Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks

[CaptainMichael]

Same with ClubAston, you come to an Aston Martin dealer expecting to see one, maybe you've seen them in Bond films in the past. It's their heritage beyond racing. But what you don't know is that you will slowly begin to experience the car AS James Bond would have. There is a fantasy element that creeps into the buying process. (You have to build to these changes gradually and not drop them on people).

The ClubAston project starts with the salesman opening a plain steel door via thumb reader hidden behind the Jaguar dealership that sends you up a stair and into a cylindrical leather "airlock". The red cushions part with a "pffft" revealing a private fireside lounge with a Aston DB9 flanking a cocktail bar (kind of a wow moment).. Then you learn that all of it supports the story of the car. The Bar doubles as an interactive design studio where you pick swatches from velvet trays with a Martini (or whatever) to create your car onscreen. They run DVD's of the DB history/engineering from the sofa, or cater food up there while you shop. You may leave for a drive, but it's all in private, very low key. Celebs love the privacy. Beyond the car is a giant Vault door that has your Aston waiting on the other side. Nice way to reveal the car when you return and it's there. It's also designed to immerse you in an alternate world that allows you to relax and let your guard down a bit. I wanted the salesperson to be anything but that. In the Club, he or she is a more of a host tending bar, etc. You are oriented on a sofa by the fire, not a desk negotiating in an office, although there is one. Each element is softly established, then pays off a little bigger than expected. You thought you were there to see a car in it's "natural surroundings" and that met expectations, then we take you progressive further and you let us do that becuase we already lived up to the promise (and at the same time deeper into the content of what the car is about, not just opulence for it's own sake). All in, the client asked us to "blow away a Billionaire" so we did our best.

I posted a video here. http://gallery.me.com/boss_angeles/100267

I'm in awe. I'd love to own an Aston someday.

 

[hack2112]

It was a fun project to work on but the idea came from the client. I met the client on a plane in the wee hours coming back from London. He was seated at one of those sit down bars Virgin has in the middle of the 747. I offered to make this guy a Martini as everyone else was asleep. Very nice man. We chatted and he noticed I had paused "Diamonds are Forever" on my Mac. He said he loved Bond films as well and wanted to do a private VIP Aston dealership that would feel like Bond, but wasn't happy with how it was coming out and could not find anyone that could pull it off. I could not believe what I was hearing! I about spewed my vodka across the cabin! I had my card out faster than you can say "Goldeneye". We sat next to each other and planned out the space. By the end of the flight he predicted that we would be heading back to London together soon and pitching it to Aston. He was right!

Well that was good luck for you. Are they going to replicate the experience at other dealerships?
I also now have two new things to put on my list:
Go to the Aston Martin vault, and fly first class Virgin. (Or just fly Virgin, period.)

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I really need to get to LA so I can see Rivera in person. It is truly unique. A quick question about Rivera. How much collaboration did you and the architect participate in? Did you design the "experience" and he designed the "guts", or were you both intimately involved in all aspects? I assume you did most of the concept art and sketches.

Exactly as you say, he was more the technician (codes, restaurant table spacing etc.) as he has done many Restaurants, and I drove the design. Deb Gregory, another ex Imagineer I have worked with was a big help on the interiors and did a great job. From the lights and the logo to the bronze chairs and the media art that was all directly by me. It's more fun that way! Here's a link to some quick sketches and work in progress shots of the project.

http://gallery.me.com/boss_angeles#100032

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Well that was good luck for you. Are they going to replicate the experience at other dealerships?
I also now have two new things to put on my list:
Go to the Aston Martin vault, and fly first class Virgin. (Or just fly Virgin, period.)

The client wanted this to be original, so no, I don't think so. It was used on the Vegas NBC TV show as an Aston dealer set in Vegas.

 

[HMF]

ooh. Nasty cough. Hands hmf an imagineering cough drop and a prescription to take 2 mikkos and call me in the morning.

lol!

