My wife and I decided to be a proper old couple and get ourselves a joint gift for Christmas. We got ourselves Disney World. It’s cool if you want to borrow it, just remember that it is ours…for a week anyway. I’ve already been contacted by a noted author who is interested in going, so spaces are filling up quickly.
So. Gone to Disney World. brb.
The very first thing my family would do when we got to Walt Disney World (first, of course, after the excruciatingly long check-in process at the Contemporary Resort, oh and after we went to “check out” the game room, after we did a lap on the monorail, after we got into the Magic Kingdom, after my father diverted us through a restaurant so we didn’t “have” to go through the main entrance of Tomorrowland) was ride Space Mountain.
I’ve felt a little frustrated recently, but running across this queue music last night suddenly threw me back and reminded me why I love creating meaningful experiences for people and doing things the right way.
Waiting for Space Mountain. The agonizing slowness in hoping for the date to arrive, the travel to get to Orlando, the little things that slow a trip down were all behind. Once we were in that line everything was out ahead of us. Nowhere to go but up. 
Permanent exhibits have caught the story buzz. “Story! We need a story! Beginning! Middle! End! We need plot twists and wizards and Dan Brown!! Ahhhh! AHHHH!!!” (that’s a transcript from a meeting I attended the other day by the way)
It’s a fantastic thing, designers and attraction directors focusing attention on devices that engage people, but there’s a dark dark side to storytelling. The danger for galleries, museums or themeparks is interpreting the word “story” too literally. While you want to create an experience that is immersive and involves guests on an emotional level, a designer can so carefully plot an attraction or exhibit that there is no room for a guest to drop their guard, invest themselves and create their own story.
On an episode of WedwayRadio, Sam Genneway of SamLand points out an excellent example of story gone amuck in comparing the two Disney themepark treehouses in America, one in Florida themed to the Swiss Family Robinson and the other in California themed to Tarzan. He says (paraphrased)—
…Disney wanted to create a set where people could be the actors and live out their fantasies on that stage.
Today it’s all about this business about story…we’re going to describe a story. With the treehouse…when it was the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse like it is still in Florida, even if you don’t know anything about the movie property you could walk through the treehouse and imagine what it would have been like to live in this treehouse. Would it have been fun, would you like living up here, would you like getting your water through that little conveyance system or something. Now you’re just walking through a diorama of a story and it’s almost just an exercise. It doesn’t wrap you up into it. Your brain doesn’t have to function if you don’t want it to, but you can’t help it at the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse in Florida. You’ve got to look at the little bed and go, “Wouldn’t it be cool to spend the night in here?”
If you can get to the point when you’re in an immersive environment that you let down your guard so much that you can start to have these little fantasies about your environment and you start to become a character that fits in appropriately within the culture of that environment, that’s real success!
The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse shows a living environment with places to work, cook, play and sleep, while the Tarzan treehouse shows…well, Tarzan. The first engages your mind and is an active experience that gives you room to think, “I wonder what it would be like to live here…” while the second shuts your brain down and is more passive, leading your brain to think, “I wonder what it would be like to not be in this treehouse anymore.”
Designed environments need to be focused, but they shouldn’t be so focused that there is no room left for the guest. Plotting an exhibit too tightly sends the message that “it’s this or nothing.” Of course with so many ways to spend our time there is no such thing as nothing, there is always something…as in something else.
On the first night of our most recent trip to Walt Disney World my wife and I had a little trouble with our dinner bill. When the check arrived we gave our waitress our room card to charge the meal to our Disney dining plan, but we had accidentally done things out of order and weren’t able to add a tip. The payment process required that you add a tip first and pay the bill second, opposite of a typical restaurant. We don’t carry cash on Disney property and the restaurant couldn’t make a random charge back to our room so we were at a loss. We didn’t want to stiff our waitress so we called over the manager.
“Yes, how may I help you? Was everything not to your satisfaction?” The manger spoke with genuine concern.
As our worried waitress peeked around the corner, my wife and I realized we had caused a little bit of a commotion among the staff. What is wrong? What has happened? We began trying to find a way to explain the situation while at the same time projecting to our waitress that we were the ones who screwed up, not her. Because of this double concern our explanation took MUCH longer than it should have.
The manager listened intently, nodding his understanding through our overlong story and when at last we finished talking he finally chimed in.
“Ah I believe I see. From what I understand, the trouble is…” and in just a few words he explained our situation back to us and, once we confirmed, told us what he would do to fix it and offered suggestions about how to avoid the situation in the future. Problem solved, magic preserved.
We left happy, but it was only later that we started to piece together what had just happened. Our mistake was actually an easy one to make so other people must have done the same thing. Knowing this, it was also very likely that this same manager had dealt with this exact situation and heard this same story (hopefully a bit more succinctly) possibly hundreds of times before. He could have saved us the hassle of stumbling around for the words but he didn’t. He could have stopped us early and said, “Oh yeah yeah, I know what happened,” and run off to fix it but he didn’t.
