Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
You are evil. You just added yet another book to my very crowded nightstand.
the new Steve Jobs book should be your next, and then it's Designs on Film.
http://designsonfilm.com/Designs_on_Film/Welcome.html
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Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks
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the new Steve Jobs book should be your next, and then it's Designs on Film.
http://designsonfilm.com/Designs_on_Film/Welcome.html
Interesting story about Steve Jobs. In the lates 90's, when I was in college, a friend of mine called the Apple support desk for some reason. It turns out that Steve Jobs was taking calls and talking to people about their thoughts on their product. They talked for awhile and then a couple days later he received a certificate from Steve.
I think it's great for a CEO to talk to the people who could potentially be the most frustrated users, but also the ones that could provide a significant amount of feedback.
I think it's great for a CEO to talk to the people who could potentially be the most frustrated users, but also the ones that could provide a significant amount of feedback.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
I love that story. How cool is that? He should be taking calls right now on Final Cut Pro X.
KevinYee
Well-Known Member
New question: is it possible to imagine someone landing a job in design if he can't hand draw or sculpt or model? I'm imagining someone with imagination without bounds, but restricted to say, writing. I know there are such things as show writers, but they aren't designers.
Do today's software packages make creation by hand an outmoded (or at least not necessarily required) skill?
Do today's software packages make creation by hand an outmoded (or at least not necessarily required) skill?
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Not in design per se. Tom Fitzgerald and Marty Sklar do none of the above, yet they direct the creative process and have ideas. Writing is a skill they have and they are arbiters of design. Today's WDI has more Show Producers that have a sway over the designers and puppeteer them to a degree but have no artistic talent. While they do not draw or design they direct and make many key creative decisions. One of the things that frustrated me was, that the more responsibility I got, the less I designed and drew. My skill was in design, not management. I felt I needed to be in executive management to control the outcome of the work. At that time, you were the designer and producer. Later that changed into two roles and I got a very good producer to work with and still had creative control. I love the fact that now being out of WDI, I draw all the time and still direct at a very high level.
Today's software allows for more mediocre work to surface in my opinion. Computers can make the work of those with less talent look good, but mask their lack of knowledge of the basics.
For example, anyone can be a graphic designer, but it is soooo much more than that. Graphic design is now a function of typing versus the ability to hand draw and kern letters. The art of weighing bar thickness and kerning (spacing the letters between themselves) is vanishing as more and more people get a decent result from just typing and dragging things. But to me it looks like it. Much of the signage I see today lacks good composition, proportion, and balance as computers make getting a decent result so easy. If you have a good eye, then yes, you can excel in that area without hand skills. Real graphic designers can hand letter. We used that skill on Main Street as it felt right when you look at it.
Sketchup is a program used to do simple storyboards and architecture. That can get you pretty far as you could do a ride through with no drawing skills, although you'd need to know how to draft walls and so forth to lay it out. Photoshop allows you to work over images and build art from that, but you need the eye to do the retouching. 3D programs are getting more automated as to digital sculpting, so you could try that as well.
I work almost 100% digital on a Wacom Cintiq 21UX interactive tablet. The same units they use at Pixar. I use a variety of programs, some to draw others to enhance.
The guy who got to talk to Steve Jobs wasn't a big Mac geek, a simple user. He was more than happy however to parade around his Steve Jobs signed certificate that thanked him for conversation to all the Mac geeks in the dorm.
RunnerEd
Well-Known Member
Eddie (and others), a new topic if you please. With all of the recent management shakeups, there seems to be a lack of Imagineers at the top. I'm in the Army so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You don't become a Sergeant until you've proven your ability at lower levels. You don't become a Captain until you've proven to be a good Lieutenant etc. Infantry officers and NCO's are not put in charge of communications or logistics and vice versa. What do you think it would be like if an Imagineer were put in charge of the Parks? Would we notice a difference and if so, how? I'm thinking someone like Tony Baxter or Marty Sklar. Thanks!
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
It would probably never happen. Running the parks is a major operation and the creative aspects of it are pretty nil. When it comes to running a park a it's probably more valuable to have been a ride operator or someone who's worked through all of the drama of being around guests. The person that runs the park gets to do lots of things like negotiating with unions, going to court on accidents, dealing with budgets, and corralling all of the various divisions while pleasing those in the corporate offices in Burbank. As an insider, I was involved in many meetings directly with the park operators as Imagineer. They include you in the master planning and look to you as a component of their overall task. Those meetings are the places where you build trust with them and as they are sharing their challenges with you, you should share your creative goals and challenges with them. You hope that they are all essentially the same. Tony and I were at the table with the park operators as well as the other divisions and they shared their challenges and problems with us, so we knew what they were up against. Sometimes compromises that Imagineers have to make are done in the total context of the challenge the park faces. When I was there in the 90s it had its was very bad, and the parks were just above the breakeven point in danger of dipping below that. They were closing attractions and doing everything they could to save operating cost. All of this was in an environment where they were also being asked to produce a 20% growth in revenue. It was like being at Alice's mad tea party. But this is Wonderland, and it operates by its own rules and you have to learn to live within that.
