Name: Brainstorm Design 2019: Designing Magical Experiences
Uploaded: 2019-03-08
Duration: 20 min 11 s
Description: Fortune's Clay Chandler interviews Nancy Seruto, Executive Producer, Walt Disney Imagineering

Well Nancy we're real pleased to have you here we've been trying for two years now to get this seat to come and join us and talk a little bit about what you do. I'm really excited to talk about Shanghai also because it's such an ambitious undertaking for the For the folks at Disney it's been so long in development. I mean I remember being at Fortune and talking to Bob Iger about it nearly ten years ago. And how excited he was, and it's really all kind of come together in an amazing way. You have, I think one of the best jobs in the world. Yeah I do. [ LAUGH ] Talk to me a little about, share with us the The Imagnineering team at Disney, what it's like. I mean, how many people, and where are they, and how do they work? Yes, well, Imagineering is very unique place, we have 4, 000 Imagineers across 20 countries. That's incredible. It is incredible, and so it's a global resource. And I think what makes it unique is that it's a very multi disciplinary group. So if you think of it as a design firm, you've got everything from special effects to architecture, to media production, everything all under one entity. So our process is very multi disciplinary, very iterative And it's a complex team. But what comes out of it, the unique thing that comes out of it, is clear. And you mentioned that the core of it is in Glendale, where everybody can work in close proximity. I mean, what's that campus like? [ LAUGH ] Well, everybody thinks it must be a really glamorous place, [ LAUGH ] but it's really just a A series of buildings that over a time, over the last 50 years, have been added to the campus. So we call it a campus, but it's very blocks. Lots and lots of warehouses. So there might be one warehouse that's all right engineering and another one that's all animated figures, architecture in another building. So Yeah, we're all sprawled over several blocks. So Disney is obviously an experience that's familiar to generations of Americans now. I'm just curious how many people have actually been to a Disneyland somewhere, show of hands? Or even here, quite a big contingent of them But Shanghai was a whole new proposition for Disney. Can you tell us a little bit about just the size of Shanghai Disneyland, to give us a sense of the scope of it? Yes, Shanghai Disneyland is 943 acres. Or 963 acres. 963. 963 acres. So, a very big development with a lot of brand new work we've never done before. Right. Adventures, both in terms of scale, but also in terms of the invention level. So, I want to talk a little bit about that. Let's see if we can get these slides to come up. How do you translate this kind of originally American experience into a completely different cultural context? Well, we went into Shanghai in a very open way, to really understand this market before we really created anything. We spent quite a bit of time researching. Just gathering an understanding of what the guest would like and enjoy, but we also built a creative, an international creative team with a lot of local artists, directors, designers, choreographers, writers, to help craft the whole park Indigenously so that the whole relevance for the local people would be built in from the very beginning. Yeah so from the time that it was decided, that the site was selected. And to actual opening of the park, how many years was that process? I'm not sure the exact day the site was selected but I worked on the project for seven years, and that was from the day the project was authorized to go forward. Wow, amazing. Let's talk about some of the little details here. I mean, we spoke about the difficulties of just getting the language right. How hard was that? Yeah well, we made a decision at the very beginning to localize the project by working in the local language. And this is the first time Disney had done that. So for us, it was a magnificent adventure in trying to understand how to tell our stories that our, our unique stories. But also tell them in a way that was distinctly Chinese. So this exhibits itself in all kinds of details, our scripting and our narration of all the characters and all the rides are in Mandarin. All of our cast members speak Mandarin. And then when you go to do theme signage for Fantasy Land or The Disneylands, we worked with calligraphers to develop fonts that match the all fonts that we're theme fonts. And so, that was a very fun discovery. Lot of attention to the little, small details. And there are million of this signs, of course they're everywhere. Part of the challenge then also is Is when Disney builds a facility, articulus attention to construction and materials. You've got to work with a local crew to be able to do that and to translate that same ethos, how did that process work? Well, we built a very large local team over the course of several years. We found artisans that could deliver work for us in multiple trades and then we also had a very extensive training program to take artisans with relevant experience and relevant skill set and train them up and to some of the age old techniques that Disney uses like. Our rock work, and team painting, and plaster so that we would have enough leaders locally to run the teams that continue to grow, and grow, and grow into the hundreds by the end of the project. Wow. You spent a lot of time working in particular on Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah. How hard was it to translate that experience into something that would make sense in China? It was hard, but it was huge fun. I think we originally started this park thinking we would bring the Pirates of the Carribean experience that we have created, that Walt Disney, himself, created in Anaheim and bring that project To China. But in China, they were unfamiliar with that project. Right. And so it actually was very freeing to create something completely knew. And so we went for it, and we did a very epic version of a pirates attraction. Now, you