{"id":22002,"date":"2022-09-20T15:13:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T19:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=22002"},"modified":"2022-09-20T15:19:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T19:19:48","slug":"immersive-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2022\/09\/20\/immersive-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Immersive Storytelling’: Primer For Making The Audience\u2019s Dreams Come True"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea of \u201cAdventure Thru Inner Space\u201d at California\u2019s Disneyland was that riders were miraculously shrunk down to the size of ice crystals to experience the microscopic world. People waiting in line after the ride opened in 1967 saw visitors getting into carts that rolled into a massive machine and appeared to come out the other end reduced to the size of toys. In fact, what rolled out the other end were small models with dolls riding inside.<\/p>\n

The illusion could be quite convincing. \u201cMy little boy went in 20 minutes ago, and he was supposed to wave to me when he got into the little shrunken area in the microscope. \u2026 So far, none of those little people have waved to me!\u201d Disney ride designer Tony Baxter once recalled a worried mother telling him early in his career when he was a ride operator at Disneyland.*<\/p>\n

In Margaret Kerrison\u2019s new book \u201cImmersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds\u201d (Michael Wiese Productions)<\/a>, she recounts an anecdote from Disney designer Dave Durham when he was in line for the ride in the 1970s. \u201cAs a young Black boy, he was horrified by what he saw in the queue,\u201d Kerrison writes. \u201c\u2026The miniaturization wasn\u2019t the traumatic part for Dave. It was the idea that everyone in the ride vehicles turned into white people, as demonstrated in the show\u2019s moving prop of everyone coming out of the other end of the tube as mini white figures sitting in the ride vehicles. He cowered and told his family, \u2018That machine turns you white!\u2019<\/p>\n

The lesson for theme park creators? \u201cYou want your experience to be representative and inclusive of your audience. If they don\u2019t \u2018see\u2019 themselves in the experience or feel that they haven\u2019t been \u2018invited to the party,\u2019 then they are less likely to be engaged or emotionally invested,\u201d Kerrison explains.<\/p>\n

\"Margaret<\/a>
Margaret Kerrison\u2019s \u201cImmersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds\u201d (Michael Wiese Productions)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The creation of theme parks\u2014and Disney\u2019s in particular\u2014is often talked about as a mix between Hollywood set design and urban planning. Picture white guys building lots of scale models. Kerrison shifts the emphasis to the storytelling that shapes the rides, spaces and what staff members say.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds\u201d is a primer summarizing the jobs of a theme park writer, including dreaming up concepts and writing scripts, wayfinding, marketing, product descriptions, staff training guides, staff spiels. Kerrison\u2019s focus is developing immersive experiences around corporate-owned characters and stories, always with attention to how you exit through retail shops.<\/p>\n

Born in Indonesia, raised in Singapore and based in Burbank, California, Kerrison has been a writer or story developer for the Disney parks\u2019 \u201cStar Wars” land called \u201cGalaxy\u2019s Edge,\u201d Disney\u2019s Avengers campus, the National Geographic headquarters, and NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. She says, \u201cI\u2019ve written stories for experiences about beer, an old state capitol, wildlife, rocket science, cosmetics, K-pop, the history of telecommunications, Bollywood, the weather, superheroes, and the Jedi.\u201d<\/p>\n

In developing \u201cGalaxy\u2019s Edge,\u201d Kerrison recounts guidance that \u201cStar Wars\u201d filmmaker George Lucas taught \u201cStar Wars\u201d creative director Doug Chang: \u201cIf in three seconds visitors didn\u2019t believe that they were looking at something from \u2018Star Wars\u2019 then the design needs to be rejected or changed. That\u2019s how quickly it takes for our visitors to read a scene and make sense of it. \u2026 Don\u2019t give them a reason to stop believing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""Star<\/a>
“Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Florida, 2020. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Knowing Kerrison\u2019s broad experience, I can\u2019t help wishing that she offered more examples from her work and that of colleagues demonstrating how design and storytelling problems are solved and what theme park writing looks like.<\/p>\n

In addition to her emphasis on inclusion, Kerrison\u2019s insight is how to engage your audience\u2019s dreams of becoming part of beloved stories. \u201cCombine your audience\u2019s wish fulfillment with the action and your audience will be transformed,\u201d Kerrison writes. In other words, you become part of the world of Harry Potter by riding along with Hagrid on the \u201cMagical Creatures Motorbike Adventure\u201d rollercoaster at Universal\u2019s Islands of Adventure park in Florida. Or you become part of \u201cStar Wars\u201d by helping pilot the Millennium Falcon in the Disney parks\u2019 \u201cSmugglers Run\u201d flight simulator. Kerrison writes, \u201cBy wishing to do something and doing the action, they will ultimately become closer to becoming the role.\u201d<\/p>\n

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* See David A. Bossert\u2019s \u201cClaude Coats: Walt Disney\u2019s Imagineer.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2022 or the respective creators.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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\""Star<\/a>
“Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Florida, 2020. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The idea of \u201cAdventure Thru Inner Space\u201d at California\u2019s Disneyland was that riders were miraculously shrunk down to the size of ice crystals to experience the microscopic world. People waiting in line after the ride opened in 1967 saw visitors getting into carts that rolled into a massive machine and appeared to come out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[132,825,992],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22002"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22031,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22002\/revisions\/22031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}