Floating an idea

The open courtyard of a warehouse, against the backdrop of the San

Gabriel mountains, is a magical place where Newport Beach’s history

is being built.

It’s still mainly a bunch of metal rods welded together, and

plywood platforms amid a hodgepodge of headless bodies and

half-painted structures. But already you can see what the artists

creating this Rose Parade float are striving for.

The setting is the workshop of award-winning Fiesta Parade Floats.

The cast of characters -- which will eventually include thousands of

volunteers with flowers and glue -- consists at the moment of only

two sea turtles, two dolphins, a pelican and a large woman with no

head.

But Newport Beach’s float for the 2006 Rose Parade is starting to

take shape.

“If you go up there a month after the Rose Parade and you look at

their facilities, you’ll see a bunch of chassis, I would call them,”

said City Councilman Don Webb. “They’re basically steel I-beams with

wheels.”

Now the city’s float is a partially covered skeleton that outlines

an elaborate ocean scene featuring a giant clam shell, moving

sailboats, a ship’s bowsprit and two dolphins leading the way.

It started at a drafting table. Newport officials drummed up ideas

for what they wanted the float to portray -- Newport’s seaside

location, nautical heritage and, most important, the city’s 100th

birthday on Sept. 1, 2006.

Fiesta, winner of the Rose Parade’s top award for 12 consecutive

years, was chosen to build the float. Company President Tim Estes and

his employees drew a design for the theme, Sailing Through a Century,

and even made models of some of the float’s elements.

Construction started in June at Fiesta’s Duarte workshop, a

slightly eerie wonderland, scattered with five-foot mushrooms, an

enormous magic lamp (sans genie), hulking structures that have been

or will become floats, and the heads of creatures, which are carved

separately and attached after the bodies are done. There, the process

of creating Newport’s float is in full swing, with a welder on the

prow forming the body of a woman who will be the ship’s figurehead.

Down near the ground, where ocean waves will extend outward around

the animals and boats, another worker spreads wire mesh over a piece

of the float and glues it down. The metal frame gets wrapped in mesh,

which is then sprayed with a fibrous plastic coating called

cocooning.

The cocooning creates a solid surface that can be painted and then

covered with seeds and flowers.

But before the decorators can start on the city’s float, workers

have to complete the animation -- the apparatus that will make the

clam shell, the boats and other parts of the float move.

The float needs three engines: one powers the float itself, which

drives at about 2 1/2 mph but can actually go a bit faster; another

operates the animation; and a third drives a generator to pipe out

music and run fans so the float’s driver and riders don’t boil in the

California sun.

To enter the Rose Parade, a float must meet stringent

requirements. The materials on the outside must be all natural --

flowers, of course, but also nuts, seeds, bark and the like. Taller

parts of its structure must be collapsible so the float can fit

underneath bridges when traveling from where it’s built to the parade

site in Pasadena.

Estes can attest that the materials for the float must be chosen

carefully. At one time, gladiola petals were popular for making skin.

If you put them on the face of a woman, “it looks fine, but after

it starts drying and the gladiola petal starts shrinking, it looks

like she’s got a bad case of acne,” he said.

Now they sometimes use crushed walnut shells, sesame seeds or

other materials, and “blush” can be made of plant materials to help

with the color.

“We’re in the illusion business, and we’re trying to make it as

believable an illusion as possible,” Estes said.

When the shell of Newport’s float is finished and painted,

volunteers will be brought in to put on some of the less perishable

materials, probably in November. The float will be test-driven around

the block, and float riders or stand-ins for them will hold a fire

drill.

Finally, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day will be a

magical but grueling time. Shifts of people will work 24 hours a day

using 120 gallons of glue to affix hundreds of thousands of flowers

to the float.

The city is still looking for the volunteers to help with all that

gluing. Webb said donations to cover the cost of the float would also

be welcomed.

About eight or 10 people will be able to ride on the float, but

just two of the seats are spoken for -- the mayor, who will likely be

Webb when the parade is held Jan. 2, and the young daughter of city

resident John Saunders, who chipped in the $25,000 needed to get a

seat.

It was hard to get people excited about the float earlier because

the parade seemed so far in the future, but now Webb expects the

community’s interest to blossom.

“There’s a sort of camaraderie and excitement of being a part of

building a float, and the anticipation of seeing this thing you’ve

created going down Colorado Boulevard and being televised all over

the world,” Webb said.

And Fiesta also has plenty of work ahead. The company is making 12

floats this year, and other clients include the cities of Cerritos,

Torrance and Ontario as well as corporations, such as Subway and FTD

-- which doesn’t supply its own flowers, by the way.

Estes enjoys the creativity of the job because even if he does

spend months helping build something that’s only seen for a few hours

one day of the year, it’s seen and remembered by millions of people.

“My daughter just got married in July, and it was the same thing,

building up something really nice, and people can enjoy the

memories,” Estes said.

Well, that and the fact that his work -- and thus Newport Beach’s

float -- will be seen by millions of people around the world.