Who designed more modern attractions?

geekza

geekza

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
This is just one of those thoughts that came to me in an elevator. Looking back at attractions from the "classic" years of WDW, we seem to know a lot about the individual Imagineers responsible for creating them. For example, Marc Davis, Claude Coats, Tony Baxter, etc. I don't see much mention of the individuals who were the primary creative force behind more modern attractions. Since they deserve just as much credit for their contributions to WDW as the older folks, I thought it might be interesting to talk about who they are/were and which attractions can be attributed to them. If anyone knows, who are the Imagineers responsible for major attractions built after around 1990?
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
One of the things the TEA's Thea Awards sought to address was the anonymity of a lot of those who work to bring projects to fruition. As such, consideration for a Thea Award requires a credits lists, including third parties who participated. 2012 is currently the oldest program available online, but you can look and see different major attractions and their entire teams.
http://www.teaconnect.org/Resources/Thea-Awards-Program/
 
winstongator

winstongator

Well-Known Member
There's a guy working on immersive experiences. I watched a lecture of his at UCLA, I think. Someone here linked to it. It was a pirate adventure. Drawback was it was very CM intensive. Google failed my looking for him. He also posts on the disneyparks blog.

FoP probably had a lot of input from James Cameron and his team. Wikipedia didn't tell me anything.

If you want to exercise your sleuthing skills, look for Disney patents, track them to attractions, and there you have it. There might be more happening overseas. You might be able to find who worked on Tron.
 
WEDwaydatamover

WEDwaydatamover

Well-Known Member
I can't think of any greats.

Eric Jacobson, I believe had a heavy hand in
the direction of MK during the Haunted Mansion redo, New Fantasyland, the larger Hub expansion, as well as Tiki Room and Country Bear redos.

I don't remember his exact title but Imagineering MK creative leader or such.

I only remember that because I disliked each Park having their own personal micro Walt Disney assigned. If you hated their personal style, your Park experience is screwed.

Clearly no single person is responsible whether an attraction is an E-Ticket or Stitches Great Escape.

I don't believe he's with the company any longer so that's one good thing to come out of it.
 
dreamfinder

dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
I think it has shifted to be much more a collective effort, rather than a single pet project. Partially due to the nature of how WDI is run now, with alot of staffing levels being tied to projects, so people come and go. Also, they are outsourcing alot more work. Things that used to be done internally, are now farmed out, either in part or whole. While they still definitely have some creative people working there, alot of WDI is now as much project management as it is anything else.
 
geekza

geekza

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
lazyboy97o said:
One of the things the TEA's Thea Awards sought to address was the anonymity of a lot of those who work to bring projects to fruition. As such, consideration for a Thea Award requires a credits lists, including third parties who participated. 2012 is currently the oldest program available online, but you can look and see different major attractions and their entire teams.
http://www.teaconnect.org/Resources/Thea-Awards-Program/
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Thank you! That's a great resource. Disney used to be quite proud of the individual Imagineers, but that seems to have waned in the past couple of decades. I realize that much of that earlier recognition was due to the fact that the original group of Imagineers were Walt's hand-picked artists. I'm glad that someone is still trying to recognize the work of these folks. To me, the best attractions are truly works of art and are filled with the imagination and drive of the people who designed them. I think that the near-anonymity of today's attraction designers also stems somewhat from the fact that much of their current work is guided by managerial mandate, rather than by a desire to create something out of whole cloth, driven by a desire to entertain and create. Those days are gone, sadly, and likely won't return unless future top management includes individuals with just as much creative spark as business acumen. A balance of the two can create real magic.
 
geekza

geekza

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
WEDwaydatamover said:
Eric Jacobson, I believe had a heavy hand in
the direction of MK during the Haunted Mansion redo, New Fantasyland, the larger Hub expansion, as well as Tiki Room and Country Bear redos.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's definitely tricky giving one person too much artistic control over a whole park. If you get lucky, you get someone who has both creative drive and good artistic instincts. In his case, I think he definitely had the drive, but his instincts of what people would respond to were off. Eisner was much the same way. He truly believed that he was the second coming of Walt Disney. He was all for trying new things and moving forward, but had an almost complete lack of taste or creativity. During the first half of his tenure, he had Frank Wells, who was able to channel Eisner's energies into approving others' good ideas. Once he passed and Eisner was left on his own, his bad ideas held full sway and, well, we see what happened to both the films and the parks. Now, we have Iger and Chapek. Both of them are shrewd businessmen, but not only have no creative talents, but honestly don't think that creativity has any place in the business and focus solely on maximizing shareholder value. There are plenty of people who share his belief around here, but I think it has cost Disney its long-term fanbase.
 
winstongator

winstongator

Well-Known Member
Scott Trowbridge was the name I was looking for.

