Did the themed entertainment industry exist when you started BRC?

There certainly was not a themed entertainment association. I think that the original Landmark Entertainment, which was Gary Goddard and Tony Christopher, started a couple of months before we did. It was probably just us and Landmark, there was maybe no other independent in this business that was really credible.

Disney Imagineering of course has always been the giant, the monster, with anything from a thousand to two thousand people, sometimes more when they are in the middle of a project. They’ve always been the big one, followed by Universal Creative, but those two generally only do things in-house.

Then gradually through the 1980s there was a proliferation as the world suddenly began to realise that they had to be better at creating places and telling stories that transported people to another state of mind.

How many people in the themed entertainment industry owe their legacy to Disney?

Gary [Goddard], Tony [Christopher] and I are old school chums and I’m not sure about Tony, but Gary worked for Disney for a while, and so did I. I’ve been fired by Disney three times now, and each time told I’ll never ever work for the company again!

There are a tremendous amount of people marketing themselves as former Disney Imagineers. I don’t, because there are also people out their advertising themselves as Imagineers who worked for three days doing menu graphics or routing air-conditioning ducts or whatever. So by overuse that’s come to mean nothing, besides which there have been some really terrific people that have been at Imagineering for decades and have done amazing work but they don’t really take the credit that they deserve.

Was is difficult creating a market for your work in an industry that wasn’t used to hiring outside help for creative concepts?

It’s always been difficult. We find internal staff to be out toughest competition, because they are the alternative to using us, but when we are hired we find them to be our greatest ally. We never claim to know their audience or the subject better than they do. The trick is not to replace them but rather accelerate what they do. There is a recurring pattern: The internal designer knows exactly what the park should do, but for whatever reason the management isn’t listening to them or doesn’t understand them and for validation wants an external source to come in and say that.

Is an amusement park with no theming a lesser an attraction than a fully themed park?

It’s a different attraction. A ride park, as opposed to a theme park, still has a story though. Although you may not see theming as in sets, the audience walks in with a story in their heads that they play out as they go through the park.

It goes like this: “Come on dad, you said you’d take us on the rollercoaster!”

“No daddy doesn’t want to go on the rollercoaster, you guys go on and I’ll wait here.“

“Oh come on daddy, this one’s not scary.”

“No, daddy doesn’t want to,” etc etc.

A few minutes later, there’s daddy, and the lap bar comes down and it’s “how the hell did I let them talk me into this?’

Then we get off the ride. “Ha ha, daddy’s not feeling good!” Daddy vows never to do it again but a few minutes later it starts all over again.

That’s a theme, and my kids couldn’t get enough of it when they were growing up.

Another theme people bring into an amusement park is that of a test: The kid that’s not thought to be worthy but who gets a chance to prove himself and triumph. It’s like a game, and that’s what we’re doing when we dare ourselves onto that thrill ride, whether it’s a zipper, a drop, a whirl and puke. It’s this series of tests. It’s the same as we see in video games, you have to beat the level and then you get through to another, scarier level and the ride park is a physical embodiment of that.

To go back to the original question, is one a lesser form? There certainly is a value difference at the ticket end.

Is there a wide enough variety of themes chosen by parks worldwide?

I may be very alone in this feeling, but one thing that as an American I am very sensitive to is the globalisation of our industry. I think it has some very good points and some extremely bad points.

When I see theme parks in Germany, in Italy, in Singapore and Australia all starting to look alike, when we start erasing local culture that’s a terrible thing. Something very important is being lost and we need to have profound respect for local culture wherever we are in the world and try to make sure that there’s something about each project we do that could only be in that city in that particular country.

That’s one reason why I think I like the Efteling park in Holland for example; it’s very, very Dutch and when you go there are some fairytales that even the Dutch cannot explain to outsiders. Well I love that! When I go to Efteling, I really am in Holland, but when I go to some other parks in Europe it could just as easily be St Louis, California.

You have been asked to work on the Africa Theme Park Resort near Johannesburg. How will you ensure this project maintains an air of authenticity?

Joe Rohde, the guy who designed Disney’s Animal Kingdom, in one of his presentations showed a slide that showed two very tall barbed wire fences. On one side it was the Serengeti, and on the other it was grazing land. What the hell is this? The great game areas of Africa are in fact now a maintained theme park! The game preserve, listen to those words, we are preserving it intentionally. We work to eradicate the life forms that we don’t think should be there and to enhance those that we do think should belong there. That’s kind of scary.

I don’t see a contradiction with the park we are working on, quite the opposite. We, like Animal Kingdom, can create experiences that allow people to appreciate nature and the life forms on this planet without having to trespass into these great game reserves, and build the infrastructure behind it all so that the pilgrims do not destroy the shrine.

What challenges have you been presented with at the Space Shuttle Launch Project, due to open at the end of May in Florida?

It has to offer the best of scholarship and the best of showmanship in order to satisfy the demands of NASA. The engineering information presented has to be perfect, the science in it has to be perfect, and all the procedural things about NASA and how it works has to be perfect. Otherwise the astronauts will say ‘oh that’s not real’, in which case we’re dead.

But on the other hand, NASA’s putting no money into this, they are to finance this with a conventional loan, and so it all has to earn its money back. It’s going to do that by drawing attendance out the Orlando area, the most competitive entertainment market on earth.

We’ve got to compete as commercial entertainment, while at the same time carrying the burden of that extremely high scholarship responsibility. When we talk about scholarship meets showmanship, which is one of our trademarks at BRC, that’s the sort of thing we are talking about. The traditional view is that you have to compromise in one in order to achieve the other. We totally disagree with that. There’s no reason you can’t have the best of both.

You are now helping NASA with its mission to Mars?

Because I am a communicator, I have been asked by NASA several times to sit in on high level committees that are advising on humankind’s exploration of Mars and the Moon. They are trying to figure out how to engage the imagination of the world with the important work they are doing.

This is a real honour for me and has been a fascinating little treat that has come as a sidebar to our main thing, which is trying to engage audiences of museums, theme parks and attractions. There are only 20 people on the committee: 19 people who paid attention at school, and me! It really is a kick to sit with these people. You learn so much, they’re so inspirational …and they’re so inept at talking to the world!

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