Scene from Rodeo the Fremont Street Experience produced by Baer Animation. © The Fremont Street Experience Company.

So, how was the animation created for this mammouth Space Frame? I decided to drop in and see Jane Baer, principal of Baer Animation, the first studio to do animation for the Freemont Street Experience. "Like everything we try at Baer," she said, "working on this project was new adventure for us. I thought is was a fabulous idea from the beginning, lighting up four city blocks while entertaining passersby." Timed to country western favorites, dazzled spectators see and hear animated dancing cowboys, stampeding buffalos, TNT barrels exploding, collages of card decks snapping, starry constellations, and honky tonk fiddles playing in a seven minute film originally entitled Rodeo (now Americana) created at the launch of the project.

Jane Baer, who received her initial training in animation at Disney's under the tutelage of the "Nine Old Men," began her company in 1984. Since then it has created animation for a wide range of productions, ranging from features to commercials. The studio is housed in a quaint Spanish-style house in Studio City, California, with beam ceilings and garden patio, with Jane's canine companion, Millie as unofficial greeter. The company is best known their work on the groundbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit, being responsible for the "Toon Town" and "Benny the Cab" sequences. In addition to doing the animation for key sequences in a number of other major animated features, the studio has done commercials for such products as Coca Cola, Rice Krispies, Pampers, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, and (Charlie the) Starkist Tuna. So, selecting Baer Animation for the first Space Frame animation was the perfect fit for Jane Baer and the Fremont Street Experience Company.

Fascinated With Disney
The Fremont Street Experience was the brainchild of Steve Wynns, of Mirage Resorts, and Kenny Wynns, of Atlandia Design, a subsidiary of Mirage Resorts, who provided expertise in design and construction. Jane was introduced to them by a long-time friend, Roland Fargo Krump. One of the reasons she hit it off so well with the Wynns,who were fascinated with Walt Disney and that Steve Wynn had a visual sense much like Disney.

Jane says that all she and director Russell Calibrisi had to go on when they started working on the project was the eight country western songs that were to be used as the soundtrack. Then they and their crew storyboarded, created the color design and produced the animation in just two months. Baer explained that, "We were working in a short amount of time with a brand new technology It was something that had never been done before. One of the challenges we faced was choosing the best color palette. Transferring animation into light limited our color range, because certain colors, like greens and yellows, went flat. And some colors turned to white light!"