Over the past year of so we’ve been restoring many Magic Kingdom films…each of which lends to some amazing discovery that we haven’t seen before. However, when you discover a film that includes footage from MK and River Country you tend to get very excited, and then when you realize there is more RC footage than MK you really get pumped…and realize some took an expensive (for the time) camera into a water park, positioned themselves above rides, on the beach and possibly in the water to capture some amazing footage. While portions of the film are over exposed, we left them in as footage of River Country is so rare!

Ok so what is in this film? First we start off with a slow pan from the tower windows at the Royal Inn (it became the Hotel Royal Plaza and is now The B Resort). The footage starts at Empress Lilly and pans over past the preview center building and then a quick zoom over a hazy horizon to the Magic Kingdom where you can barely make out the Contemporary and Space Mountain (Thanks to @BrianPMiles for figuring out the MK and the hotel.). We then stand on the beach (or possibly in the water) looking towards the Rope Climb, panning to the left past the Cable Ride and ending at the Boom Swing with the finale to White Water Rapids in the background. Next up is great footage of the Upstream Plunge and then back to the terminus of White Water Rapids. Next up has got be one of the best amateur shots of Whoop ‘n Holler we’ve seen, this positioning is key and you can clearly see the slide in action. More Upstream Plunge action is followed by an up close and personal look at the Cable Ride and then our day ends at the White Water Rapids.

Before we go, recently we were able to procure two very special 16mm WDW films; these are not home movies, but professional productions that we would like to restore and share with the world. Together they have a run time of over one hour, include sound and from our research there are no existing High-Definition digital prints of either of these films anywhere. We have seen a few horrid grainy VHS transfers, but they are just that, abysmal and nearly unwatchable. Because we want to have these films scanned and digitally transferred with the best possible technology the cost of this process is beyond our current budget – this is where we need your help. We’ve setup a support us page at Patreon, while similar to Kickstarter or Indigogo, Patreon is crowdfunding that is geared towards those producing media. Your support will not be left un-noticed, not only will you get to view the restored films before the general public but we’ve got some additional rewards for helping us out. We respect the fact that not everyone can support this endeavor, but we thank all for their continued support. If you can, please support us at https://www.patreon.com/retrowdw

And now, lets go back to River Country in 1978…