Perhaps it is possible to view The Walt Disney Company's achievements in themed entertainment as simply accomplishments in the realm of family fun. If there is no underlying structure, there can be no way of studying the art form in any cohesive, information retaining manner except to observe- but the nature of observing a place or activity is that our minds begin to develop patterns and assign meaning to things.
Because there is no school to study Themed Entertainment Design, we as students of the form must look to other avenues to learn: we must read books, we must talk to the people who are still around (there are a few) and study the actual works (i.e. rides, shows and attractions) that the masters have left behind (there are perhaps fewer).
When a guest visits a space- any space- created by "story designers"- many things happen to them emotionally that cannot be fully explained except by experiencing those same emotions. I use the term "Story Designer" to encompass Imagineers of all trades, because they all design within a framework of story- and those designers who do not work for Imagineering are also included in that term, because they- Universal Creative, Universal Entertainment, Walt Disney Entertainment Design and Anheuser-Busch all design places with story. The art form only originated at Walt Disney Imagineering, but has continued to grow by leaps and bounds at other institutions across the world.
Top: Sam McKim concept painting of The Haunted Mansion for Disneyland. Above: This sign appeared outside the attraction in the years between ground breaking and the opening. Text by Marty Sklar.
The Haunted Mansion
We enter an old, immaculate mansion on the outskirts of a booming colonial village. The grounds are kept immaculately, but the gravestones are very close to the front door. Immediately upon entering, we are witness to supernatural activities. A portrait in the antechamber ages before our very eyes, in a way allowing us to simultaneously see the past and the future of this place.
An apparition- or rather, the voice of an unseen presence, guides us into a doorless chamber. The room physically grows to occupy more space than seems possible, and we are taken deep inside the mansion, where we are informed that there is no way now to turn back without experiencing what lies ahead. A plethora of carriages approaches to take us further into the mansion, seeming to emerge from a black void, which holds endless possibilities.
At first, the spirits seem weary. They do not show themselves directly, though they watch us with distanced eyes. A hallway of “portraits” watches our vehicles as they pass beneath, and the ghostwriters in the library are interested, too. The ghosts show us their footsteps, indicating their movement, and then the wallpaper itself seems to watch. An eerie candelabra floats into our sight from time to time, seeming to follow us through the mansion, devoid of an owner.
In the parlor, a newly arrived corpse attempts to pry open his coffin. He is there perhaps as a gesture from the ghosts? From them to us, to say, hey, he’s new here too, and perhaps you can adjust together? Or is it one of them, disguised, yet another watching form, as they observe us?
Regardless, they soon lose their interest, but they deem it okay for us to continue. We are soon enough witness to an ill-advised séance, conducted by the medium called Madame Leota, and she summons the spirits to us directly, asking them to appear.
Our ghost host leaves us, explaining that the spirits are “assembling for a swinging wake”, and that he is expected. Only at this point do the spirits fully materialize, though we aren’t sure if we are being put on or if we are actually seeing a haunting. However, something is amiss. From the ballroom, where we nearly come to fully believe the sights before our eyes, without our tour guide we end up wandering into the attic of the old mansion.
Here, the still-beating heart of a bride gets louder and louder as we twist and turn through the piles of old cobwebbed junk, and the portraits build up to the bride herself- the payoff being that she is still there, happy and hoarding her riches, having cut off each of her husband’s heads.
From there, the only choice we have is to move out onto the roof of the house. Behind the mansion, in the forest, a graveyard has come to life. The spirits appear to be fleeing. Staring in wonder, we stumble off the roof. Below, the only human character in the attraction, the groundskeeper, watches in horror as the spirits hold their jamboree. The entire reason we were allowed to enter the house, and the reason the ghost host was able to escort us in as far as he was, is perhaps that the groundskeeper has been standing here mortified the entire time, maybe even for years, and was thus absent long enough to permit our entry or stop us from venturing deeper. Though he knew the house was haunted, he has clearly never seen the spirits themselves until this moment, and his young age also suggests that perhaps his fear stems from being new to the job.
We move through the graveyard, which has an entirely different tone than the scenes inside the house- now, not only are we seeing the spirits, but we are engaging with them. In the ballroom, they played much as a scene from a film- in front of us, for our enjoyment. Here, they seem to be in the middle of a much more personal affair. The ghosts are partying for their own sake, and not to see us amused, though the same effect they had on us in the ballroom and in the attic, they are also having here on the groundskeeper.
An important note here is that we also return to the musical thesis of the attraction- as if the spooks had planned this moment from the beginning, but were unsure if we could be trusted until Madame Leota, the wise old disembodied head/medium that occupies the dark void of the attic, agreed that we could be and summoned the spirits to appear for us- presuming, apparently, that the spirits are what we had come to see.
Our ghost host catches up to us only at the tail end of the graveyard scene, where the reappearance of a central object- much as with the candelabra, but this time a crow- allows for the final transition into the payoff of the entire attraction.