 

[Huck]

First of all, I can't let this thread fall to page two, so it needed the bump.
Secondly, I once again can't seem to access the Aston video and it's driving me nuts!!
Thirdly, I have been able to look through the Rivera photos and I am fascinated! I absolutely love how organic that space is! The wood on the bar and the chairs, the wood on the ceiling, the metals and those amazing bamboo stone floors!! Gorgeous! I had no idea bamboo stone existed.
I also love how you carried that stylized "R" from the front facade into the interior on the bottles and even those cool tequilla tasting chairs. Really neat stuff. I am sure that I'm merely stating what's obvious to those of you with design experience, but I am truly fascinated by your renderings and concept art and the whole process of turning an idea into a concept and ultimately into a design. Thanks for sharing that. In the mean time I'm going to keep trying to make the Aston video work.

 

[FantasyPurveyor]

Bond and retail

The part that attracts me immediately about the Aston dealership is how the ceiling above the revolving car seems to mimic the inside of the PPK gun barrel. The earlier Bond movies started the movie with that small circle window into the world of Bond, which always drew me in. Similarly, that ceiling seems to draw me into by providing a focal point which reveals the car, as if inviting the consumer to jump directly through the "hole in the ceiling" directly into the world of Bond (a.k.a. the Aston).

In my opinion, spaces like this are the future of retail and design. The role of the store is to tell the story and make the customer want to be part of that world and not necessarily just present the product point blank. So many retail stores make me weep in despair. On the rare occasions I step foot into a shopping mall, just glancing at the exterior of so many stores... its appalling. Seas of cheap metal hanger displaying the latest disposable fashion in a mass of humanity and chaos. A product is something to be proud of and nurtured and showcased. Yeah, sometimes a toaster is just a toaster, but does it have to be???

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I am truly fascinated by your renderings and concept art and the whole process of turning an idea into a concept and ultimately into a design. Thanks for sharing that. In the mean time I'm going to keep trying to make the Aston video work.

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad the details are being noticed and hopefully getting Quicktime 7 will help with the video.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

 

[Eddie Sotto]

A product is something to be proud of and nurtured and showcased. Yeah, sometimes a toaster is just a toaster, but does it have to be???

No it does not. For many..the toaster is the "starting pistol" of their day. This whole subject reminds me of a retail expert that was speaking at a conference for mall developers. She said something that is really profound. That there were "too many retailers and not enough merchants". What does that mean?

It means that "retailers" put stuff out on racks not knowing what customers really desire. They don't know them or care about them, they copy trends, and make more of the stuff that sells and cut what does not, waiting for the next thing to copy, never really knowing why the customer buys and so they go folding shirts (I added that part!).

"Merchants" love what they do and feed off the thrill of finding things the customer wants and when they do that they look for more things to please them and there is this relationship between customer and merchant. "Look what we have for you today...the new iPhone!". "One more thing" is Steve Jobs' most famous line and what is it? The voice of a merchant tempting his loyal customers. Something more to buy that you are dying to hear about... Apple knows how to do this because their customers are fans. There is a relationship and because of that, the merchant knows what the customer dreams of and loves giving it to them. Hence the Aston Showroom or Rivera. Merchants know they are not in the "car" business but rather in the "dream" business. The car is just a means of fulfilling that 007 fantasy. Rivera is a unique experience, so we don't get customers deciding where to go for Mexican food, they say "lets do Rivera tonight". We sell the experience and great food is a natural and seamless part of that.






PS- And the PPK thing was intentional. We wanted to reward you with Bond details, for those who knew, but never go beyond that.

 

[janoimagine]

Eddie - that dealership is incredible. Also love the 'R' chair design, they have a very Mid Century feel to them, are you a fan of Charles and Ray Eames?

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Eddie - that dealership is incredible. Also love the 'R' chair design, they have a very Mid Century feel to them, are you a fan of Charles and Ray Eames?

YES. Mega fan. I tried to model my studio after theirs as they did films, products and design. BTW- IASW (Tower of the four winds) owes alot to those two as I think they inspired the Imagineers at the time. Look at the Toys (see below), Card Castles and mobiles.

http://inbetweennoise.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-nothing-machine.html

Even the big numbers and their Gerard graphic style was picked up in IASW.

(Rivera is kind of 70's jet set modern to me, but all the angular stuff is very midcen..love that you thought Eames.. thx! . All the radiuses and that. Thanks for asking!)