He didn’t do those things. He did something far better—he let us fumble around for the words, he let us tell our story.
The manager of this restaurant must have known exactly what we were getting at from the very beginning but never once let on. He gave us the chance to explain our situation to him and made it clear that by the end he had reached understanding through what we had said to him.
Compare this to most customer service experiences. For even the simplest issue it is often necessary to go through three or four people before you can find someone willing to stop assuming they understand the problem and just listen.
Everyone working in a Disney themepark is part of customer service and whether operating an attraction, directing pedestrian traffic during a parade or managing a restaurant, every employee is responsible for making sure the guest is served at the highest level possible. The manager of this particular restaurant made us feel like we had fully communicated our issue and that he was addressing our specific situation, not a situation based on something similar in the past. Even though he had probably heard the same story a hundred times before, he understood that it was the first time we had ever told it and that was the most important thing. He made us feel that our problem was unique and that it deserved unique attention.
I have a deep love of Walt Disney World, particularly the way they tell their stories. In this case, however, I have a deep love for the way Walt Disney World listened to mine.
Here’s a view you don’t see every day (unless today is every day, in which case you do see it every day). Someone hopped in a crane and headed high above the 189 ft. Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World and snapped a few pictures. From there they could see the park, the crowd and the new Fantasyland expansion. Shimmy shake, hokey pokey or jibba jabba your way on over to WDWNewsToday to see more. The choice is yours. 
The artists and designers at Walt Disney Imagineering are, first and foremost, storytellers. While they have many methods at their disposal, Imagineers primarily tell their stories visually since most began their careers in film—a visual medium—and only later became theme park developers. Filmmakers control everything the audience sees and Imagineers try to do the same within their parks. Over time both filmmakers and Imagineers have learned an interesting truth: often the most important piece of visual storytelling is not what the audience sees but rather what the audience does not see. This concept is put to great use through something as simple as a sail in the classic attraction Peter Pan’s Flight.
For a story to succeed a storyteller must set some ground rules (time, place, voice, etc.) and stick to them. In the case of Peter Pan’s Flight at Walt Disney World, the storytellers use the ride vehicle itself, specifically the front sail, to establish an important rule—everything of interest will happen beside and below you.
Shortly after you board the attraction your vehicle rises through the opening scenes where a few elevated details are partially obscured by your sail. As you lean around to see, however, those details drift behind and your brain directs your focus to the streets of London below. You can look up and forward again but there is only darkness so your brain quickly understands that the area covered by the sail is unimportant, uninteresting and uneventful.
In fact, there is quite alot going on above and in front of you, such as upcoming elements and ride mechanics, but through scene after scene the idea of only looking down is reinforced and we forget all about the dark obstruction in front, letting us lose ourselves in the story.
All of the carefully crafted misdirection throughout the ride that has trained our brains to disregard everything above is really a set up that pays off beautifully in the final scenes. As we drift past Wendy, trembling on the gangplank, our eyes are at last drawn around our vehicle’s sail and upwards towards the duel between Captain Hook and Peter Pan. We have not been fully conscious of it, but for the length of the ride we have been visually deprived and the sudden burst of light, color, motion and the final reveal of the attraction’s title character in an area our brains have dismissed as containing only darkness is an awakening for the eyes and the mind.
This is a well crafted story.
Great storytellers know that real fear is created not by things shown but by things hidden, real sexyness is created not by the skin that is revealed but by the skin that is covered, and a real sense of adventure is fostered not by a journey completed but by a journey anticipated. Walt Disney Imagineering continues to reach back to its filmmaking roots, showing guests something special often by not showing them anything at all.
The ride draws to a close and as we are still looking around our own sail, our vehicle drifts around the giant on-stage sail of Hook’s ship where we discover the happy finale that was always there, hiding on the very same set, just out of view. The ride vehicle comes in for a landing, people leave smiling, quietly humming ‘you can fly, you can fly, you can fly’ to themselves. One thing is certain—people know a well told story when they see it…so to speak.
I’ve been obsessing over little details lately, particularly when the details are wrong. Too much negativity can really wreck your outlook on life, so I just had to turn it around and talk about some people who get the details right. Back to my favorite subject, absent too long from this blog—Imagineering.
Walt Disney Imagineering is the division that designs Disney theme parks and they are crazy for detail. If you’ve been to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, perhaps you can visualize the following:
Imagine how the Tree of Life looks as you enter Disney’s Animal Kingdom parking lot. Maybe a little intriguing, teasing you with the tops of its leaves peeking out over all the other trees? Now think about how it looks once you come over the bridge in the park to get your first fully framed view of the icon. Pretty spectacular spreading out in front of you? Now, how does the tree look as you wind around beneath it, getting really close while you wait to see It’s Tough to be a Bug? What if, when you got close enough to touch the Tree of Life, you realized that the animals were just drawn on with spray paint and that the bark was just choppy concrete and cardboard? What if there was no detail?
