Firstly, a congratulations: To all the talented young men and women who sweated away their blood and tears this summer as participants in Drum Corps International's "Summer Music Games". All the corps did an absolutely astounding job with their shows on both of the occasions we had the pleasure of seeing them.
Hats off especially to Phantom Regiment, who took their first ever World Championship title (in full) and garnered the "Spirit of Disney" Award for their 2008 program entitled Spartacus. The thing we can all admire about this cherised activity is that the focus is where it belongs: on the audience, the show, the music and, most importantly, the lessons and friendships learned and obtained through participating.
While viewing The Cadets 2008 program, entitled The Pursuit of Happiness, some interesting thoughts came to mind in regards to the activity and its relation to other types of entertainment.
After the Cadets performed their Quarterfinals show on Thursday evening, corps director and program coordinator George Hopkins had a brief conversation with one of the hosts of the event: "I think there is definitely still potential for voiceover narration in this art form."
The Cadets show this year, I should explain, was a source of much controversy in the Drum Corps community. Having been astounded at the Corps' previous performances, I was disappointed not with the talent and expertise of the corps members, nor with their performance, but with the material itself.
The show is an original production that garners its title from the Thomas Jefferson quote that opened the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
From there, we listen to an NPR Radio broadcast about a woman called Sarah Jones, and we follow her through her life and her Pursuit of Happiness.
With key pieces of narration, I could see such a concept working. As it was performed at the DCI Quarterfinals in Bloomington, the show was actually even tolerable. Previously, as when the show was performed in Orlando, The Cadets were still being covered over by voices through most of the more complex musical moments and forming giant smiley faces on the field.
All of this strange spectacle brought to mind a lesson that designers in many different companies in Themed Entertainment have failed to learn: the idea that we must all design within a form.
When we look at The Cadets show compared to the shows of other corps, particularly Phantom Regiment's Spartacus, a much clearer picture begins to emerge. While Hopkin's idea of narration has yet to find its place in the form or its audience, there may still be potential for it in the future.
The fact still remains that what The Cadets said in nearly twelve minutes of narration and music, Phantom Regiment said in twelve minutes and three single words: "I Am Spartacus."
In other words, they let the music tell the story. For Drum Corps, letting the music tell the story is what I'd call designing within the form. The Cadets' program from this year suffered not because of a lack of musicianship or performance quality. In fact, the brass and percussion arrangements and the guard work were all very well arranged, but the reason the show suffered in the end was because of the removal of the narration.
The designers depended far too heavily on something that wasn't within the form to carry the show, and as a result the removal of that element left the music to provide only half of the equation where it should have been providing a solid base on which the rest of the program could grow.
There are foundations in every art form. Calling them rules isn't something I find terribly attractive, because that implies that they must always be followed. Foundations, though, merely implies that things will be easier to build if they are used.
In Drum Corps, the main foundation is the arrangement and/or composition of the music. Next comes the visual impact, which owes to the drill (i.e. the forms the band creates visually on the field by marching in different lines and patterns), and the colorguard. These two elements combine to create what the judges call "General Effect"- in short, how did the audience react to the show?
In Themed Entertainment, the first foundation is story. If an attraction or experience doesn't have story, it may just as well not exist. From story comes character(s), which makes the experience relate to the audience, and sensation & mood, which are what link the experience with the others around it and eventually form a themed environment.
The key to both forms, to any form, really, is story. Its simply the method of relating that story that changes. In Corps, it is done first through music and secondly through visuals. In experiential design it is done through any number of methods: Movement, Sound, Music, Color, Architecture and Action are just a few examples.
All of these things relate directly back to the story.
Stitch's Great Escape. Perhaps the most mentioned failure of Walt Disney World's recent history. Where did things go so terribly wrong?
One of the mainstay ideas behind design in any form is that you must play within certain guidelines. They aren't rules, because they can be broken. The key, as with many arts, is to break them for maximum effect. Stitch's Great Escape is a fabulous example of a show that doesn't play within the guidelines at all the wrong moments. There are shows that utilize audio as a supremely effective story-telling tool (See: The Haunted Mansion, just across the ailing Liberty Square Bridge at Florida's Magic Kingdom Park). Stitch attempts to do exactly that, and fails in a less than spectacular fashion.
The entire last half of the show is audio. We are shown the gorgeous, reality-enhancing Stitch AA figure and it is then abruptly removed from our field of vision, cast out into the audience as a wave-length that relies on multi-dimensional sound. The show that Stitch replaced, Alien Encounter, used audio to maximum effect. The guideline, you see, is that audio should never be used alone because it frightens and confuses the guests, and even more so when it is used in dark and enclosed spaces.
Alien Encounter used its audio tracks in dark and enclosed spaces to do exactly that: frighten the guest. It worked better in that show than it had in any since the original incarnation of The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.
Another productive tool in the designer's toolbox is smell. Soarin' (Over California or not) uses this tool to its maximum effect- and it doesn't break the rules. Interestingly, the smell guidelines have been broken before, namely in the retrofit of Journey into Imagination at the lower-case Epcot, where we are forced to sit through the smell of a skunk.
Stitch decides to run along a similar line and force us to smell his burped up chili dog- not that chili dogs have the faintest thing to do with the mythology of the character, or made any mention or appearance in the film, but then we are talking about breaking all the guidelines at the wrong times, aren't we?
In a nutshell, Stitch's Great Escape and Journey into Imagination do something to the guest that completely pulls a 180 from the original concept of themed show design: these are attractions that place the audience in unpleasant situations without giving them a payoff.
Observe several more successful attractions:
Indiana Jones Adventure: Guests are menaced by snakes, rats, bugs and a giant boulder.