 

[janoimagine]

YES. Mega fan. I tried to model my studio after theirs as they did films, products and design. BTW- IASW (Tower of the four winds) owes alot to those two as I think they inspired the Imagineers at the time. Look at the Toys (see below), Card Castles and mobiles.

http://inbetweennoise.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-nothing-machine.html

Even the big numbers and their Gerard graphic style was picked up in IASW.

(Rivera is kind of 70's jet set modern to me, but all the angular stuff is very midcen..love that you thought Eames.. thx! . All the radiuses and that. Thanks for asking!)

That link is great, I would have never made the connection, but it seems so obvious now that I see them. My house is mid-century as well as the furnishings in it (A ton of Eames, Corbussier, and Neutra stuff). I'm a huge collector of photography and photography books, (Hennessey + Ingalls in Santa Monica is one of my favorite book stores) and the late Julius Shulman's work turned me on very early in college to the era. Quick Story: I actually had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with him in his studio in palm springs. I was staying at the 'Movie Colony' on a job in Palm Springs and noticed all his work in the lobby, I asked the owner where he got them all, he told me Julius was a friend of his, lived not to far from the hotel, and asked me if I would like to meet him. Of course I said Yes! He made a call and the next thing I knew, I was at his home, and their he was with his walker standing at the front door (this was about 8 years ago). I ended up buying quite a bit of his old prints from him, and they are hanging in my office at home. They are some of my most prized possession's.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

That link is great, I would have never made the connection, but it seems so obvious now that I see them. My house is mid-century as well as the furnishings in it (A ton of Eames, Corbussier, and Neutra stuff). I'm a huge collector of photography and photography books, (Hennessey + Ingalls in Santa Monica is one of my favorite book stores) and the late Julius Shulman's work turned me on very early in college to the era. Quick Story: I actually had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with him in his studio in palm springs. I was staying at the 'Movie Colony' on a job in Palm Springs and noticed all his work in the lobby, I asked the owner where he got them all, he told me Julius was a friend of his, lived not to far from the hotel, and asked me if I would like to meet him. Of course I said Yes! He made a call and the next thing I knew, I was at his home, and their he was with his walker standing at the front door (this was about 8 years ago). I ended up buying quite a bit of his old prints from him, and they are hanging in my office at home. They are some of my most prized possession's.

That is a great story. I was introduced to Eames work when I was at Knott's, so that was the early 1980's. Ironically, I met Rolly "Tower of the Four Winds" Crump about the same time, as two of his friends that had worked for him at his studio (Design 27) were my bosses. When you watch the toy trains films and see the childlike fun in the work, then you see IASW, then the connection gets clearer. Of course, all those artists brought their own take to it, but IASW was modern in context with it's day. Look at the Eames IBM exhibit at the 64 NYWF. They were practically across from each other.

Here's a clipping on how Fast Pass was invented back in 1964! Kevin Yee eat your heart out!
http://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64/articles/misc/world-telegram-5-3-65.jpg

And Alexander Girard who was a part of it as well...This is sooo IASW,
http://girard.houseind.com/

Sidebar alert..

Weird Hennessey and Ingall's story. So my son and I are in the rare used books area and I see a copy of the first architecture book I ever had as a kid. It was measured drawings and 1920's images of each building in the French Quarter of NO. I used to spend hours drawing the railings and details and figuring out what elements they used to create NOS at the park. So I get it down and notice a library stamp and card in it from "Randall Duell and Associates".

(Duell was a studio set designer that opened his own theme park design firm, hired lots of movie designers and did most of the Six Flags parks in the 70's) Here's more, VERY interesting guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Duell.

I wonder who checked out the book? There were two names next to each other, my heroes Herb Ryman and John De Cuir, Mr. Hello Dolly! I know, it's kind of a "so what" story and it's meaningless save for the connection. But they gave me the card to put in my copy of the book.

 

[wserratore1963]

:sohappy:

That is a great story. I was introduced to Eames work when I was at Knott's, so that was the early 1980's. Ironically, I met Rolly "Tower of the Four Winds" Crump about the same time, as two of his friends that had worked for him at his studio (Design 27) were my bosses. When you watch the toy trains films and see the childlike fun in the work, then you see IASW, then the connection gets clearer. Of course, all those artists brought their own take to it, but IASW was modern in context with it's day. Look at the Eames IBM exhibit at the 64 NYWF. They were practically across from each other.

