Inspired Figment
Well-Known Member
Bingo
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Haunted Mansion to Return with New Enhancements and Magic :(
- Thread starter mickEblu
- Start date
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
This is not a quick ad by the guys who run a local haunt. It is a promotion piece produced by a multibillion dollar multinational entertainment conglomerate for one of their marquee attractions at their flagship park that generates millions of dollars in revenue in a single day. It went through copious hours of review and approval before being posted. It is absolutely “legit”.
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SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
I hope it's to separate the lighting and make the actual load area seem darker.
Disneyland/DCA
Active Member
You can tell. It seems she feels she's going to "retire" soon and is imprinting her style on all the icons, usually not for the better.
I hope for her final project she goes out with a bang and just does a simple cleanup of whatever icon is left without her contributions.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
This is true - MANY times Kim has gone to bat with them in an effort to resist or mitigate their negative influence on the park. She then is tasked with delivering on the compromise she was able to negotiate and often gets raked over the coals by fans who don’t realize the result is the best possible version of someone else’s bad idea.
Remember when we got the fun new Skeleton/Pirate along with the old restored cavern audio when they went in and redid the Auction scene? Thank Kim for those small blessings that come with the mandated lameness. I won’t pretend she’s perfect, but she goes out of her way to rescue so much of Disneyland from the people who run it and gets all the hate for putting herself in harms way.
George Lucas on a Bench
Well-Known Member
I figured it was a Social Distancing thing dressed up rather than Plexiglass dividers slapped everywhere like you find in other parks.
100% agree. Everyone is a corporate employee. The Imagineers should be glad to be working at the pleasure of Management. They are all under different kinds of pressure.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
I think they just meant that it’s more a general interview with a project director that was given a spirited slant to fit the vibe of the ride being talked about than it is a genuine effort at creating a Mansion-ready brand element, you know? Like that video of the Snow White updates where she’s just a talking head over clips of the new elements. It’s intended to be “cute”, light marketing, not an in-park product, which would of course be held to a higher standard. It’s a social media peek behind the scenes, not a full-blown national commercial.
That said, I do think there’s room for improvement in the Imagineering social media realm - too many videos over the years show frightened-looking Imagineers talking about projects they maybe we’re HEAD of but clearly have no business being the FACE of. And even beyond that, check the videos Disney Parks has been uploading to Tiktok - whoever’s doing their voiceover sounds like they would kill to be anywhere else. It’s frankly quite puzzling considering how many people there are out there who could easily do better and probably for less.
All this to say, I don’t really blame Kim for not being a stellar voice over artist, I blame whoever keeps asking people who aren’t to try to pretend to be.
I wonder if there is a functional reason for it. Something do with the lighting or the April portrait?
Actually it may just be to continue the illusion of being in a hallway which isn’t really working.
That was my first guess but I’m also wondering if it could be to continue the illusion that you re in a hallway.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
Truth be told, that‘s not exactly the best example simply because Michael Eisner’s greenlighting of Splash Mountain is famously used as an example of his spirited shakeup of the company from one that was growing creatively stagnant to one that was willing to take risks. He greenlit Splash and Star Tours in the same day because he brought his kid to the model shop and those were the projects that blew the kid’s mind, so he figured the public would probably flip for them too.
I’m sure you know that story, just illustrating for anyone who may not. People tell that story to denote what a breath of fresh air he was in the early days of his tenure.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
So I've been keeping up with this news all day, and the posts here, just first time to post myself.
I like what I see so far, hoping it looks even better in person.
I like what I see so far, hoping it looks even better in person.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
I don’t blame Kim but lets not pretend that these videos aren’t productions. Disney isn’t just letting people put something together to share. There is no reason that Disney can not have better writing and performances. They have the resources to make this pieces better. And it’s not just these design videos. Go watch Chapek speaking at IAAPA and he’s about as charismatic as a bag of bricks. There’s no reason public facing executives can‘t have some coaching.
