DCA Animation Building

[cstephens]

To get out of the heat for a while on Sunday, we decided to spend some time in the Animation Building in DCA. We've always enjoyed spending time in there relaxing and listening to and watching the loop of animated features in the lobby. It's been quite a while since we've been in there, but it's not nearly the relaxing place we used to remember.

We had sat down in the middle near where some of the comfy sofas are and were enjoying being in the lobby. On a much too frequent basis, there were fairly loud pre-recorded announcements telling people to go into either Turtle Talk with Crush or into the Animation Academy. Previously, these announcements were made by the CMs at the entrance to each location, and they were usually made only about 5 minutes prior to the next showtime. The CMs' voices were also usually fairly gentle and soothing. Not so much with the recorded announcements. Both were fairly loud and obnoxious and the Turtle Talk announcement was accompanied by "Crush" talking (not a very good soundness to boot) and the Animation Academy announcement was accompanied by Mickey talking. Each announcement was played multiple times prior to each showtime, and each time the announcement was played, the soundtrack to the lobby was interrupted. I might be misremembering but previously, when the CMs made the announcements, the lobby soundtrack wasn't turned off during their announcements. Now, the whole flow of the lobby atmosphere is completed destroyed because of the out-of-place announcements.

And now that the Animation Building has been open for more than 5 years, I would think it's time to either replace or add to the loop of films in there. There were many films previously left out, and many more films have been made since then. It can't be that hard to either replace to add to the existing material. They don't need to create anything. Sure, some of the concept drawings are pretty cool, but some just have static pictures and video, and those work just fine.

[Aladdin]

Agreed, and they really do need more seating in the lobby area!