“Kaa and Mickey”
by Tim Devine
Kaa searches for Mickey in one of the more powerful scenes from Fantasmic! in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The forces of evil (Maleficent, Jafar, Urusla, et al) have all banded together to try to eliminate Mickey but he has other ideas. As Kaa searches in a futile attempt to capture Mickey, his eyes light up and make an awesome light trail in the smoke and fog on-stage. Thankfully, Kaa doesn’t move too fast, or you would need a very fast lens (f/2.8 or faster) to be able to get a sharp photo. If you want a shot like this, DO NOT focus on Kaa’s eyes, or the camera’s meter will properly expose the eyes, but severely underexpose the rest of the scene, resulting in a dark photo. In this scene, it is perfectly OK to overexpose (“blow-out”) Kaa’s eyes in order to get this shot.