Friday, November 20, 2020
Here's How Disney World Will Hide the Tech Behind Its New Show
www.themeparkinsider.com: That toolkit includes five enormous floating platforms, including one with a six-story ring structure that will house a water curtain during the show. Other platforms will support 25-foot-tall, double-sided LED walls. The show also will use eight 54-foot moving arms, along with moving lights, fountains, and lasers.
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I remember early on in the career being told that the audience must never see what makes the magic happen, only the magic itself. I think my mentor worked for Disney at some point because this article screams that ideal. Walt Disney never wanted guests to see behind the scenes. In countless documentaries that idea is reiterated. It’s part of the reason why Walt Disney World is built above all of the corridors and passageways that connect the park for employees to move about unseen by guests. This goes back to when Walt saw a Cowboy walking through Tomorrowland on his way to Frontierland (as the story goes) and felt that took away from the guest experience. Disney likes to keep the Magic always going, so I can see why they want fountains during the day to hide the platforms. This way, at night, when the show starts, the audience will be mystified by the spectacle. Just like a magician, Disney doesn’t want to reveal its secrets, even if employees do.
I think this is what makes Disney parks so exciting to me. There are so many secrets of the ‘Disney magic’ that they do. It is almost a game with other friends when you go to the park; what easter eggs can you find? What ‘magic’ can you discover? I just sort of accepted it as a part of the park, but I did not realize that it was something that Walt Disney himself was very concerned about. I suppose that makes sense as this idea probably transfers to all parks around the world. All of this makes me wonder how the Disney parks do a lot of their shows. Also, are employees told upon hiring that they can’t tell the secrets of the park? I wonder if something like that is in contracts, cause, you know, I am not so sure if I could keep quiet if someone asked me to spill!
One thing that I really admire about the work Disney does on their parks is that they think about the guest experience and really take the time to make sure every little detail is perfect. They are thinking about the guest experience from the moment they get off the freeway until the moment they get back on. This philosophy is clearly in display in the development of these new fountains at Epcot. The park is not satisfied with simply having these large structures and create an impressive new show. The people there are also concerned with what these structures will do during the day. A guest during the day cannot see the inner workings of the show. What I really like about these fountains is that, based on the descriptions in the article, I can kind of make out the structure, but it’s camouflaged so well, that for the average guest, they will probably not give it a second look.
Honestly, only a theatre person could think this kind of thing up. I think Disney is definitely trying to get as much as they can out of every inch of surface area they have and create as much fantastic spectacle for park patrons. My biggest concern as a production house looking to technically design this would be making sure everything is waterproof, especially since there are also a lot of moving parts in this set up with floating platforms, moving robotic arms, and a huge amount of lights and lasers. I have no doubt these things are challenges that fabrication houses that work with theme parks have had to handle before, but the sheer scale of this project feels kind of exhilaratingly daunting. I also expect that Disney has the endlessly deep pockets necessary to fund the development of new water-proofing technology if necessary. I wonder how long the gantt chart for this project would be?
This was an interesting read because recently I have stumbled upon videos that showcase a lot of the background and abandoned mechanisms of Disney attractions, all of which people will never see when they go to the parks. I just think that fountains are so obvious. Like anyone can figure out that they are there to hide the workings of something if they haven't read this article. I do have questions about water usage and recycling, as well as if the fountains will affect the platforms at all. I do like that, overall, they care about what the guests will see and how it will fit in with the rest of the park, and would be curious to know what these fountains would like during the performance. I think that Disney has a lot of nifty ways to hide things that they don't want seen, so hearing about these ways is always a fun little read. And who knows, maybe in a few years there will be a video about these on some platform that talks about Disney's machines.
This article is pretty concise, so I do not have a great idea of how the structure described will actually look. It is an interesting predicament that I had not considered though – how does one disguise the structure for a nighttime show when the ‘stage’ will be passed by hundreds if not thousands of times a day? Luckily, Disney has as much resources as it does, so I assume this trick is entirely within the realm of possibility. I imagine this would take a lot of planning, literally from every angle. It also makes me wonder how much tech is disguised in the rest of the Disney parks. I wonder if this is a relatively new venture for them, or if they have been disguising structure and tech for a while. Overall, I am interested in seeing pictures of how this initiative turns out, and if these structures can be fully integrated into their surroundings.
I think it’s exciting to learn about the behind the scenes kind of stuff, even if it isn’t what you were initially interested in, seeing the mechanics behind a big show/performance is just as interesting as seeing the actual thing itself, at least I think. I mean I feel like that how I became interested in stage management. It was interesting to see what I wasn't supposed to be as a member of the audience. I think this article does a really good job of highlighting things that I wouldn’t even think to ask questions about in terms of the tech aspect. I guess everyone's first question is how do they do it? How do they create the disney magic that everyone always feels? Well this article gives a little taste of what goes on and makes sense of it a bit, I really want to go to Disney World now.
This is a pretty short article for most on the green page and I wish that there was a little more information in general as I know there has to be more interesting things to this that what the article was able to cover in such a short amount of time. I think Disney is always trying to ilk the magic out of everything that they do and they want to create as much space and things that will be wilder their audiences. As a technical person and someone who would want to work on projects like this my first inclination is to think are some sort of boat, or marine manufacturers involved in the process of making this attraction. It just feels to me like the water and the outdoor exposure is easily the most complicated long term problem that would need to be solved and the article doesn’t go into any depth on the subject.
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