Here's a clipping on how Fast Pass was invented back in 1964! Kevin Yee eat your heart out!
http://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64/articles/misc/world-telegram-5-3-65.jpg

And Alexander Girard who was a part of it as well...This is sooo IASW,
http://girard.houseind.com/

Sidebar alert..

Weird Hennessey and Ingall's story. So my son and I are in the rare used books area and I see a copy of the first architecture book I ever had as a kid. It was measured drawings and 1920's images of each building in the French Quarter of NO. I used to spend hours drawing the railings and details and figuring out what elements they used to create NOS at the park. So I get it down and notice a library stamp and card in it from "Randall Duell and Associates".

(Duell was a studio set designer that opened his own theme park design firm, hired lots of movie designers and did most of the Six Flags parks in the 70's) Here's more, VERY interesting guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Duell.

I wonder who checked out the book? There was his name, my hero John De Cuir, Mr. Hello Dolly! I know, it's kind of a "so what" story and it's meaningless save for the connection. But they gave me the card to put in my copy of the book.

This Thread is positive and full of life; I really enjoy hearing about all of these projects ( proposed or otherwise), people and places.

Thanks for your prospective and work (past, present and future)

 

[janoimagine]

And Alexander Girard who was a part of it as well...This is sooo IASW,
http://girard.houseind.com/

You have to love about every font House Industries has created, I recently bought the Neutra Face set ... I love the Girard set now too. (Gotta make a note to buy the Rat Fink ones too!)

That is a great H & I story. Rolly Crump is one of my all time favorite imagineers, (As well as Harper Goff) what was he like (Rolly) to work with? I've seen him on some of the park history DVD's. Seems like such a nice guy, super talented (As with all Imagineers).

Thanks for all these stories, I look forward to reading this thread every day.

 

[MiklCraw4d]

Acccckkkk I've been away too long and the thread went on without me. I have lots of catching up to do and lots of links to click. I do have a quick n dirty question for Eddie, though, because I'm digging around for some Parisian information.

Eddie!

Do you have any idea at all how far development got on the third gate for Paris? Was there an actual site-specific plan, or was management just saying "yeah, we'll build EPCOT there too someday"? Of course there were probably a dozen different iterations considered, but I wonder if there was a Europe-specific EPCOT design or if they just took the WESTCOT plans and plopped them in Paris.

Such missed opportunities... and Lava Lagoon too!

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Acccckkkk I've been away too long and the thread went on without me. I have lots of catching up to do and lots of links to click. I do have a quick n dirty question for Eddie, though, because I'm digging around for some Parisian information.

Eddie!

Do you have any idea at all how far development got on the third gate for Paris? Was there an actual site-specific plan, or was management just saying "yeah, we'll build EPCOT there too someday"? Of course there were probably a dozen different iterations considered, but I wonder if there was a Europe-specific EPCOT design or if they just took the WESTCOT plans and plopped them in Paris.

Such missed opportunities... and Lava Lagoon too!

All I remember was the 2nd Gate Studio Tour project that Bob Weis was heading up. We worked on other ideas for maybe a third gate but it was pretty loose.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

You have to love about every font House Industries has created, I recently bought the Neutra Face set ... I love the Girard set now too. (Gotta make a note to buy the Rat Fink ones too!)

That is a great H & I story. Rolly Crump is one of my all time favorite imagineers, (As well as Harper Goff) what was he like (Rolly) to work with? I've seen him on some of the park history DVD's. Seems like such a nice guy, super talented (As with all Imagineers).

Thanks for all these stories, I look forward to reading this thread every day.

(Sitting on House Industries pillow in Eames Alum Grp. Chair.) I used to know Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, creator of "Rat Fink" back when I worked at Knott's. He was an interesting guy to say the least. He worked in the Sign shop and when you saw the miles of pinstriping on his drafting board, along with Rat Fink, you knew who he was! Wow!

