Disney movies tell audiences that dreams do come true. At the El Capitan Theatre, students are given the chance to see this happen firsthand.
Last June, as a resident assistant for Dykstra Hall, fourth-year Design | Media Arts student Jonathan Bobrow went as part of a floor event to a midnight screening for the opening of Disney’s “Cars” at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.
In addition to free popcorn, there was rumor of an air guitar contest happening before the show.
“Word had it that one of the prizes was a Gibson Les Paul, a really nice brand of guitar,” Bobrow said. “(So) right when they started just pointing at people in the audience (to come up on stage), I was like, “˜yeah,’ and just ran up there.”
Bobrow led an 8-clap on stage to get the crowd pumped, and with the audience serving as judges, his enthusiasm was rewarded when it came time to pick a winner.
“The whole place just sort of went nuts,” Bobrow said.
He won that guitar.
The El Capitan gears the midnight showings to college-age students and the majority come from UCLA, according to Lylle Breier, a UCLA alumna and former Daily Bruin sports writer, and now Disney’s senior vice president of worldwide special events. The El Capitan takes care to cater to Disney’s wide audience spectrum.
“We try to make it so when you are a regular guest you feel like you’re (a celebrity),” Breier said.
The Walt Disney Company owns the El Capitan Theatre, and having a flagship theater allows the company to show off its films in different and exciting ways.
“It’s a great opportunity to give our movies the best place to be seen,” Breier said.
This past October, the El Capitan showed “The Nightmare Before Christmas” in digital 3-D. This event also became a popular event with residence halls.
“It was nice because it was like a childhood movie but you were seeing it in college,” said Katherina Jawaharlal, a third-year global studies student. Jawaharlal is an RA in Hedrick Summit. Along with 61 residents from her floor, she attended the screening and wound up winning a gift basket for having the highest turnout. It was her first time to the El Capitan and she was impressed.
“The seating in El Capitan is really impressive; I was all the way in the back, but I could still see,” she said. “(Plus) since it was 3-D, you can’t have a bad seat; it was all in your face.”
The El Capitan Theatre already has plans for marathon screenings of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies timed around the opening of the third installment.
“We’ll bring in all the sets and all the props (from the “˜Pirates’ films),” Breier said. “We are going to deck out the El Capitan.”
The El Capitan also does sing-along performances of Disney’s classic musicals. At a sing-along showing of “Mary Poppins” in January, subtitles on the screen prompted an audience of all ages to whistle, cheer, snap and of course sing.
“It’s literally the best place in the country to see a movie,” Breier said.
Breier began working for Disney as an intern during her UCLA days, around the time when Disney purchased the El Capitan Theatre in 1989, rescuing the beautiful architectural structure from decaying into oblivion.
The El Capitan originally opened in 1926 as a theatrical playhouse, though by 1936 it showed mostly movies. Built by Charles Toberman and Sid Grauman, the same development team behind the Egyptian and Chinese theaters, the El Capitan interior was built in an ornate East Indian style. After hosting the world premiere of Orson Welles’ Oscar-winning “Citizen Kane” in 1941, the El Capitan closed for a year and reopened as a movie theater in the Art Moderne style.
Disney restored the original interior decoration, including a remarkable ceiling, and the theater reopened in 1991. And according to Breier, about three-quarters of Disney’s movies have their premieres at the El Capitan.
“For everyone at Disney, the El Capitan is just a magical place,” Breier said.
Bobrow would agree that seeing a movie at El Capitan is better than the average trip to the movie theater.
“It’s similar to going to any midnight showing, but at the El Capitan they step it up,” Bobrow said. “At the El Capitan, they make sure stuff is going on. … They push for that atmosphere as opposed to just the fans leading.”
Though the El Capitan shows Disney movies every day year-round (currently “Meet the Robinsons” in Disney Digital 3-D through May), Bobrow said that making a midnight screening, typically the Thursday night before a film opens, can be tough to fit into a school schedule ““ but he doesn’t regret going.
“It started at midnight and got out at about 3 a.m. and then I stayed up to write a paper that was due the next day at noon. It was definitely worth it,” Bobrow said. “I did well on the paper, I got a free guitar. It turned out to be a good night.”