'Believe' inspires despite glitches
Rain and technical hitches trouble the public debut of SeaWorld's show.
Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted May 12, 2006
There's such a thing as too much water even for a whale show.
Believe, the new Shamu show that SeaWorld General Manager Jim Atchison declared "the greatest show we've ever produced," made its public debut Thursday before a packed house that included 500 Central Florida foster children -- and the park's hopes for a big summer.
But a much-needed Central Florida thunderstorm rolled in at the wrong moment, interrupting the performance for 15 minutes and sending hundreds of people on the edges of Shamu Stadium scrambling out of the driving rain.
Shortly after the show resumed, one of the four giant, moving LED video screens shorted out and went dark. And saltwater splashes were blamed for a handful of stuck diodes that burned red pixel dots through the video on the working screens.
Still, Believe went on, drawing waves of enthusiastic ovation as the whales launched their trainers into the air, carried them around the pool at high speed, or splashed the crowd while music and video led the audience in screaming, "Shamu! Shamu!"
"This is show business, right?" Atchison said, shrugging off the glitches.
And planners had thought the tough part might be calling in creators from the Big Apple and Tinseltown to produce a whale show.
"Broadway and Hollywood styles are based on humans. Humans are a lot more subservient," said Dave Goodman, SeaWorld's vice president of entertainment. "When a killer whale thinks he's done, he just shuts down."
Creative Director Don Frantz, whose resume includes the Broadway productions Disney's The Lion King and A Tale of Two Cities, said the creative dynamics were the same, just with more to learn.
"First you have to have a story to tell, so that's the same," Frantz said. "When you do a Broadway show, you know the menu of moves you have from a dancer. You know what the lights can do. You know what stagecraft can do. So when we came in here we said, 'OK, show us everything a whale can do.' "
Then there was the technology: underwater and overhead cameras, and manic, 6,000-pound LED video screens.
"We had to decide which way the screens would go. 'Let's do it this way.' 'Let's do it that way.' We couldn't decide. So we said, 'OK, the screens have to move,' " Frantz said. "We didn't quite know until we talked to the five major screen movers in the world that no one had ever done it like that before."
Nor had anyone looked closely at how LED video screens would hold up in a saltwater environment, Goodman said. He called Thursday's trouble "unacceptable."
"I hate it," Goodman said. "What's great about live entertainment is it's live with live. We've got some work to do. The show is there. We think we can get the technology there."
Scott Powers can be reached at spowers@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5441.
Rain and technical hitches trouble the public debut of SeaWorld's show.
Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted May 12, 2006
There's such a thing as too much water even for a whale show.
Believe, the new Shamu show that SeaWorld General Manager Jim Atchison declared "the greatest show we've ever produced," made its public debut Thursday before a packed house that included 500 Central Florida foster children -- and the park's hopes for a big summer.
But a much-needed Central Florida thunderstorm rolled in at the wrong moment, interrupting the performance for 15 minutes and sending hundreds of people on the edges of Shamu Stadium scrambling out of the driving rain.
Shortly after the show resumed, one of the four giant, moving LED video screens shorted out and went dark. And saltwater splashes were blamed for a handful of stuck diodes that burned red pixel dots through the video on the working screens.
Still, Believe went on, drawing waves of enthusiastic ovation as the whales launched their trainers into the air, carried them around the pool at high speed, or splashed the crowd while music and video led the audience in screaming, "Shamu! Shamu!"
"This is show business, right?" Atchison said, shrugging off the glitches.
And planners had thought the tough part might be calling in creators from the Big Apple and Tinseltown to produce a whale show.
"Broadway and Hollywood styles are based on humans. Humans are a lot more subservient," said Dave Goodman, SeaWorld's vice president of entertainment. "When a killer whale thinks he's done, he just shuts down."
Creative Director Don Frantz, whose resume includes the Broadway productions Disney's The Lion King and A Tale of Two Cities, said the creative dynamics were the same, just with more to learn.
"First you have to have a story to tell, so that's the same," Frantz said. "When you do a Broadway show, you know the menu of moves you have from a dancer. You know what the lights can do. You know what stagecraft can do. So when we came in here we said, 'OK, show us everything a whale can do.' "
Then there was the technology: underwater and overhead cameras, and manic, 6,000-pound LED video screens.
"We had to decide which way the screens would go. 'Let's do it this way.' 'Let's do it that way.' We couldn't decide. So we said, 'OK, the screens have to move,' " Frantz said. "We didn't quite know until we talked to the five major screen movers in the world that no one had ever done it like that before."
Nor had anyone looked closely at how LED video screens would hold up in a saltwater environment, Goodman said. He called Thursday's trouble "unacceptable."
"I hate it," Goodman said. "What's great about live entertainment is it's live with live. We've got some work to do. The show is there. We think we can get the technology there."
Scott Powers can be reached at spowers@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5441.
