I saw a Disney print last week that I really like. It shows Mickey Mouse doing a self portrait, but the character on the portrait is Walt Disney, his creator. The question becomes who is who’s alter ego. Walt was quoted as saying “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

I heard some time ago that Disney theme park buildings were specially constructed to convey perspective or height. Disney imagineers created an illusion by utilizing forced perspective.

As you enter Main Street USA from the railroad tunnels, the buildings on each side of the street are not full scale. They actually get smaller as they rise. First floors are approximately 12 feet high, the 2nd floors are about 10 feet high and 3rd floors are about 8 feet high. In fact 1st floors are at 3/4 scale. Second floors are at 5/8 scale, and 3rd floors are at 1/2 scale. Imagineers designed the buildings this way so they would fit the scale of the park. So the apparent height of the buildings is an illusion engineered through the set-designers’ forced perspective. This creates the impression of tallness in buildings of modest, domestic height. This toytown scale – impossible in the real world- gives adults the same feeling of mastery and control that children feel when playing with dollhouses or miniature villages or a model-train layout.

At first I wondered if Walt Disney failed to see with proper perspective, but in the final analysis it seems this was a common design illusion of the day. I suggest clicking on forced perspective to read about this illusion method’s use in move production.