GoPro and Disney

Synergy loves company.

We have this coterie of rich franchises, the company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible.

It's what they hope to do here, to really develop something that's more than an entertainment enterprise. It's something that contributes to many other ways. Action cameras. Those rugged little cameras with the fisheye lens and the first person perspective. They probably make you think of extreme sports, right? Or maybe you picture Disney vloggers documenting their visits to the parks. Or even those awesome theme park ride videos that make you feel like you're there. These little palm sized mountable cameras have helped athletes capture unbelievable angles and have basically become the new family vacation camcorder. But they have also carved out a place in Hollywood. And when we talk about action cams, one name stands out above the rest. GoPro. It's become so popular that it's practically the Kleenex of action cameras. But here's where it gets interesting. Did you know that Disney has a secret connection to GoPro? And we're about to uncover the mysterious relationship between those GoPro action cameras and our favorite, the Walt Disney Company. Call up Mr. Toad, because it's going to be a wild ride. I think it would be pretty cool if Mr. Toad had a GoPro mounted to his dashboard. Hey, this is Synergy Loves Company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything. Because let's face it, you don't need to be at the parks to experience the magic every day. Disney is all around us. I'm Eric, and today we're diving into a topic that might surprise you. Disney's secret connection to GoPro cameras. Before we dive into the GoPro connection, let's take a quick trip down memory lane and focus on Disney's history with cameras. Because let me tell you, cameras have always been important to Disney, and it's pretty fascinating stuff. Before it all started with a mouse or a lucky rabbit, way back in the 1920s, Disney actually started with the Alice comedies. These were Walt Disney's first big break into the animation and filmmaking world. The shorts featured Alice, a real live action girl who interacted with animated characters in an animated world. Walt used a Bell and Howl camera to film live action scenes with little Alice. And then Ub Iwerks would animate cartoon characters on separate animation cells. And then Roy Disney helped capture each film cell with an animation overlay, using a pate camera to produce the final Result. Now that's some early technical movie magic from a Disney history dream team. We're off to a good start. Next up though, we have something that further revolutionized animation. Capturing animation cells for the final film was where the next camera innovation comes in. In the early animated film, scenes were flat, so two dimensional. But what if they could show depth also? Enter the multi plane camera. This bad boy was a game changer in animation. Imagine a camera that could move through multiple layers of artwork, creating a sense of depth that was mind blowing for its time. It involved a camera at the top of a roughly 12 foot tall machine aimed down to capture an image from top down. Different parts of the animated scene from the foreground to the background were placed on different levels so that they could be moved up towards the camera lens or down towards the floor away from the lens, which would create a really cool zooming effect. Starting with its first big showing in the Silly Symphony's old mill, the multiplane camera is what gave Snow White and other classic Disney films that magical three dimensional feel. Fast forward to more recent times and we got hall of Fame inventor Lanny Smoot to join Walt Disney Imagineering because of an incredible camera system he had developed. He invented a viewer controlled camera and television system that would allow audiences to choose where to point a closed circuit TV system to position the camera at whatever they found interesting. Disney Imagineering wanted Smoot system for Animal Kingdom. It could be a great way to let guests observe animals in their habitats without disturbing them, no matter where they were hiding in the enclosure. It would be like a high tech version of the true life adventures nature documentaries, but live right there in the park. Disney hired Smoot to get to his tech, but they ended up with so much more now that they had Smoot on board. He developed so much more tech and filed so many patents for Disney Imagineering. And his tenure all started with a camera. And if there's one thing we know about Disney, it's that they love to play with new tech. The company is like a kid in a candy store when it comes to emerging technologies. And that brings us to our main topic, GoPro. GoPro's story starts with a guy named Nick Woodman. Picture this. It's the early 2000s and Nick's trying to figure out how to film himself surfing. All the surf pros had these cool action shots and videos with them riding waves. He felt like he would be able to go pro if he could get some cool pics and videos of himself surfing. He started by attaching a 35 millimeter camera to his wrist while hoping to catch some of those gnarly waves. Little did he know he was about to start a revolution in consumer action photography. Fast forward a little bit and GoPro becomes this powerhouse in the world of action cameras. He pretty much invented the category. GoPro cameras are small, they're tough, and they could pretty much go anywhere. They have a sturdy mounting system that allows them to be attached to sports equipment, vehicles, your body, even your pet. Suddenly, everyone from extreme sports athletes to your next door neighbor was strapping these things to their helmets, their bodies and wrists, and capturing some amazing footage. But all right, here's where it gets juicy. Remember how I said that Disney has a secret connection to GoPro? Well, it's time to spill the tea. Steamboat. Steamboat. Steamboat. Steamboat Ventures. Have you ever heard of Steamboat Ventures? No. Don't worry, you're not alone. It's not exactly a household name, even among Disney fans, but trust me, it's pretty important. Steamboat Ventures is like Disney's secret investment arm. It started back in the year 2000 and its job is to invest in new and upcoming tech startups. And here's the kicker. They usually pick companies that could benefit Disney or one of its subsidiaries or many of its subsidiaries at once. Now, why Steamboat? Well, of course, it's a little nod to Steamboat Willie, that groundbreaking cartoon that launched Mickey Mouse to stardom back in 1928. Steamboat Willie's innovation of synchronized sound in animated shorts set the gold standard for Disney technological innovation and creativity. Just like that cartoon innovated animation, Steamboat Ventures aims to innovate through smart investments. And Steamboat Ventures highest profile investment has been in GoPro. In May of 2011, Steamboat Ventures decided to take a gamble on an up and coming consumer action camera company called GoPro. They invested a cool 10 million, hoping that it would take off. Spoiler alert, it did. But Disney