www.themeparkinsider.com: If you are looking for some insight into how designers created your favorite theme park attractions, take a few minutes today to watch a new video from Universal Creative's Steve Tatham.
We've heard from Steve here on Theme Park Insider before. He was the creative director at Universal Studios Japan for several years before returning to the United States to take on an "epic" project for Universal in Orlando.
8 comments:
Sometimes information on the greenpages is like things I never knew I wanted but now that I’m here I must know the magical ways or else I’ll go insane. I’m definitely already insane but that’s besides the point. I think that an effective philosophy for creative development in theme park attractions is super interesting. Eye popping, scream worthy rides are iconic. Also the fact that some rides can take decades to create is so wild. I like the idea of carving away all the excess to discover the way that storytelling works. The voice and the vision that Steve mentioned makes so much sense and it feels stupid that I didn’t consider that before watching this video. I’d go on a kayak with Steve. If you are to lead a group of people you have to have a vision to tell you where you’re going and how awesome it will be when you get there. But your voice is essential to articulate the awesomeness of your vision by describing the how and the why.
I miss theme parks so so much. They were amongst the few places where I have always been able to just have fun and not care about anything else, which definitely not always fared in the best way but it was still worth it.
Reading this article , for a second, made me forget that we are in a pandemic which aims at curbing social activities, literally all events have been cancelled and rightfully so, health comes first but like it is still so unfortunate.
Anyhow, this article provided some nice insights to the way major theme park attractions are made. The notions about eye- catching colors and shapes, combined with wild music tastes, seems like the perfect recipe to create something that is unmissable. Not necessarily good, but definitely something that gets your attention. And I think that with the attention there, half the battle is won. Odds of a majority of people not liking the attraction seem slim in those circumstances.
As a theme park enthusiast, I am very happy to be reading more of these kind of articles recently. The entertainment industry is so broad; the way we tell stories can never be really placed in a single box. Theme parks and the attractions within them are an example of this. The project has to go through multiple stages from idea to concept to execution and sometimes even renovations once placed down. I think there is much to gather from how the process of creating such project is described. “Start with what you don’t need and work your way in” is the best way I could paraphrase it. I find that the broadness of a project can be overbearing which turns into distraction. By scraping off what you will not be using creates a sense of rules, of confinement, and oddly enough rules are often what create the most interesting pieces of art.
I loved listening to this perspective of a artistic director! Even though it’s about theme parks, anything in the entertainment industry is so applicable. I think what really makes a good artistic director in the theater world as well was the theme park industry is the ability to take a diverse team of talents and perspectives and work with them to being about the creative vision. I think the key thing is finding a diverse team and then actually listen to their ideas to create the finals product.. Studies have shown that diversity in teams and companies lead to greater innovation. That diversity of perspectives fosters creativity in problem solving. The career of an Art Director is definitely a career that I am interested in because I love problem solving and leading a team. You have the same job as a director but you are over the design team and the vision of all the artistic aspects of a show and how it will all be brought to fruition. And in the comparison to directors I mean that they are enhancing the actors creativity and talent in a way that best benefits the vision of the scene and show as a whole. A good leader recognizes they they don’t have all the answers but are humble and uplifts the artists around them.
I am an avid fan of the impressive details of themed entertainment and immersive environments, so I appreciate these articles. I found this one particularly interesting as I have had trouble narrowing down and quantifying what my design process is aside from the steps like what I research, it is hard to explain why I feel like something should be a certain color or pattern. Steve Tatham’s video was very informative and interesting. I had only heard from Disney Imagineers, so it was really cool to get the Universal Creative perspective. I loved hearing about the approach and values and contrasting the end products is very fascinating. I have not heard of the books mentioned in the article, so I will definitely be checking those out over winter break. I think the target audience of the article is for people with a base knowledge of the material and familiarity with some of the big names in theme park design, like Joe Rohde, and it could have had a larger reach otherwise, but I understand that the website is not targeted that way. Its following is people who know more about theme parks, but the article definitely had room to go into more detail outside of the video.
-Ariel Bernhard
I love learning about theme parks. Their process, extreme attention to detail, and goals of longevity of what they are creating is just fascinating to me. Recently, I have also been enjoying reading about theme parks because their design processes are so long and many of them have so much money, that they are still trucking through the pandemic. I mean we are already reading about the closure of Broadway, imagine if we also had to read about Disneyland and Kennywood packing up as well. This article reminds me of something I have heard Joe Pino say a couple times, “your first ten ideas aren’t your best”. The whole point is that you must iterate and iterate and iterate to get to a product that is achievable, successful, and innovative. The process of iterating also gives you the opportunity to trim out the ideas that may be confusing or unnecessary.
This was cool to watch and read about. I found the descriptions very thought provoking and connective. The block of marble is what I noted the most but for other reasons. It became a great example of how people create and how people can begin to create but is also a great example of what people think creation is and not what the definition is. The idea is that you start with a block of marble and you chisel away what is not going to be your sculpture, ultimately what ends up happening is you start to see a path to move forward in and then you commit to it and edit it as you go till the final result arrives and that would be creation with a result in a sculpture. However, this is creation through elimination, you took what was given to you and then you took away what wasn’t the goal, and then you worked on it till you found something you like. Creation is really the opposite of this but much harder to do. You have nothing and then you have an idea and you go out and grab what you need, then you work on it till you have what you wanted. Of course, you still have room to edit and evolve your idea, but you knew what you wanted to begin with from nothing. I prefer to start with the marble block.
I love theme parks and I miss going to them. They were wonderful places to go to and escape everyday life, allowing one to dive into a completely different world. I also like learning about how they’re made, since I’ve been interested in themed environments for a while now. I really enjoyed the article’s little explanation of having a block of material to start and then carving everything that isn’t your sculpture away from it. You start with the idea, and then start whittling down specifics of the story, visuals, sounds, etc. The further along you get the more defined the sculpture is and the clearer it is to see the end result.
I’m not really a designer, at least by my major, but it would be fun to be able to work on making theme parks someday in the future, even if it’s just helping out with the construction process.
Post a Comment