#storytelling methods

[aerkan]

I've been reading a lot of stories about dragons lately, and a lot of people are asking 'why do dragons purr?" or "How come they wag their tail?"

It's really funny to see that we as a society decided to take the best traits from both dogs and cats and put them on dragons. They are officially big lizards that somehow got the personality of a golden retriver and a black cat all at once.

THIS IS HOW FANATSY SHOULD WORK, GOOD JOB GUYS!

[a-land-of-shadow-and-substance]

The importance of place: Spooky Towers and How You Get to Them

I was just reading Foxx Nolte/Passport2Dreams’ brilliant book Boundless Realms, and found this passage at the start of Chapter 2:

“Haunted Mansions lurk deep inside theme parks, and this is as it should be...It’s crucial that we must first pass through themed areas celebrating an optimistic, golden past...before we hit the place where that optimism somehow all went wrong.”

First of all, I thought this perfectly described how well-placed both the Disneyland and Disney World mansions are, and how that goes a long way in making both of those “work”.  But then, I realized, this same principle was also applied to the Towers!

It’s no secret that the Towers of Terror are the bigger, more thrill-ride-based descendants of The Haunted Mansion. Their sheer scale makes blending them into the scenery even more difficult, though, since you can’t tuck them into the trees or hillside like a more “regular” haunted house.  Still, the designers managed to mostly preserve that idea of hiding the haunts until we’ve seen the optimism first.

While the buildings at both DCA and Hollywood Studios are visible even from outside the park, they’re carefully angled or placed behind other buildings so that none of the destroyed/haunted parts obviously show.  Florida’s is mostly visible from only the back and sides until you get into the park--and the back and sides still look like a normal hotel, with the ripped-open and burned parts restricted to the front.  DCA’s destroyed front faced the entry gates, but buildings in front of it hid most of the burn scars, leaving the slightly off-kilter sign as the only visible sign something might be amiss.

It was a significant trek through an optimistically-themed area to get to either Tower as well.  DCA made you take the walk through either a stylized retro postcard or Walt’s Los Angeles, and then through the glitz of a Hollywood set/street, before you turned the corner to find that fancy hotel that was beckoning you forward was, in fact, a haunted wreck all along.  In Florida, you first take a walk down a fancy Hollywood street before turning onto Sunset Boulevard.  While the wreckage is then visible from the second you turn onto Sunset, there’s still a sense of having to “see the optimism first”.  Sunset itself has an idealized late-WWII setting, with advertisements for war bonds and victory gardens in the food court.  Looming over this idealized “can-do” spirit, though, is an ominous reminder of how things can go terribly wrong, and how not all is good and cheery in this setting.

In the 90s-2000s, in the era that focused more on thrills while also having to deal with tighter budgets, it would have been entirely possible that Disney would forget to work the environment for maximum spooky story potential.  Heck, it might even be coincidence or luck.  But still, it’s great how it worked out, and yet another great storytelling element the Towers borrowed from their predecessor.

[a-land-of-shadow-and-substance]

When it comes to the theory of themed amusement rides, I realized there’s another scale that should be accounted for: the sliding scale of theatricality vs. physicality, which greatly affects story presentation and how the observable vs. experiential stories need to be balanced.

Thrill rides (roller coasters, drop towers, motion simulators) are generally on the high end of physicality.  Riders are physically moved around significantly by the ride vehicle.  As a result, if such a ride is going to be themed, the story should have a very good reason as to why they’re being put through such extremes.  Otherwise, it leaves riders either wondering why they were put through such intensity just to watch a story (Mission Breakout), or else wondering why a story was necessary when the motion itself could have just been an attraction without a theme (Incredicoaster).

Dark rides, however, fall much further into the theatricality side of the scale.  They provide the three dimensional live presence of the theater, with the sweeping viewpoint shifts of cinema.  Since the rider is generally not being physically jerked around, the entertainment must more heavily rely on the observable.  This is perhaps, why dark rides based on IPs are such a delicate balance; in a medium so far on the theatrical side, it’s “easy” and “safe” to simply present a story that’s already been told, thus resulting in the dreaded Book Report Ride (The Little Mermaid).  A dark ride heavily based on the observable story can still be satisfying, however, if it is telling an original tale, as in that case it is a more advanced version of seeing live theater (Phantom Manor).  It takes a lot of creativity to incorporate the rider’s experience in a primarily view-based setup, but this can be cleverly achieved through incorporating the riders as characters in the narrative (The Haunted Mansion) or careful pacing and set design that makes for an intense/involved experience even without major physical motion (Snow White’s Scary Adventures).

The art of themed rides is based not just in how the story is told, but the actual construction of the ride itself.  How the observable and experiential must be balanced is incredibly dependent on the level of theatricality vs. physicality the ride system demands.

[a-land-of-shadow-and-substance]

Two Towers, Two Episodes, Two Valid Adaptations of The Twilight Zone

(Alternately: Correcting Common Misconceptions about IP Application or Lack Thereof) Based on the title, one might assume this post is ...

In what I guess is part 2 of the intro to my coverage of DisneySea’s Tower, I examine the plot stylings of the original Tower of Terror, the Harrison Hightower version, and the Twilight Zone TV show itself.  

Spoiler alert: as it turns out, the three of them aren’t that different.

[a-land-of-shadow-and-substance]

As longtime readers of this blog know, I reviewed both Mission Breakout and its Halloween overlay, Monsters After Dark, several months ago. ...

Tonight’s post on this blog is somewhat unique... In this post I take a deeper look into the storytelling methods of the three incarnations of the DCA Tower, and in what ways the presentation was right or, as the boiler room poem would say, dead wrong.

This was inspired by @pureimagineering‘s exploration of storytelling methods, and I hope that I understood the terms correctly.  If not, please let me know!