I love how the Disney Imagineers work so hard to eliminate unnecessary distractions from interrupting the story of each area. Small things do matter. In the Tokyo parks, they take snack stands, popcorn wagons and even coin-op drink dispensers over the top. This especially speaks to us as designers and builders because this is the scale of projects we love to do and can easily accommodate in our shop. These could easily be prefabricated and shipped wherever our client happened to be.
Random pictures
Many years ago, back in 1989, when we still used actual film in a camera, Janis & I visited Disneyland in California. I remember we were in the lineup for Splash Mountain, which had just opened. As we slowly moved through the long winding line, I was excitedly taking pictures of all I saw. I was shooting the features, railings, buildings, signs, and just about everything else in sight, including the stamped concrete walkway. In a space of less than a hundred feet, I had used four or five rolls of film, which were twenty-four pictures each. At that point, the lady behind us tapped me on the shoulder and expressed her amazement that I had gone through so much film and yet had not taken one picture of my lovely wife - which is what most ‘normal’ tourists did. She asked who I was and what could be the purpose of ALL of those pictures. We explained that we were in the business of creating themed environments, and our visit to Disney was part of our research.
This trip to Tokyo Disney is very much the same. If someone followed us, they would observe we stopped very often and took many, many pictures of seemingly random things. The thousands of pictures we are taking will be carefully cataloged and used as inspiration for future projects. While we won’t copy what we see, we will learn from our research. Disney Imagineering (the design and build arm of the company) are the best in the world without a doubt, and we’re taking notes.
Really looking
Our purpose of visiting theme parks is different than most. While throngs of guests rush past us, from attraction to attraction, trying their best to fit it all into as few days as possible, we stroll casually, observing everything in detail. There is so much to see! Our quest is to figure out what things are made from, to discover how they were made, to figure out what tools might have been used and to record as many of the details as we possibly can. What most guests don’t realize is that everything they see is handcrafted and put in place to tell a specific story. That old piece of wood they didn’t really see was hand-carved; the rock they barely glanced at was sculpted in place by skilled artisans. Every bit of colour was carefully brushed and blended. Everything was skillfully arranged to draw guests into the elaborate tale. Matt and I took about twelve hundred photos yesterday, recording hundreds of small details to remind us of our lessons when we return home. We carefully studied and touched everything we could and learned many valuable lessons along the way. Although we were exhausted when we dragged ourselves back to the hotel, our brains were buzzing with countless ideas we were eager to implement into our future work. Overnight, we recharged ourselves, our iPhones and the portable battery packs and are eager to discover as much as we can once again. This trip is truly mind-blowing for Matt and me! Now we eagerly head back to ‘WORK’…
