Stanza VIII Program Guide - Disney Shows and Stories

[spacemt354]

Continuing our two-week Japan trip in the Briar Patch Brawl, we have been transported to Tokyo DisneySea. While Fantasmic was brought over to Tokyo from the continental United States parks, the show has been running for a while now and could use a new face-lift. In addition, given the reliance on backstory and the S.E.A. mythos to the park as a whole, story plays an integral part of the park and as whole, which should carry over into the nighttime show that ends your day at Tokyo DisneySea. With that said...

Your task is to create a new nighttime show at Tokyo DisneySea to replace Fantasmic!

- The nighttime show may involve Disney IPs, new S.E.A. characters, or even something completely new.
- Focus on what kind of story you are trying to tell throughout the show, it's not just a display of fireworks and/or water effects.
- In order to present the nighttime show, a video is not required, however this is a very visual-oriented project, so be able to 'show' your show in a creative way, with any descriptions serving to reinforce your overall narrative.

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The reason why I almost blanked on posting this was because this is new territory for a challenge - an experiment of sorts.

Typically nighttime show projects, which are rare to begin with, force the contestants in the competition to create a video to display their sfx and fireworks more clearly than saying that 'a red firework goes off'

However, this is more of a story-focused presentation, relying on visuals and descriptions to tell a story rather than focus on the actual special effects and pyrotechnics...because at Tokyo DisneySea, given the location, there isn't room for high-level pyrotechnics (and why this location was chosen in the first place)

So below - while most of you have figured this out on your own without the need for a Program Guide (woo!) I'll still have some helpful tools below for quick sketches and story-telling techniques that could come in handy with these final days. Thanks and enjoy! ​

 

[spacemt354]

#1 - Storyboards

Advantages
- don't need to be an artist, it's simple doodles to get your points across
- a visual that isn't time consuming, again just black and white pencil sketches can be effective.
- Story descriptions below the doodles can fill in the blanks for what is happening in a quick and easy way​

 

[spacemt354]

Storyboards also date back to the early days of Walt Disney Studios
https://waltdisney.org/blog/open-studio-storyboards

So if you think about it...by using storyboards you're doing the same thing Walt Disney did for decades. Pretty cool when you think of it that way​

 

[spacemt354]

#2 - Music
In many ways - nighttime shows in particular are influenced by music, and while some use custom soundtracks, many times it comes from outside composers, such as Gavin Greenaway who composed Illuminations: Reflections of Earth, and BraviSEAmo!, the show at DisneySea prior to Fantasmic!

So finding and utilizing pre-existing music from composers on through YouTube videos or what not, that fits your story, is a simple way to make the project more immersive, yet still maintain a level of realism and authenticity!

​

 

[spacemt354]

#3 - Description Techniques

One of the objectives is to find a way to creatively tell your story -- there are many ways to tell stories rather than simply generic descriptions, including forms of poetry, dialogue, or the narrative form of a short story.

Just think about different story forms to make it engaging to the reader, yet also not too time-consuming, because remember the purpose of these challenges is to learn about quality over quantity. Meaning -- not every single square inch of the show needs to be described, however instead of spreading out the attention to the minutia of details, focus on an engaging story premise that can flow through a show. A show doesn't work unless it has an interesting and engaging premise for the audience to attach with. The specific details on how many pyrotechnics you have, or the exact calculus of fireworks launch angles, etc -- is not the focus of the story. While integral to a show's success, the small details isn't the focus of this section of the competition -- it's being able to learn how to quickly think and assemble an engaging, cohesive story that will flow through whatever project you're designing.

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