Our host reminds us, essentially, that there are still ghosts who either don’t like it here very much, or have unfinished business in the real world, and are thus trying to hitchhike out of their “ghostly retreat”. He mentions that the spirits, looking for more ghosts to fill up the mansion, have selected us, his (perhaps) accidental tour guests, to fill the “quota”. It is unclear whether they hitchhike with the intent of leaving the house themselves or the intent of keeping us in the house with them, but what is clear is that a part of the mansion will “follow you home”. If this is an attempt to bring us back to the mansion or a more selfish motive is present is also left to us to decide.
In another contradictory situation, what is said to be a younger version of “Leota” beckons to us from high in a crypt, where she reminds us that we must bring our death certificates if we decide to retire to the mansion. The “little leota” seems less pushy than the hitchhiking ghosts, but nonetheless seems to genuinely want for us to remain at the mansion. Our host then makes the final and most contradictory notion of all by raising the safety bar and asking us to watch our step as we leave the attraction.
This line is delivered with a certain fleeting tone: does the Ghost Host really not want to allow us to leave, or is he trying to save us from remaining in the house? Is he himself one of the hitchhiking ghosts?
All of these and many more questions go unanswered, because The Haunted Mansion is the antithesis of attraction design. It offers no answers, only raises questions, only gives snippets of archetypal imagery and flashes of things from our past and collective memory, and follows only a loosely undulating narrative. It has no story, only events tied together by theme. Like a John Ford western, the events form the theme of the story, but avoid plot and all the things that come associated with it.
The theme then plays out to its natural (some have said “mathematical”) conclusion: in essence, we come expecting to see ghosts, to be afraid. The ghosts are afraid of us, but once they learn to trust us, they show themselves, so we see them. Then, having seen them, our meeting having been completed, some of them invite us to stay while others attempt to follow us home.
The through-line is, of course, the experience we expect when we arrive.
Though we expect to see ghosts, and to be taken deep into the frightening mansion, we do not expect that they will interact with us directly in the final scene. It is this element of surprise, present throughout the Mansion and many other great attractions, that ties together seemingly random images and events into a cohesive “story”. We use the word “story” because there is no term better, though it isn’t story telling as much as it is narrative structure being placed upon a series of images.
Basically, its Eisenstein meets John Ford before Eisenstein’s theory became “corrupted” by story itself.
The narrative structure of the mansion is a catch 22 because it isn't important to your average guest- atleast that is what the suits will tell you. The reason is, because the average guest doesn't know that they are experiencing a story environment. The most important case in point for this argument, though, is Disney's California Adventure. During its construction, the attitude became apparent among the creative leadership that the park didn't need to tell a cohesive story.
Now, almost ten years after the fact, the 1.2 Billion dollar "Re-Imagineering" project should pretty well answer the question: Don't expect the average guest to praise your efforts and call your attractions "magnificent examples of storytelling"...but if you don't provide them with a quality experience, they will speak up about it, and you may find yourself pulling a DCA.
In short, our audience may not understand the technical grammar of the experience- but if we as story designers fail to understand it, and fail to implement it, we will fail to provide them an experience that will be remembered as meaningful.
"You know, since we're born, the first thing we fight for in life is that feeling of being alive -- and it's the last thing, too. We never want to give up that experience of being alive. This is the secret of Disneyland: Everywhere in the park, it's like a pat in the back telling you: "You're okay. Life is good." - John Hench.
The Haunted Mansion
We enter an old, immaculate mansion on the outskirts of a booming colonial village. The grounds are kept immaculately, but the gravestones are very close to the front door. Immediately upon entering, we are witness to supernatural activities. A portrait in the antechamber ages before our very eyes, in a way allowing us to simultaneously see the past and the future of this place.
An apparition- or rather, the voice of an unseen presence, guides us into a doorless chamber. The room physically grows to occupy more space than seems possible, and we are taken deep inside the mansion, where we are informed that there is no way now to turn back without experiencing what lies ahead. A plethora of carriages approaches to take us further into the mansion, seeming to emerge from a black void, which holds endless possibilities.
At first, the spirits seem weary. They do not show themselves directly, though they watch us with distanced eyes. A hallway of “portraits” watches our vehicles as they pass beneath, and the ghostwriters in the library are interested, too. The ghosts show us their footsteps, indicating their movement, and then the wallpaper itself seems to watch. An eerie candelabra floats into our sight from time to time, seeming to follow us through the mansion, devoid of an owner.
In the parlor, a newly arrived corpse attempts to pry open his coffin. He is there perhaps as a gesture from the ghosts? From them to us, to say, hey, he’s new here too, and perhaps you can adjust together? Or is it one of them, disguised, yet another watching form, as they observe us?
Regardless, they soon lose their interest, but they deem it okay for us to continue. We are soon enough witness to an ill-advised séance, conducted by the medium called Madame Leota, and she summons the spirits to us directly, asking them to appear.
Our ghost host leaves us, explaining that the spirits are “assembling for a swinging wake”, and that he is expected. Only at this point do the spirits fully materialize, though we aren’t sure if we are being put on or if we are actually seeing a haunting. However, something is amiss. From the ballroom, where we nearly come to fully believe the sights before our eyes, without our tour guide we end up wandering into the attic of the old mansion.