JJJ said:
There's been a lot of discussion about the rides in Galaxy's Edge, but not a lot about the interactive elements of the land. I found two videos from around 2014-2015, the first before the Star Wars lands were announced, where Scott Trowbridge talks about what WDI's been working on in an attempt to enable guests to take a more active role in Disney's parks. They state similar things, but the first video is much more in depth. The relevant material starts around 25:35 in the first video. The whole second video is pretty cool. I can't wait to see what they do with things like Story Engine in Star Wars land!

Click to expand...
 
geekza

geekza

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
winstongator said:
And Disney Enterprises patent I was point to a few weeks ago:

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=disney&s2=magnet&OS=disney+AND+magnet&RS=disney+AND+magnet

Do a patent search with Disney as the assignee and you get some interesting results...
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That's crazy. I guess that's how they're able to get such lifelike movements with their modern AA figures. I have the utmost admiration for talented engineers, because Lord knows I don't have a mind for such things.
 
winstongator

winstongator

Well-Known Member
geekza said:
That's crazy. I guess that's how they're able to get such lifelike movements with their modern AA figures. I have the utmost admiration for talented engineers, because Lord knows I don't have a mind for such things.
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There was also one about having a robot replicate the motion of a character in an animated film. That would be pretty cool and would allow animators to program AA figures.
 
Maeryk

Maeryk

Well-Known Member
geekza said:
Yeah, it's definitely tricky giving one person too much artistic control over a whole park. If you get lucky, you get someone who has both creative drive and good artistic instincts. In his case, I think he definitely had the drive, but his instincts of what people would respond to were off. Eisner was much the same way. He truly believed that he was the second coming of Walt Disney. He was all for trying new things and moving forward, but had an almost complete lack of taste or creativity. During the first half of his tenure, he had Frank Wells, who was able to channel Eisner's energies into approving others' good ideas. Once he passed and Eisner was left on his own, his bad ideas held full sway and, well, we see what happened to both the films and the parks. Now, we have Iger and Chapek. Both of them are shrewd businessmen, but not only have no creative talents, but honestly don't think that creativity has any place in the business and focus solely on maximizing shareholder value. There are plenty of people who share his belief around here, but I think it has cost Disney its long-term fanbase.
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Ehh.. I think the long term fanbase likes to gripe, but I really don't see it going anywhere. And the same fanbase who sits and gripes about new things coming to the parks that aren't 100% lifted straight out of their dreams, would also gripe if nothing new came to the parks. People just like to gripe, especially when they are spending a lot of money to be somewhere. If all Disney built was flats, people would gripe that there's no thrills. If they only built thrills, it would be that there's no new flats. If they build both, people gripe that it's just trying to be any other modern park, etc etc and so forth.

Don't take the echo chamber of subreddits and certain forums as an indicator of how people, on the whole, feel.
 
geekza

geekza

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Maeryk said:
Ehh.. I think the long term fanbase likes to gripe, but I really don't see it going anywhere. And the same fanbase who sits and gripes about new things coming to the parks that aren't 100% lifted straight out of their dreams, would also gripe if nothing new came to the parks. People just like to gripe, especially when they are spending a lot of money to be somewhere. If all Disney built was flats, people would gripe that there's no thrills. If they only built thrills, it would be that there's no new flats. If they build both, people gripe that it's just trying to be any other modern park, etc etc and so forth.

Don't take the echo chamber of subreddits and certain forums as an indicator of how people, on the whole, feel.
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It's a common fallacy to think that those of us in the "long-term fanbase" will simply poo-poo anything new. We complain when we feel like Disney has gotten lazy or seems not to have put an appropriate amount of thought or effort into an attraction's design or impact on the park in which it is being placed. The original Imagineers weren't infallible and had their share of misfires, too, but the company maintained an expected level of quality that, taking into account the huge premiums being charged to take a WDW vacation these days, is still a valid standard by which any changes to the parks should be held. I think most of us old coots welcome new attractions and additions to the parks as long as they at least reach for a certain level of quality.
 
Shouldigo12

Shouldigo12

Well-Known Member
geekza said:
Yeah, it's definitely tricky giving one person too much artistic control over a whole park. If you get lucky, you get someone who has both creative drive and good artistic instincts. In his case, I think he definitely had the drive, but his instincts of what people would respond to were off. Eisner was much the same way. He truly believed that he was the second coming of Walt Disney. He was all for trying new things and moving forward, but had an almost complete lack of taste or creativity. During the first half of his tenure, he had Frank Wells, who was able to channel Eisner's energies into approving others' good ideas. Once he passed and Eisner was left on his own, his bad ideas held full sway and, well, we see what happened to both the films and the parks. Now, we have Iger and Chapek. Both of them are shrewd businessmen, but not only have no creative talents, but honestly don't think that creativity has any place in the business and focus solely on maximizing shareholder value. There are plenty of people who share his belief around here, but I think it has cost Disney its long-term fanbase.
Click to expand...
I disagree with you on one thing- I don't think Eisner had bad ideas. I actually think he had some very creative and ambitious plans for the parks. Actually implementing those ideas, dealing with setbacks, and admitting when something just wasn't working was his weak points (and keep in mind I'm no expert, so feel free to discard my opinion haha).8
 

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