo.
Handheld photos may not be ideal, but when you are walking through a theme park with a group of people, they might not want to wait on you to set up a tripod. You can either get a quick handheld shot and keep going with them, or take some time to set things up and risk having to spend your time by yourself. I chose the former, and the results were just fine. Sometimes you have to choose which one you want to sacrifice.
Also, I was able to use Aurora HDR to pull some detail from the darker parts of the photo using the original Raw file. That gave a more evenly-lit look and saved this photo from being discarded.
Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Luminar. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 Lens
Date: March 6, 2019
Location: Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney World, Florida