Here, the still-beating heart of a bride gets louder and louder as we twist and turn through the piles of old cobwebbed junk, and the portraits build up to the bride herself- the payoff being that she is still there, happy and hoarding her riches, having cut off each of her husband’s heads.
From there, the only choice we have is to move out onto the roof of the house. Behind the mansion, in the forest, a graveyard has come to life. The spirits appear to be fleeing. Staring in wonder, we stumble off the roof. Below, the only human character in the attraction, the groundskeeper, watches in horror as the spirits hold their jamboree. The entire reason we were allowed to enter the house, and the reason the ghost host was able to escort us in as far as he was, is perhaps that the groundskeeper has been standing here mortified the entire time, maybe even for years, and was thus absent long enough to permit our entry or stop us from venturing deeper. Though he knew the house was haunted, he has clearly never seen the spirits themselves until this moment, and his young age also suggests that perhaps his fear stems from being new to the job.
We move through the graveyard, which has an entirely different tone than the scenes inside the house- now, not only are we seeing the spirits, but we are engaging with them. In the ballroom, they played much as a scene from a film- in front of us, for our enjoyment. Here, they seem to be in the middle of a much more personal affair. The ghosts are partying for their own sake, and not to see us amused, though the same effect they had on us in the ballroom and in the attic, they are also having here on the groundskeeper.
An important note here is that we also return to the musical thesis of the attraction- as if the spooks had planned this moment from the beginning, but were unsure if we could be trusted until Madame Leota, the wise old disembodied head/medium that occupies the dark void of the attic, agreed that we could be and summoned the spirits to appear for us- presuming, apparently, that the spirits are what we had come to see.
Our ghost host catches up to us only at the tail end of the graveyard scene, where the reappearance of a central object- much as with the candelabra, but this time a crow- allows for the final transition into the payoff of the entire attraction.
Our host reminds us, essentially, that there are still ghosts who either don’t like it here very much, or have unfinished business in the real world, and are thus trying to hitchhike out of their “ghostly retreat”. He mentions that the spirits, looking for more ghosts to fill up the mansion, have selected us, his (perhaps) accidental tour guests, to fill the “quota”. It is unclear whether they hitchhike with the intent of leaving the house themselves or the intent of keeping us in the house with them, but what is clear is that a part of the mansion will “follow you home”. If this is an attempt to bring us back to the mansion or a more selfish motive is present is also left to us to decide.
In another contradictory situation, what is said to be a younger version of “Leota” beckons to us from high in a crypt, where she reminds us that we must bring our death certificates if we decide to retire to the mansion. The “little leota” seems less pushy than the hitchhiking ghosts, but nonetheless seems to genuinely want for us to remain at the mansion. Our host then makes the final and most contradictory notion of all by raising the safety bar and asking us to watch our step as we leave the attraction.
This line is delivered with a certain fleeting tone: does the Ghost Host really not want to allow us to leave, or is he trying to save us from remaining in the house? Is he himself one of the hitchhiking ghosts?
All of these and many more questions go unanswered, because The Haunted Mansion is the antithesis of attraction design. It offers no answers, only raises questions, only gives snippets of archetypal imagery and flashes of things from our past and collective memory, and follows only a loosely undulating narrative. It has no story, only events tied together by theme. Like a John Ford western, the events form the theme of the story, but avoid plot and all the things that come associated with it.
The theme then plays out to its natural (some have said “mathematical”) conclusion: in essence, we come expecting to see ghosts, to be afraid. The ghosts are afraid of us, but once they learn to trust us, they show themselves, so we see them. Then, having seen them, our meeting having been completed, some of them invite us to stay while others attempt to follow us home.
The through-line is, of course, the experience we expect when we arrive.
Though we expect to see ghosts, and to be taken deep into the frightening mansion, we do not expect that they will interact with us directly in the final scene. It is this element of surprise, present throughout the Mansion and many other great attractions, that ties together seemingly random images and events into a cohesive “story”. We use the word “story” because there is no term better, though it isn’t story telling as much as it is narrative structure being placed upon a series of images.
Basically, its Eisenstein meets John Ford before Eisenstein’s theory became “corrupted” by story itself.
The narrative structure of the mansion is a catch 22 because it isn't important to your average guest- atleast that is what the suits will tell you. The reason is, because the average guest doesn't know that they are experiencing a story environment. The most important case in point for this argument, though, is Disney's California Adventure. During its construction, the attitude became apparent among the creative leadership that the park didn't need to tell a cohesive story.
Now, almost ten years after the fact, the 1.2 Billion dollar "Re-Imagineering" project should pretty well answer the question: Don't expect the average guest to praise your efforts and call your attractions "magnificent examples of storytelling"...but if you don't provide them with a quality experience, they will speak up about it, and you may find yourself pulling a DCA.
In short, our audience may not understand the technical grammar of the experience- but if we as story designers fail to understand it, and fail to implement it, we will fail to provide them an experience that will be remembered as meaningful.
"You know, since we're born, the first thing we fight for in life is that feeling of being alive -- and it's the last thing, too. We never want to give up that experience of being alive. This is the secret of Disneyland: Everywhere in the park, it's like a pat in the back telling you: "You're okay. Life is good." - John Hench.