Rolly Crump is a wonderful guy and very much the "counter culture artist" of WED. We never worked on projects together but his son Imagineer Chris Crump and I have. We all had the same friends in common from his old Studio, Design 27. Crump did "Knott's Beary Tales", a dark ride at the Farm and his staff worked on it, then stayed on to form the Knott's design department. Then I joined and met them all. He came to visit us occasionally and that was fun. I met most of my first Imagineers and studio people while working there. Rolly was a great compliment to WED in those days. Super talent, Harper Goff was kinda quiet and I'd see him waiting to show Marty some beautiful sketches he had done for EPCOT or something. He was amazing. After he'd leave, before I went home, I'd go into Marty's conference room and marvel at his simple but expressive work sitting on the table.

 

[MiklCraw4d]

Catching up:

In the park the "designer curse" hits me, (similar to AP-itus) where all you can do mentally is critique everything or only see things for what they should be, could be, or once were. Awful. You eye is drawn to visual intrusions, not what you are supposed to look at.

I have this condition really bad, even though I'm not a designer or anything near it. And it's even more frustrating since I'm the world's worst artist and will thus have no chance of righting the wrongs I see. I've wondered in the past at times whether I should keep going back, as I *do* wind up not looking at what I'm supposed to look at. I'm craning my neck, looking around, and wondering what could be done if you knocked out that wall over there and themed this area to so and so... Anyway, I find myself not enjoying the park I've paid to enjoy but instead I'm busy giving it a massive overhaul in my mind. And I could do that at home for all the good it'll do me!

It is kinda funny you mention that. I am a highschool student and I took some old Oswald and Mickey DVD's in to class when we were studying the 1920's and we watched some of the cartoons, oddly enough I had never heard a group of highschool students laugh so much as when we were watching those cartoons.

I love when stuff like that happens. Once I was on a camping trip with the Scouts, and everyone was reading comics. The guys all had their copies of Wolverine or Batman (this was the late 80s), and I had my Carl Barks Uncle Scrooges. I thought they'd give me no end of grief, but they wound up reading them too.

The old stuff was entertaining then, and it's entertaining now. Those early shorts, the good live-action comedies, etc. The problem is that Disney was taken over by people who looked down on their own product. Thus everything had to be presented ironically, like the WDW Tiki Room remake. They couldn't present something with sincerity, since they themselves sneered at their product. We need people with a connection to the material running the company so they're not afraid to present their own product without fear of being seen as unhip.

Last night at dinner we discussed who our all time favorite actors were. Our 10 yr old daughter said Streisand, Doris Day, Don Adams, Hayley Mills, Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Abbot and Costello, Lucy, and Miley Cyrus! Our 10 yr old son said Hayley Mills, Chaplin, George Lopez, Laurel and Hardy, Paulette Goddard, Paul Lynde, AnnaSophia Robb, the kid in Gremlins, etc. They mashed up the dead and alive stars. They see all of them as equally good and didn't prejudge them generationally.

That's brilliant. I think you might win parent of the year, and your kids definitely win the awesome award. Paulette Goddard and Paul Lynde?! It's like they looked into my unconscious mind. This alone has renewed my faith in a generation.

I've wondered if I have kids what I could do to keep them from being completely absorbed by the pitfalls of the modern world. And to namedrop Don Adams and Marilyn Monroe. But I guess all you really have to do is take the time to expose them to good things, which most people don't do. If you let the TV be the babysitter indiscriminately there's trouble; better to use it surgically to maximize potential awesomeness.

In any case, there's something in the Disney mindset that's both decidedly retro and yet future looking. I grew up in the 80s and was totally into "old" stuff, but a total tech geek at the same time. It's a bizarre paradox, when you think about it, but you can see it easily in this thread: the wrought-iron details of Hello Dolly and the neon futurescape of the World of Motion.

Encounter Restaurant at LAX had lava lamps that dad would relate to but they were themed in a modern way that would look like something Philippe Starck would have done. Same with the music. There was 1960's "jet set" lounge music woven into new cover versions of those classics by DJ's so it was reinvented to a degree for both audiences. That seemed to work very well. I think if there was a way to address the "experience gap", this may be a small gesture toward that.

Sometimes cool is just cool, whether you have a nostalgic awareness or not!