Payoff: Guests escape the boulder and get to live the moment as Indiana does in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Seas with Nemo & Friends: Guests are menaced by a forest of Jellyfish and a scary Angler fish.
Payoff: They get to surf the EAC with Crush and....they find Nemo!
Expedition Everest: Guests are menaced by a Yeti high on the Forbidden Mountain, and are thrown backwards through the tunnels and caverns.
Payoff: Guests escape with their lives after a fantastic view of the Yeti and have gained a new understanding of the creature as the protector of the forest.
In short, themed design is all about putting our guests in highly emotional and unexpected situations, perhaps related to the content or characters of their favorite films or television shows, and seeing just how far we can take things before we have to follow the natural story arc and give them the payoff they've been waiting for.
This is the only way the story moves forward. If the Magic Kingdom were filled with lackluster pieces like Stitch's Great Escape, the Magic Kingdom's story arc would not arc at all. It would be a flat line on a boring blank piece of paper.
And we all know how scary those can be!
In the same way that The Cadets didn't design The Pursuit of Happiness within the form, the designers of Stitch's Great Escape neglected to supply their story with the proper foundations. There is a term at WDI that is used more and more often, and to less and less effect. When an attraction is removed, there is often times a war that goes on between different factions of the Disney elite- Creative Entertainment, which sucks up valuable real estate and installs wonderful productions that very rarely fit with their surroundings or have any significance to the story (Finding Nemo: The Musical, anyone?). Walt Disney Imagineering itself, which still puts a great deal more thought into what it places where, and Park Management, which usually makes even further ill-advised decisions because they aren't designers.
It's really a three way street. A theme park is an extremely complex mechanism that couldn't operate without all of these working parts. At the same time, it is impossible to make everybody down the totem pole happy. If you're going to please marketing or park management, good luck pleasing the Imagineers, and if the Imagineers are happy, marketing generally is upset with the outcome.
The term used when an attraction is removed but a new show is placed in the old show space is "Retrofit." Stitch's Great Escape was retro-fitted from "Alien Encounter", which in itself really didn't jive with Tomorrowland or the Magic Kingdom, and really didn't have a place at the Magic Kingdom.
There are lots of different views in regards to what should go where. Certainly, Stitch in Tomorrowland should make sense....but certainly, placing Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor there made no sense at all, because it has no relation to Tomorrowland or its central story. Never mind that, though, because obviously our guests want Monsters. They don't care where we put them. It isn't important.
Well, there is a simple and unfortunate fact that designers and management alike tend to overlook. Our guests are going to enjoy whatever we give them, almost. The meaning of this is not that our guests are stupid. Far from it, actually. It's a fact of human nature that once you've established a name in any entertainment field, there are always expectations, but there are also reverse expectations: the kind that mean audiences will pay to see a film just because it says "Disney".
The "almost" comes in often when classic and beloved shows are ripped out in favor of something new. Throughout history, it has often been the case that guests become extremely upset when a show is removed. The current situation with Pleasure Island is no exception. Many claim to be extremely devoted to the enterprise of saving Pleasure Island. The problem is, they aren't here to show Disney. They cannot make good on their claim. However, if they don't come back because Pleasure Island is closed, and maybe they choose to visit somewhere new and exciting and fresh like Dubai on their next vacation...well, Disney just lost business.
Themed Entertainment isn't a business where business results are immediate, yet most of the current big cheeses think and act the way any MBA would think and act: we want low cost, high-profit, immediate return solutions. Sooner or later, I think they will have no choice but to realize that by retro-fitting attractions or shows into places they don't belong they are not only upsetting and losing their best designers, they are upsetting their paying public, and just because they aren't there to show their support doesn't mean they will forget it and choose to return to a Disney park for their next vacation.
The very essence, the thing that separates a Disney themed show from a standard Six Flags ride, is that we tell stories. It's been banged into the heads of anyone over the age of three that The Walt Disney Company is and always has been in the business of telling stories. Our guests are going to take whatever stories we give them. The very first Imagineers knew this, and they chose to look at the situation in a positive light and used this fact as inspiration to do their absolute best.
This relates directly back to John Hench's experience with a film director from another motion picture studio who commented that his audience "wouldn't know the difference, anyway". It relates directly to the fact that once they are in the gates, we already have their money. This relates directly to the entire concept of Imagineering:
There are two ways to look at a blank sheet of paper. It can be the scariest thing in the world, because no one has put anything on it yet, or it can be the greatest opportunity in the world because no one has put anything on it yet.
If we think of our guests' experience as a blank sheet of paper, we can either choose to view it as the scariest thing in the world (or the most unimportant thing) and not do our best work and provide them with the best show, or we can choose to take it as an opportunity and give them more than they expect. Even, sometimes, more than they can comprehend.
There is a whole new world of Designing within the form waiting. It is the choice of the designer to tell the best story that can be told, or to simply give in to the marketing and management teams that attempt to shoehorn their ideals into a business that has, for nearly 55 years, chosen to disregard them as standard business practices because the goal was the creation of a brand new standard.
Drum Corps is also an activity where storytelling is paramount. Lets not forget that one of the most esteemed titles is the Spirit of Disney award (Phantom Regiment won the Spirit of Disney award for their 2008 program, "Spartacus", pictured above).
Regardless of the form, if we don't stay within the guidelines we risk losing our audience (or our guests). The Cadets risked it this year, and it didn't pay off. Stitch's Great Escape, Journey into Imagination (Redux) and The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management have all risked it in the past and it didn't pay off.
There is only one other thing more terrifying than a blank sheet of paper, and thats a show that breaks the form in the wrong places and provides our guests with experiences they'd rather not remember.
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