George Lucas on a Bench
Well-Known Member
Social distance barrier
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
Like I said, she’s not perfect - and perhaps in the case of the Auction calling it the “best possible version of the idea” is overly generous. I’m not a fan of how it turned out. My point was mainly that without someone like Kim Irvine stepping up and insisting something of quality be done elsewhere in the attraction we would have ONLY gotten a terrible redo of a classic scene and been left to settle for that.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
That’s basically what I said - I don’t expect everything to be done at the same level, and a little Tiktok video is hardly hard-hitting news, but the platform has literally thousands of fans brimming with enthusiasm who could host those things a thousand times better than whoever’s doing it now. It puzzles me that Disney doesn’t just pluck a couple of them from obscurity and take the quality to the next level for practically nothing.
George Lucas on a Bench
Well-Known Member
The chicken lady scene in POTC is a travesty
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
The OC Register article indicates it’s meant to mask off the greater Load Area a bit to encourage your attention towards April December.
Which seems weird to me, but hey.
FerretAfros
Well-Known Member
In addition to the lighting balance that may or may not be an issue, the placement of the new portrait seems like it could cause some issues.
The original hallway is a masterclass in carefully guiding the guests' attention through the room, subconsciously guiding them down the ever-narrowing walkway, which starts wide enough for the dual sets of oversized double doors at the stretching room and ends at a single-file line at the conveyor belt without ever feeling forced. The series of portraits along the right wall capture your eyes after exiting the stretching room, and you're then pulled forward by the busts directly ahead. You're then drawn through the compression-and-expansion of space created by the small portal under the railroad tracks and the mysterious void beyond, straight to the loading area.
This new portrait is accompanied by a new folding screen that partially obscures the initial view of the Doombuggies, and is hung on the wall opposite them. The screen will clutter up the view through the small opening to the loading area, presumably to divert attention toward the new portrait. This means that people looking at the portrait will have their backs to the loading area, pulling their focus away from their next steps, and creating a congestion point in a location where the walkway has already narrowed almost to single-file. This issue is further exacerbated by the 4-panel format of the April-December portrait, which takes a lot longer for a guest to absorb than the simple flash of lightning portraits in the larger hallway.
While it's nice to see the return of an element that was removed 10-15 years ago, the location of it seems less than ideal. Instead classic WED's cinematic unfolding that gradually reveals details, we get another modern WDI creation that seems to be inspired by the Applebee's school of thought, where more stuff on the walls is the only way to decorate a room
The original hallway is a masterclass in carefully guiding the guests' attention through the room, subconsciously guiding them down the ever-narrowing walkway, which starts wide enough for the dual sets of oversized double doors at the stretching room and ends at a single-file line at the conveyor belt without ever feeling forced. The series of portraits along the right wall capture your eyes after exiting the stretching room, and you're then pulled forward by the busts directly ahead. You're then drawn through the compression-and-expansion of space created by the small portal under the railroad tracks and the mysterious void beyond, straight to the loading area.
This new portrait is accompanied by a new folding screen that partially obscures the initial view of the Doombuggies, and is hung on the wall opposite them. The screen will clutter up the view through the small opening to the loading area, presumably to divert attention toward the new portrait. This means that people looking at the portrait will have their backs to the loading area, pulling their focus away from their next steps, and creating a congestion point in a location where the walkway has already narrowed almost to single-file. This issue is further exacerbated by the 4-panel format of the April-December portrait, which takes a lot longer for a guest to absorb than the simple flash of lightning portraits in the larger hallway.
While it's nice to see the return of an element that was removed 10-15 years ago, the location of it seems less than ideal. Instead classic WED's cinematic unfolding that gradually reveals details, we get another modern WDI creation that seems to be inspired by the Applebee's school of thought, where more stuff on the walls is the only way to decorate a room
BayouShack
Well-Known Member
You make a great point. While you spend quite a bit of time in the first hallway, by the time you’re in the load room you have to start planning on how you’ll get on the buggies. I imagine the first view as you turn the corner is important to new guests. They get a bit of a heads up about the conveyer belt loading.
Wonder if the same portrait would work in that dark corner at the top of the stairs.