So to answer your question, I really don't think that having an Imagineer running the park is the right approach. I can't believe I'm saying that. Sometimes I would like to see operators make decisions that are more long-term or in the interests of Disney tradition. But I'm not sure that the operator wouldn't agree and if their circumstances were different would not decide in that direction. Matt Ouimet is seen by many as the best modern-day operator because of his success in the high quality of the cruiseship operation and Disneyland. But he also operated at a time when Bob Iger with a different management style was willing to bankroll the renaissance of Disneyland. Certainly without that change of tide, Matt's opportunities to succeed would have been different. This is just my opinion.
Having said all of that, If there is anyone who wants to hire me to run Disneyland please call.
flavious27
Well-Known Member
There is numbers being hit by looking at real waste and there is numbers being hit by just cutting. We look back at the last 5 years+ and have seen the same kind of bad management decisions that got Eisner canned. The Yeti hasn't been fixed, PI's situation got worse and then it was closed without a plan being worked on, we haven't gotten any e tickets rides built, whatever FC was suppose to be is now just a ghostland, the chance to get and or respond to wwhp has not materialized.
Well wouldn't most of the next gen stuff be invisible to the customers? Obliviously the interactive queues and CMs being able to improve M&Gs by knowing guests' names will be part of the visible part of next gen, but in those scenarios animators would be needed to animate animation on screens and industrial designs would not be seen by customers unless it is in TL. My comment was sarcastic, but WDI is in place to design something more complex and larger than a device.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
We did both.
Omnimover
Member
Would you say that working this way is a personal preference, or are you deferring to an increasingly digital environment? You mentioned that computers and modern software allow people without a lot of true design talent to arrive at a decent looking product - without really understanding or mastering the disciplines/concepts. Do you find that those in your industry today must work digitally to be able to share their work at the speed the business requires, even if it means some of the quality gatekeeping is sacrificed?
I work in the medical field and electronic patient records has been a sea-change in the way patient information is stored and shared, and I know a similar change is well underway in the corporate world. If this is happening in your industry, do you see it as a positive or a negative?
HMF
Well-Known Member
Eddie if the Parks & Resorts being sold thing is true which would you think would be the most likely thing to happen to WDI/WED.
*Sold with it
*Disbanded
*Downsized using the Universal Creative model
*Stay as it is with WDC still owning it and the parks using them like TDL?
I still want that Show Producer job so this is very scary especially considering what I have heard.
*Sold with it
*Disbanded
*Downsized using the Universal Creative model
*Stay as it is with WDC still owning it and the parks using them like TDL?
I still want that Show Producer job so this is very scary especially considering what I have heard.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
I think it's a win/win. I can extend my ability into digital and use it as an enhancement. My workflow is faster as business dictates, and as I can use more digital tools, the work looks better as well.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
HMF
Well-Known Member
that's good news. Actually a very good point was brought up by Mr. Wiggins on micechat.
http://micechat.com/forums/disneyla...us-french-disney-parks-26.html#post1056573401
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Interesting perspective. Wiggins says...
Maybe the match of product & buyers wasn't there. Maybe they won't do it at all, but the fact that they haven't doesn't mean they won't.
The key point in all of this was made by a poster several pages back, when he said that Disney hasn't been Disney in a long time. When we fans feel shock at the idea of Disney selling its theme parks, we're expressing a sense of connection with tradition -- a connection that the Company itself (not all the people inside it, but the Company as a business entity) has not had for over a quarter century.
25 years is a while. Alot has changed. OLC being the owner of TDL began the tradition back in 1983. Eisner came 2 years later.
flavious27
Well-Known Member
You know what I mean. Apple's designers, lead by Ives, are good at designing devices; I doubt that most of have them the experience and mindset to design more than maybe TL.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
jus messin with ya..:fork:
wedenterprises
Well-Known Member
Hope no one minds if I change the subject a bit.
With news of the monorail cutting service during EMH, it has me wondering about WDW transportation again. Eddie, years back there were rumors of WDW looking into a PRT system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
Any truth to this? Not sure if this has already been talked about in this thread, but I know I have talked about this a bit elsewhere. I'm a huge fan of the concept of PRT, especially in a fantasy world with endless cash flow. In theory it could definitely work in WDW.
With news of the monorail cutting service during EMH, it has me wondering about WDW transportation again. Eddie, years back there were rumors of WDW looking into a PRT system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
Any truth to this? Not sure if this has already been talked about in this thread, but I know I have talked about this a bit elsewhere. I'm a huge fan of the concept of PRT, especially in a fantasy world with endless cash flow. In theory it could definitely work in WDW.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
We have discussed it here, I don't have any info on the status of WDW Transportation. I'm not a bus fan, but I'm told they are the most cost effective way as of right now. They scream "real world" and that depresses me.
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