The artists of Walt Disney Imagineering think like filmmakers, staging their theme parks using three basic “shots” — wide shot, medium shot and close up. In the Tree of Life scenario, the view from the parking lot is the wide shot and the view from the bridge is the medium shot. Both of these orient you, letting you know exactly where you are, but it is the view from beneath, the close up, that is so important to the success of the parks and the stories they tell.
Imagineers agonize over seemingly the most insignificant details because they know that is what separates the experiences they create from the rest of the pack. All the Disney parks are loaded with detail, with Animal Kingdom being one of the best examples. Everywhere you look, even everywhere you don’t, there are little touches that support the story—rockwork, roadwork, woodwork and bonework—all tiny little masterpieces that represent conscious decisions and actions by Imagineers.
Other amusement parks may try, from a design perspective, to match Disney but they typically miss the point. They work so hard to bring in the biggest attractions with the latest technology, all of which look spectacular in wide shot. It is when you come in for a close up, however, that you see something is wrong. In place of detail, they have slapped a few pieces of painted plywood onto a wall and have called it a story.
“There ya go. There’s your story, just like Disney. Now go ride the thing!”
A typical guest at one of these parks may not realize what is missing, but they can feel it. Yes, an individual ride may be thrilling but the emotional impact created by a well crafted story steeped in detail is just not there. The details do not support bigger picture.
Imagineers are people who have a love of something deeper. They understand, on a base level, that a great story is built upwards from a depth of detail, down to the last leaf imprint in the pavement. It is the attention to detail that lets guests lose themselves in the park experience. They know everything has been thought of, everything has been taken care of. Quite simply, everything is just done right. The wide shot may orient, but it is the close up that enchants. It is the detail that really tells the story. 
I found this print at Walt Disney World. It sums up everything that I love about Imagineering—the spectacle and awe of the castle, the history and optimism of the Walt and Mickey ‘Partners’ statue, and the reminder of just how much hard work goes into making something so special represented by the technical drawing.
The people at Walt Disney Imagineering are described as “dreamers and doers.” I dream of putting this print on my wall, so I will do just that…eventually…once I find some nails or hooks or whatever you use to hang these things…
UPDATE: I hung it up…so yay. Go team.
Tomorrow, Friday September 9, I am heading to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for a 10 day vacation. Because of this, I am very excited.
See? Prepare yourself for some intense pre-scheduled blog post madness!
September 2011. Excited. Giddy. Schoolgirly. Yay.
This September we are headed to Walt Disney World in Orlando, a place I’ve visited a million times and will visit a million more. This time promises to be a little different, though, as I’ll be having lunch with an Imagineer, a member of the creative team responsible for designing and building Disney theme parks and themed attractions. We will be with a small group so it won’t be a one-on-one, but I’m still very excited about the experience.
I love the work they do, so the chance for a chat with an Imagineer has the potential to be alot of fun (not to mention very educational). Since I have no idea who the person will be or what their actual area of expertise is (Artist? Engineer? Project Manager? Researcher? Who knows….), I’m not really sure what to expect.
Not sure what to expect, and not sure what to ask. Since I would like to work with this group someday, I have the chance to get some real information on how to drive myself and my skill set right into the Imagineering lobby….
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Peaceful day in Glendale, California. Someone in Imagineering headquarters says, “Does anyone else hear that noise? Sounds kinda like ‘One Little Spark’ from the Imagination ride at Epcot combined with a Ford engine about to explode.”
CRASH!! My car bursts through the glass, skids to a stop in front of reception just as my radio blares ‘IMAAAAA-GINAAATION!! IMAAAAA-GINAAATION!!’
I lower the volume. “Excuse me,” I say, leaning out the window. “I’d like to submit my resume and portfolio if that’s alright.” I hand off my material, rev the engine, turn up the radio and peel out of the building as the bewildered receptionist hears the final strains of Figment fading off into the distance…
‘A dream…can be…a dream come true! With just that spark…in me and you!’
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That’s the way people usually apply for jobs right? Complete destruction of the building? On the plus side, maybe I could be part of the team that redesigns the building, so it’s a win-win, really.
So what should I ask this person? I guess I could start by asking if it’s ok if I apply for the position by crashing my car into the home office. Where do I go from there? What kind of stock do I put in the experience? Do I try to get specific or do I stay general? Maybe I’ll try to make an impression on this person in the hopes that they place a quick call to say, “We’ve got to hire this person, quick! Get him before he thinks about knocking over other buildings!!!!”
What would you talk about if you were talking to someone who does something amazing, something wonderful? What if you were talking to someone who had that one little spark, who makes dreams come true?
IMAAAAA-GINAAATION!! (that song is going to be stuck in my head all day)