wasn't just throwing money around. They saw potential in these tiny cameras. And they were eager to find ways to use them around the Walt Disney Company. Let's start with one of the obvious ways they could use them. The X Games. The X Games started by ESPN in 1995, the same year that Disney announced it would acquire ABCK Cap Cities and get their hands on espn. The X Games were like the Olympics, but for skateboarders, BMX bikers, snowboarders, newer sports that originally were not part of the traditional Olympics. GoPro cameras were perfect for the X Games. Athletes could wear them while competing, giving viewers an incredible first person's perspective of the action. In fact, the summer after steamboat invested in GoPro, the X Games started using the cameras to capture their events. And the relationship has lasted to this day. Earlier this year, GoPro was named the official action camera of the Winter X Games. Talk about a long term investment. But Disney's vision for GoPro went beyond sports. Right around the time Steamboat was investing in GoPro, Disney legend George Lucas got his hands on the cameras while working on a movie called Red Tails. Red Tails is about the Tuskegee Airmen, the famous group of Black World War II fighter and bomber pilots. This was actually one of the first Hollywood movies to use GoPro cameras. And you could get some really cool flight effects with these cameras attached to the planes. Okay, okay. Disney didn't make Red Tails, but Disney would acquire lucasfilm just after the release of Red Tails, making it the last Lucasfilm project made without Disney. Red Tails was released under 20th Century Fox, which then Disney acquired in 2019. So now Disney totally owns Red Tails and you could watch it on Disney. Speaking of acquisitions, GoPros also made their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe under Disney. They had a small role in Age of Ultron, but they really showed their stuff in Captain Civil War. Stunt work could be really hard to capture in a movie, but you know that epic fight scene between Captain America's MCU crew and Iron Man's army of supers. GoPro helped capture some of those mind blowing stunts, and it's like you're right there in the middle of the action because of those cameras. Now using GoPros for movies is cool, but this is Disney we're talking about. They had to take it a step further. In 2011, the first thing they did after Steamboat invested is Disney teamed up with Carnegie Mellon University to experiment with GoPros in motion capture. Usually motion capture involves actors in those funny looking green screen suits with the little balls all over them. Usually in a studio, sometimes also in front of a green screen, the camera tracks the motion of the balls and a computer generated character can follow the actor's movement. But Disney had a different idea. What if they could bring motion capture out into the real world? They attached a bunch of GoPros to an actor and used the camera movement to control motion capture. It's like reverse engineering the process cameras physically on the actor instead of just pointing at them. While this tech is still in development or more likely on the shelf, it shows how Disney is always thinking outside the box and how they thought about the potential of this investment in GoPro. With all those ways that Disney tapped into their Investment in GoPro GoPro cameras really prove their worth to Disney in live sports, filmmaking and technological innovation. But there's one more place that Disney's steamboat investment in GoPro shows up in a little bit more of a subtle way. Disney content creators are everywhere. Some go to the parks often they review restaurants, they stay at resorts, and they show off new merch and report on new snacks. And some of them make videos and podcasts in their basement about how Disney connects to everything because they're too far from the parks to visit all the time. Let's get back to the ones in the parks though. There are a lot of Disney Parks creators who use GoPro cameras to document their Disney Parks experiences so we can live vicariously through them. And one park's experience made for GoPro documentation is the ride through video. I love those, by the way. Many of the best high quality ride through videos on the more extreme rides are captured on GoPros because of their rugged builds and their secure mounting options. It would be way too risky to hold out your phone on the Incredicoaster, but a GoPro mounted to your chest or wrist could get the job done even when you loop upside down. Okay, okay. Disney content creators making ride through content on GoPros is not a direct result of Disney's investment. I get it. Or is it? When I visited Universal earlier this year, I tried to watch some ride through videos to get myself hyped up for the experience. But there were only official ride videos, not really any from fans or content creators. When I watched my favorite Disney vloggers making videos in Universal, they cut to Universal's official footage because Universal doesn't allow filming on rides like any of them, even ET on the other hand, Disney does allow filming on rides. And maybe it's not a coincidence that they invested in a company that makes cameras perfect for filming on thrill rides. I mean, how would it look if Disney prohibited the use of cameras from a company they invested so heavily in? Just saying. In 2014, GoPro went public and Steamboat Ventures cashed in big time. Their original $10 million investment turned into 76.1 million. Talk about a magical return on investment. That one really picked up some steam. Even today, Disney, through Steamboat Ventures, still owns over 2% of the GoPro company. So every time you see a GoPro being used at the X Games, in a Disney movie or by a Disney Parks vlogger, remember, Disney's got a stake in that. You know, when I visited Disneyland last spring, I actually used my little GoPro camera to record some of my experiences. I even did a little ride through video of the Grand Canyon and Primeval World dioramas on the Disneyland railroad. It's pretty cool to think about in a roundabout way. I was using a piece of Disney magic to capture, well, Disney magic. And if you want to check out that video, I've put a link in the description below. It's a great example of how these little cameras can help us share and relive our Disney memories. So there you have it. The secret connection between Disney and GoPro. From extreme sports to Hollywood blockbusters, from innovative experiments to preserving our cherished park memories, it's clear that Disney's investment in GoPro has paid off in more ways than one. I had a lot of fun focusing on GoPro and Disney. I just love when I could focus on Disney and technology. A few months back I did an episode about Disney's foray into the Internet with the launch of go.com. if you didn't check it out, you should right now. And I've always got more Disney connections coming right up. If you want to make sure that you don't miss them, go ahead and subscribe or follow wherever you're enjoying Synergy Loves Company right now. 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