mentioned You know, I first went to Disney when I was in high school, and that was one of my favorite rides. But it's a, I mean, and then the movie franchise later grew out of that ride. But I think for people my age, that was kind of the first encounter with the idea of Pirates of the Caribbean. and so You kind of remember all these little stations that you go past in the boat and down the waterfall and all these things but you're mentioning that that's not really how Chinese guests, that wasn't their reference point cuz they'd never had that experience. No, it wasn't and so we really did something different but because we're imagineers and Ever sentimental about pirates reel so work [ UNKNOWN ] to the original attraction. Yeah, okay. It's our baby. [ LAUGH ] So this is a slide that I get to show some of the materials. Yeah, this is, when you go to create An immersive land, which is something that Disney does. You create really something that's a theatrical environment, but these are real buildings, so what we did is we went to the Caribbean, and we took a lot a lot of photos, and that's what you see at the top, to give us authentic textures and authentic paint to build on, and then we translated this. To be more theatrical so they captured the humor and adventure of a pirate story. And created this world called Treasure Cove that is all about pirates. And this is an interesting bridge of architectural design and technology and theatrical design and technology. And was quite an effort to bridge. Wow. It's difficult even in the US to bridge it, but many of the architects that we worked with locally had never done anything like this, so convincing people to build something crooked and old looking- [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] took a lot of interaction. And most of these capabilities, for the materials, you actually have in house and tend Not to outsource to agencies and other. Well, there's, over the years Disney has tried and tested a lot, a lot of materials. So there's a confidence in certain materials and techniques, But we also discuss quite a few new ways of doing things in China that we had never thought of so yeah. Interesting, so this is what gives us a kind of feeling of the big ship battle. Yeah this is one scene in Pirates just to give you a sense of sort of the epic scale of it. But also the nature of it, so This is two full scale pirate ships. Wow! And they're a hundred feet long. But at the end of this run of water is a dome with a [ UNKNOWN ] that extends the scene. So this is how we got into all new technology with pirates. I mean, you start blending large format media Large format sets, lots of special effects into a very dynamic show. We really needed a ride system that would do that. Wow. That would deliver on that. All right. [ COUGH ] This suggested the scale. It's much larger, but talk a little bit about what we're seeing here. So what you're seeing here is, most boat rides are just moved by pumping water. So you don't really have a lot of control over where they go or how they move. They just kinda bump and fly down. So that means your experience is kind of a looping experience, you go by the experience. Yeah. But we wanted to deliver experience that was timed right at you and very, very dynamic. So we had to design a boat ride system that can be controlled by a highly sophisticated system. And in the process of inventing that, we discovered, we could also create a boat that could go forwards, that could spin and go backwards, and have a lot of surprising moves. But it was all timed very, very accurately, within a half of a second, so that we could trigger these effects, and this media And so it winds up looking like a two acre [ LAUGH ] clock, really. [ LAUGH ] Wow. Yeah, it's very, very accurate. So this is essentially a show, it's a movie, and it's a water- born transport system that has to move with the precision of Tokyo subways, right? [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] Exactly. That's incredible. Yeah. What are we seeing here? So from a process standpoint because of the scale and complexity we started looking for the most advanced design tools that were already out there to start with. And BIM technology is used widely in the architecture trades already, so we adopted BIM technology. But then we also Tried to integrate more of the effects and the show that what we do into that and then use it as a tool for studying the sequencing of installation and all the technologies that have to come into a ride. And ultimately the sequencing that drove us all was filling this thing with water because How often do you have a facility that, at some point in time, is gonna get filled with water? And at that point, your access to it is extremely limited. Can't be changing cables and plugging things in. So you really had to check every box before that thing got filled with water. Yeah, wow, it's interesting to me, this is sort of analogous to the things that Nelson was talking about. That technology now is facilitating these new tools that enable us to kinda create magic and An entertainment and ways of [ UNKNOWN ]. And a visual tools so that everybody can sit in front of it and talk, you know, from different. Cause I think we got another quick video here. Yeah. What is this one? And that's okay, that's just a detail that show you know how we use the same three dimensional model now to plan every segment of media in this, there we have 15 media segments. So this is showing you how we were able to look at the boat going by in plan view. Look at the screen and elevation. Map exactly what's happening on the media. How many seconds long, and what the guests would see as they went through a scene. So you can really plan this quite precisely and anticipate exactly what you're trying, the effective [ UNKNOWN ]. And we are working with Industrial Light and Magic on media, yeah. How great is that? [ LAUGH ] Wow, yeah, that's really [ INAUDIBLE ]. What do we see here? So we started Pirates design about ten years ago. And Imagineering got very excited about these new