Decorating The Rose Parade Floats, MANY PHOTOS

[BobDiaz]

Decorating The Rose Parade Floats, MANY PHOTOS

I live in the Torrance area, which is just south of the City Of LA. For 50+ years the City of Torrance has entered a float into the Rose Parade. I've lost count of the number of times I've decorated the Torrance Float. Anyway, today marks the first day of decorating and these photos only show the early stages of float decorating. (I'll post the final stages later on.)

For those who have never decorated a float, some of the seeds have to be put on seed by seed; a VERY slow process.

The bark of the trees goes on a bit quicker, but EVERYONE hates working with the bark, it's dirty and makes a mess.

Not everything is put on seed by seed, here the people are using a homemade tool to put a bunch of seeds on at once.

Most like to work at floor level, but some have to work the upper levels. These people are about 12 feet above the ground.

If you look closely, you'll see guys driving Honda Scooters during the parade; here's one of the Scooters.

I got a kick out of the Arizona Float; Wile E. Coyote is going after the Road Runner on his rocket.

As seen from the front, you can see the Road Runner with Wile E. Coyote after him...

Some things are easy to do and some things take time. The finger nails took lots of time and I'll bet few will notice our work. (My son Michael and his friend Richard are working on the nails.)

 

[BobDiaz]

From years past, here's part of the "graveyard" of past float parts waiting to be recycled into future floats.

Alaska had an interesting float.

Here's the front view of the Torrance Float.

Hidden within the float is the driver's seat and controls.

The Trap Door that leads to the driver's seat is "hidden" on the Mad Hatter's left leg. The driver can NOT see anything and requires a look-out to guide him/her.

No we didn't chop off his head. The head must tip back for the float to go under a key bridge. However, the image does have a rather ghoulish look.

After about 8 hours of work, I was ready to join one of the members of our work crew. A second crew will come in for the night shift, but they won't have any time to rest.

No photo can show what it's like to work up at the top of the scaffolding. These people (left side) seemed to have no fear of falling...

 

[BobDiaz]

Here's a side view of the float. We're in a "new building" this year and I ran around to the upper loft to get this shot...

Beside us is a float of a dog on a skateboard. There seems to be some sort of track where skateboarders are going to skating around.

I don't recall who is doing the tree house, but it looks like a fun one to decorate...

Here's more of the tree house float.

Hard to believe that before December 31 at 7 AM all the floats must be finished and ready to judged. We have 5 days with 2 shifts (15 hours per day) and about 35 people per shift. That comes to about 2,625 work hours to decorate the Torrance Float. The bigger floats require more time...

I'm scheduled to return on Sunday and Tuesday, so I'll up date the thread with new photos for those days...


Bob Diaz

 

[ugafan]

thanks for sharing, bob. i always enjoy threads where people share photos of things they're working on.

 

[BobDiaz]

We are now at day 3 out of 5 days of rushing to decorate. Some things are hard to show, but this shot should give you an idea... If you look closely, the large seeds are placed by hand, one by one and the smaller seeds are dumped on in handfuls. Those that stick become part of the float and those that don't, we try to put them on again.

This is how you might see this on a close-up shot on TV.

Most don't like to work up high and it seems that every year, I end up on top. In this shot I'm gluing the golden leaf to the White Rabbit.

Silver leaf looks like silver in the sunlight and is easy to work with. Chances are most of the floats will use it somewhere.

The fine fur is really dried grasses. The experienced decorators are chosen for this job because they seem to create the best looking fur.

On day 1, everything seems a bit bland, BUT by day three, things start to take on a textured look and have more snap to the appearance.

There is a lot of skill to get the right look to the fur; even up close, it looks soft.

Here's the front view to our Torrance Float. We use a lot of plastic to protect decorated surfaces.

 

[BobDiaz]

If you look closely, you'll see that there's contamination in the colored areas. This is our worst nightmare. IF the spots of color that are in the wrong places don't blow out, we may have to remove them with tweezers. This is a lot of work, BUT if we don't do it right, we loose points with the judges and we like winning awards...

Some things are decorated on tables and we glue them into place. In the case of the little hearts on the White Rabbit, my son Michael is gluing the little hearts into place. You may not notice this work on TV, but if you do, we glued them into place!!!

From this side view, you can see that several teams are decorating different parts at the same time.

Most years, we work in obscurity, but this year we were put with the main group of floats. So, we had onlookers coming all day, who paid $7 to stand there and watch us work.

Step 1: paint white glue on to the Rabbit's Behind...

Step 2: let my son, Michael put the shredded coconut on the Rabbit's Behind.

The workers put the bow tie into place. If you look back, you'll see an earlier shot of people working on that bow tie.

I'm scheduled to work the final night of decorating on December 30th; final judging will take place on December 31, early in the morning. I hope to show the final stages of the 12 floats that are near my work area.


Bob Diaz

 

[BobDiaz]

Well, last night we did the finishing touches. Mostly cleaning up little things and putting roses and other flowers into place.

If you look back at earlier photos, the base had an ugly bland finish, but now the greenery was added and we're putting the roses down.

Rainbird's Float was the biggest there and was impressive.

Here's another view of Rainbird's Float from the front.

I never did see which group worked on this float, but it's look good too.

Here's the Float for the Rose Queen and her court.

The New Mexico Float is receiving the final flowers. If you look back at the earlier photos, this rocket seemed a bit bland, but add the final flowers and the colors and texture jump out.

Here's Torrance's White Rabbit receiving the finishing touches.

 

[BobDiaz]

I managed to slip into the area where Charisma's Floats were being built built. (My badge only allows me into the Fiesta Float area.)

This is the only other float in the Charisma Float building area.

The look in the eyes and the silly smirk on Coyote's face are cute.

The Dogs are now in place in the Alaska Float.

Here's the front view of the Torrance Float.

I'm not sure how many will notice these flowers with faces on the Torrance Float, but 3 of us spent about an hour cleaning up the missing spots and color contamination on these flowers. When it comes to judging, details count...

Here's the Torrance float as seen from the rear. You can see the bed of flowers are now all in place.

...and now a plug for the Torrance Float...

KTLA Viewers' Choice Trophy Poll

For the first time ever, you the viewer have a chance to give out a trophy for your favorite Rose Parade float.

Here's how it works: Watch the parade from 8am to 10am on KTLA-TV or on KTLA.COM. Then, come to this page and vote for your favorite float!

Voting will be open on January 1 from 10am to 6pm.

The winner will be announced and the trophy will be awarded live on the KTLA Morning News on January 2.

http://www.ktla.com/roseparade

http://www.ktla.com/roseparade_poll <<<------- This link

http://www.ktla.com/roseparade_floats


PLEASE VOTE FOR THE Torrance Float......


Thanks,

Bob Diaz