Why would anyone feel the need to polish a dragon? Well, you might if you were making a 360-degree film about China and insisted that every shot of every location look its very best!

Polishing the Dragons is filmmaker Jeff Blyth’s detailed first-person account of the making of Disney’s Circle-Vision film Wonders of China for the grand opening of EPCOT Center, a production fraught with technical, political, and environmental difficulties. Containing over 400 of the author’s personal photographs in full color, Polishing the Dragons tells the inside story of the beautiful, breathtaking, and inspiring film that has been enjoyed by over 100 million Guests at EPCOT’s China Pavilion. 

“Jeff is as gifted a storyteller as he is a filmmaker. This is a fascinating account of the colossal effort to make EPCOT's most spectacular CircleVision 360 film, which revealed the beauty and diversity of China to astonished American audiences in 1982.” (How Bowers, RetroWDW podcast)

“The man who brought you EPCOT's Wonders of China shares a story as challenging and wondrous as the country itself.” (Ron Schneider, author of From Dreamer to Dreamfinder)

“As both an EPCOT and filmmaking nerd, I loved Blyth's incredible behind-the-scenes stories from the best film ever made for a theme park.” (Jeff Heimbuch, author of Main Street Windows)