I sat down with Dave to talk about about the design and development of Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi, the world's largest indoor theme park. Let's hear how he and his team brought places such as Metropolis, Gotham City, and Bedrock to life.
Tuesday, October 02, 2018
What is it like to design a brand new theme park?
I sat down with Dave to talk about about the design and development of Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi, the world's largest indoor theme park. Let's hear how he and his team brought places such as Metropolis, Gotham City, and Bedrock to life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
One thing that is often glanced over when it comes to theme park design is the amount of story telling involved. They are essentially creating their own world out of the world around them. Theme park designers are able to take a temperate climate and make it into a tropical paradise, or take somewhere hot and make it appear cold. For example, Universal Studios took Florida, and managed to make a believable English countryside in the winter. Without this, it would have been impossible to fully immerse in the experience. It's always intrigued me the way these theme park designers have managed to remove you from reality and put you into a new world. Anything from the trash cans to the smells and sound they're using can change the way you think about where you are. Theme park designers are excellent at that. It's part of why theatrically trained designers are so good at being imagineers. They're trained to think not only outside the box but also to pay attention to every single detail, and put together as accurate of a world as they can. This immersion is what sets a good theme park apart from a bad one. If you go to your local Six Flags, there's a good chance that the theming will be half baked. When this happens, it makes you feel like you're in a theme park, not like you're visiting Gotham City. That's what distinguishes a mediocre theme park from a great one.
For a designer, it seems like the proposal for designing a theme park is a blank slate which they can fill with any color and shape to denote a theme, which I believe is a very exciting dream-come-true proposal, given that not a lot have that opportunity.
So many aspects are attached to a theme park: the land space, the original idea, the feasibility of the idea, the subsequent changes to the idea, the proposition and finally the execution of the idea, which further includes several other aspects.
Just reading through this long list of work associated with the creation of a theme park indicates how difficult but equally exciting it would be for the people attached to the creation of the park. Especially the designers!
The designers need to take care that they project the original vision of the owners while making it possible in the real world, which I believe is the most difficult work, something which if achieved, the designers should be proud of and the speactators should appreciate and respect.
Ever since I was little, I have always been interested in theme parks and everything that goes into designing them. When I was little, I remember visiting Disney Land for the first time. I was amazed by the entire experience. Disney is one of a kind, the minute you step into the park, you are transported to a whole new world. While most people are interested in the rides and how fun they are to ride on, I was not thinking only about this. What interests me most about theme parks and Disney, in particular, is more of a behind the scenes thing, the logistics of it per say. For example, have you ever had to walk more than 30 feet to get to a trash can at Disney Land? Probably not, Walt Disney found that people aren’t willing to walk more than 30 feet to a trash can, so, in order to keep the park as clean as possible, that's how far apart the cans are. On top of these, there are 17 of what are called trash collection points through the park where trash is dropped off and sucked to the main trash plant via a vacuum tube. This makes it so you don’t see Cast Members, what they call employees, carrying trash very often. These small logistical things are what I love so much about theme parks, and Disney does it the best.
I have to agree, outside of Disney, Warner Brothers does have the greatest animated catalog. Though the method they employed by using a logical story to layout the park, like the cartoon section, was invented by the Disney Imagineers, which is basically using the logic of film storytelling and applying it to the real world. No matter what any designer says whatever modern theme park is designed it is hopelessly influenced by the Disney parks because of the logical layout and thought into how the human mind goes through a park and the best way to experience the park. But the reassuring part of this new park is that they are actually employing the Disney method, because other modern "theme" parks like Six Flags do not give a second thought to immersive theming and not just the thrill of giant coasters. Theme parks, actual themed lands, take into account the entire experience of the guest, not just the ride, there is factors such as the ground they walk on and even the smell in the air. Another important design element is the sightlines of the guests, because nothing ruins the illusion faster than seeing into backstage or business offices outside the park, something that Disney and Universal does very well. I wish I had the money to visit this nostalgia park all the way around the world.
World building is so important in any creative endeavor but I never realized how much attention could be paid in a theme park to that same thing. I’ve always considered theme parks to be individual worlds shoved up against each other with the actual world being restricted to just inside that one particular ride or experience. Hearing the level of detail that went into the Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi for world building to create a cohesive experience has definitely shifted my view. I can’t wait to go to another theme park and see if I can find the little details that make the world make more sense beyond “of course, Scooby Doo haunted house and next door is the ACME factor. Wooo. Looney Toons!” I wonder if there’s been or will be any kind of study on guest satisfaction at parks that are very particular about this kind of world building versus parks that just throw this ride there and that ride here and wish you luck on finding the theme. I know there are things about Disney piping in scents and using optical illusions to really make you feel like you’re not in a giant crowd that helps with their world building. Those little details can make all the difference.
This interview almost reminds me about the time Ruth E. Carter visited CMU earlier this semester. During her presentation she shared the deep history the Marvel folks built to make the costume and the movie Black Panther. It involved the specific tribes, where they come from, what their main industries are, and what their fashion styles look like based on their history and industry. Building a theme park world from animations doesn’t sound that different from building a movie set, I guess. It just amazes me how much work is needed in the background to make the ‘world’ look and feel real. Not many people visiting the theme park will even notice or want to know about the logic of how the town was built, just like not many people really digs in to the fake history of Wakanda. But it matters to the creators because it’s the small details that make the world look and feel real.
I think the fascinating part about themed entertainment is how you are taking a concept that is mostly on screen in a virtual world and making it a reality. The challenges that come from trying to replicate something that is real in our heads but not tangible on earth can be extremely difficult given that much of the preconceived elements may not be something that can be obtained. Many theme park goers have an expectation before entering the experience “world” and don’t want to be let down. As someone that has minimal experience with themed entertainment as a whole I would like to learn more about the actual process that goes into creating a themed world, soup to nuts. This article does an excellent job of explaining the overall interaction between a designer and the corporation but leaves out how the design process works and what framework they have to work off of throughout every phase of the process.
Post a Comment