Since likely nobody on here is privy to how Disney spends all their money, you sure it's not just an urban myth?
Here is a post from one of our members, WhyLightbulb, who has worked on attractions for both Disney and Universal, touching on how Disney spends money....
CBOMB said:
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Whylightbulb I know one of the big problems you had, and have with WDI were the ridiculace cost overrides on some of the projects. I know it's difficult to generalize a topic such as that, but could you give it a try?
Well as I've pointed out using examples such as Mission Space there is either some real exaggeration with respect to publicized numbers or some amazing waste that even our current federal government couldn't duplicate.
I remember when I first started at WDI and my boss was giving me the tour. He took me into a room where three people were sitting around sculpting and painting fairies. While my boss was taking a call I asked one of them what this was for. She shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I don't know...they just want us to paint fairies." It was very comical but indicative of what goes on that contributes to project budget waste. My boss didn't know what they were for either by the way. I still to this day don't know what those fairies were for.
CBOMB said:
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Having read so many of your interesting post it seems so much is being lost on different projects because of this. Cutting the budget while wasting what money you have seems like a plan to create a very mediocre attraction that could have been great. What thought process permeates WDI that causes this mindset of wasteful spending?
I think a lot of it is because they have it to waste. i remember when I was first exposed to a project outside of Disney or Universal where we didn't have the enormous budgets they are so lucky to have. We actually had to be just as creative in value engineering and planning as concepting the story and creative elements. This is something that most at WDI don't have experience with. They'll design to budget and rely on expensive technology rather than rely on innovation and creativity to derive entertainment value from.
Ego is another huge money waster. Because certain managers have to put their mark on each element of a project they will assign countless extra hours to mock-ups and POC that don't need to be done. It's true that the devil is in the details but many at WDI have taken that to an innefficient extreme.
Another reason is simply because many of them don't have the ability to think in terms of balance between managing a budget and producing an entertainment product. This is something you either have or you don't in my opinion. These project managers should be working at general construction jobs rather than a creative-based job.