So.....Imagine WOM returning in a different form (ala Spiderman?), same story and redoing TT so it ends with us boarding the future in the new "Tron legacy" lightcycles!

I always thought they should have left WOM pretty much as is, except grafted the Test Track outside loop on as the finale... I envision "boxing in" that large loop into the parking lot in a show building and having a massive black-light cityscape-in-motion reminiscent of the original WOM ending...

This has often made me wonder what exactly is different now about Tom Sawyer Island. The novel Tom Sawyer was no more contemporary int the fifties than it is today. Mark Twain lived and died long before Anyone from that generation was around and yet TSI was much more popular then. So is it just that TSI needs to be updated to appeal to current tastes in entrrtainment or is there something deeper going on?

I've wondered this too. This kind of got under my skin when they were doing the overlay, and talked about how kids just don't know who Tom Sawyer is now. That just doesn't make sense to me - Tom Sawyer was an "old" book in 1955 and it's an "old" book now. I'm not aware that he's disappeared from the public consciousness or anything. Sure, Pirates is "hot" right now, but was Sawyer really a huge property in 1955? I don't think it's fair to compare...

That is true. This was during the Pressler era of closing rides and saving cost. The proposal was to lose the rafts and do a subterreanean catacomb that begins in a crypt in the Hm graveyard and leads to a underground capsized vessel beneath "Lafitte's Island" across the ROA. In history, there was a real island directly across from New Orleans called Barrataria where Lafitte's Pirates traded with the cityfolk. This was an homage to that with lots of cool effects, etc. The TSI pirate idea we see today came later and is based on the POTC films.

While I'm a fan of TSI classic, I have to say that this is a pretty rockin' idea. I'd hate to see the rafts gone, but this was a genius compromise. Very atmospheric.

Bonus trivia...Tony Baxter was an extra on that set during the parade scene so he is a fan too!

That's insane. Mind is blown.

I have never seen the studios. But the one thing that concerns me about Europe is this horrible ban on incandescent light bulbs. Making everyone use the compact florescent bulb (twisty one) will make for the ugliest Main Street and DLP ever. The cold color and flat intensity of those lights is hideous. It really depresses me.
http://www.businesspundit.com/new-light-bulb-rules-make-citizens-hoard-old-bulbs/

Eek. John Hench would go ballistic. Maybe they could get some sort of compromise for themed areas? Maybe purchase carbon offsets or some such? Florescents on Main Street would be terrible...

It's funny how unbuilt projects live forever in the concept art. What gets built never is as good as the project that wasn't. Long live Sci-Fi City!

Indeed.

"Disney's America" as a name triggers up all kinds of "red flags" in today's world. It creates the expectation that somehow "America" as Disney sees it will be spun to you in a way that is overtly sanitizes history. Main Street does that. It is not the 19th century, it's how you wished it was. So make that "Disney's America" and many think your out there to editorialize or trivialize history.

I still hate that the America project died. Obviously there were a lot of motives for the different opposition groups, and an attitude of general snobbery from the "gatekeepers" who seem to want to have history all to themselves. But if it had been done *right*, it could have exposed more visitors to those historical events and themes than a dozen other historical attractions combined. It could have also used the drawing power of the Disney name to spark an interest in the minds of visitors, which would have led them to explore other sites and historic parks that they might have overlooked before. What EPCOT should be to science and ideas, America could have been to our own history.

And if they'd done it tastefully, it could acknowledge the shortcomings of our past while not dwelling on the negative and instead showing how we can learn for the future.

All I remember was the 2nd Gate Studio Tour project that Bob Weis was heading up. We worked on other ideas for maybe a third gate but it was pretty loose.

Ah, thanks for the answer. There just seem to be these random instances between 1991-1996 (and perhaps beyond, although I haven't seen any yet) of Disney officials talking about the third gate being EPCOT-derived. This even happens after all the financial difficulties, and the delay of the second gate. I've only ever seen one rendering, but it doesn't show anything besides the geosphere looming behind the Newport hotel.

 

[MiklCraw4d]

Also, all the talk of design and bookstores contributes to my already-manic excitement about my first trip to CA which is in exactly a month..