The Spirit of EPCOT Center

As difficult as it is to comprehend, try your best to imagine the current Walt Disney Company spending 37 Billion Dollars on a single project. Yes,... THRITY-SEVEN BILLION Dollars! What could possibly be worth such a staggering amount of investment? How on Earth could one begin to justify such financially risky endeavor!? And what bank would even entertain such a proposal longer than a single millisecond?

By now, you should be getting (at least) a small idea about as to the gravitas EPCOT Center held for Walt Disney Productions in 1982. For the “theme park” cost was roughly 50% of the net worth of the Company in 1982. By comparison, the (very conservatively estimated) $6.5M Shanghai Disneyland, is less than 9% of the company today.

So why did, Card Walker approve of such an ambitious project?  Although not explicitly stated, the following video does give some sense as to the enormiously altruistic aspirations everyone involved with EPCOT Center was striving for. 

“The Spirit of EPCOT Center”
February 1983
Featuring (in order of appearance) 

Donn Tatum, Tony Baxter, Ken Anderson, Marty Sklar,
John Hench, Randy Bright, Dr. Alan Yarnell, Ray Bradbury,
Dr. Carl Hodges, Bob McCarthy, Ward Kimball, Card Walker & Walt Disney     

NOTE:
Clicking on the Vimeo icon will take you to a special description with clickable “chapters” for the individual interviews in the presentation.                                    

The 4th Dimension

Coming in the near future, the E82 universe will expand beyond the realms of static art, musical compilation, historical dissertation and philosophic analysis to include animated simulations, and a host of other projects expressed in the forth dimension (time).

In order to properly showcase this new form of expression, "E82 Films" had to have its own motion picture-style logo and here are the results…

Logo Description:

Beginning at the outermost edge of the universe, we journey through the spiraling heart of the "Epcot Galaxy" passing the park's original set of nine pavilion logos all coalescing together to explode outwards becoming the Progress City Supernova on the edge of which orbits majestic Spaceship Earth.

UPDATE:

The E82 Films Logo has become the latest Case Study on the JLH Omni Blog!

From the pitfalls to the enormous possibilities, head to JLH Omnimedia on E82 to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this benchmark-setting project!