tools. And now they have taken them even further. So now that we have the three- dimensional model of this attraction, complete with all the sets and props and effects and media Why not create a tool like a gaming engine that designers can actually go into with VR goggles and experience and make calls about the design. So that's how we're working now. We're working inside of our 3D models in a gaming engine kind of tool that integrates all of the other design tools. So we can, it's like a directorial platform for the attraction far beyond or far in advance of us having ready in the field. That's amazing stuff. So I was sort of curious about some of the cultural, contextual things, we talked a little bit about this, but One of the things that I have seen in Hong Kong, where I live, is that the mainland guests, when they come, have different types of queuing behavior. Right? Japanese are very used to orderly lines, Americans are sort of not bad at it. But Chinese don't do that, they crowd and they elbow, and they create a kind of a scrum. How did you deal with that and write that you know is going to be Marvel people? Yeah well you know DC's been operating parks for a very long time. So we took a lot of that knowledge with us and then did a lot of study in the local market to see where we might need to adapt. But the day you open a park is just the beginning of learning about the local audiences. So we're continuing to adapt all the time. And the audiences I think are learning how to use our parks the best way, how to get the most out of their day. So maybe distributing yourselves and not all going to one place means that you won't be waiting so long. And so they're starting to get more savvy about that too. So it has been a huge learning experience, and it'll inform all of our work in China moving forward. And how has the turnout, the response been for park since it opened? It's been fantastic. I mean, we have huge crowds there. [ LAUGH ] And Yeah. I think it really has resonated and hit a note in the local audience. Which is a great, great thing. That's amazing. Yeah. I wanna take some questions. But maybe I wonder if we could just before that give people a bit of a sneak peek. [ LAUGH ] And so what might be next at Disney and where do you go. Can we do that. Yeah. All right. We'll do a sneak peek. We've got a little Teaser here. [ SOUND ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] So- Sorry I can't give you more. So what the heck is that? [ LAUGH ] Well it's a natural progression of things. We And it's coming out of the design tools that we have but also because now we have this incredible story to tell. Yeah. And having the tools and technologies to create an experience that matches the story is a moment in time that we have right now. So If we can design an attraction and create a directorial tour for our designers that allows them to have a live interaction with it, can we do that for our guests? Well. And we allow our guest actually to shape the experience and not just be oberservers of the experience. So this new attraction is allowing guest to do that. And actually control where the ship goes, and have a battle, and be part of a battle. And it's happening live, and it's reacting to what they're doing. Wow that is really cool. All right question, who has got questions, anyone? There is everybody. [ LAUGH ] Let's see, do I see one I'm missing? Come on, don't be shy, there we go. [ UNKNOWN ] mic, here at the front, there we go. So when you're expanded to China, right? How did you build the conviction with terms of [ UNKNOWN ] to the culture Adapting to what the needs of the audience were, especially when you're actually moving to a new country, the taste and all that is very different. So how did you build the connection? Well, we I think I mentioned earlier, and maybe I didn't emphasize the level to which our design team was a team that was mixed of Chinese locals and Imagineers. So we had very powerful creative forces from China, world class designers and directors and writers and film directors. Who were really our sounding board, and helped us shape these experiences so they would resonate. And these artists were already very successful in China, so they had already, you know, created experiences that were resonating. So their partnership, and their advice, and the collaboration was huge. But out of this collaboration came something new. I mean, it wasn't necessarily a purely American Disney product, and it wasn't necessarily a purely local product. Right, right. But as I walked through the park I can see how it's both and I think that was the magic of it. I mean, what Disney has succeeded in doing is something that's incredibly difficult to do. Anybody that follows the film industry in China knows that there are really only a handful of movies that have managed to be popular in both Markets. And you know often you get one that the Chinese react to but the Americans aren't interested in or vice versa. But similarly with this there were all local competitors who said that they were gonna be far more sophisticated about figuring out how to do amusement parks in China than these kind of outside Americans. But That design, and the care, and just the ethnography, and understanding the guests, this really seems to be working. And I think there's something to the strength of the storytelling that Disney has international appeal. They're very heartfelt stories, they have a ton of optimisim. They resonate with families and these are universal things that have been built up over decades. So I think with that strength you can adapt and modify and still have your core brand. Yeah. And still resonate with the local Audience. Matthew, this has been a fascinating, really rich case study in successful design. Thank you for coming all this way- Thank you for having me. To show us, please- Thank you very much. Please- Thanks, [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Brainstorm Design 2019: Designing Magical Experiences

Design

Fortune's Clay Chandler interviews Nancy Seruto, Executive Producer, Walt Disney Imagineering