Going Global: The Growth Of Themed Entertainment, Part Two

Pictured is a 1978 plan for Epcot, which was built in 1982 at Disney World in Florida. Photo by Central Press, Getty Images.

Be sure to read Part One, which discusses the birth and growth of theme parks in the developing world of entertainment design. 

Life After Disney

According to Monty Lunde, president of Technifex, once Epcot and Tokyo Disneyland opened in the early ‘80s, after a buildup of several thousand theme park creators, designers, and technical directors, Disney told many of them to “have a nice life,” and they were let go. As there was no industry to speak of, many of them had a tough time finding work, so they decided to do it on their own. Monty went on to say, “We were the first wave of entrepreneurs who started exporting what we learned at Disney to Universal, Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros., and everyone else who decided it would be a great idea to start a theme park.” As an artist and set designer, I was drawn into that circle of companies who had mastered Disney’s recipe for the secret sauce.

In the early ‘90s, Monty and a like-minded group of visionaries founded the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) to give a collective voice to the growing number of companies that had sprung up and survived the ups and downs of the business cycle. I first learned of the TEA when I was asked to design the first Thea statue, TEA’s version of the Oscar. From its original 40 members, the TEA has grown into an international organization with more than 1,000 member companies all over the world.

Themed Entertainment 2.0

Like the movie industry that adopted a pared-down staffing model after the collapse of the Studio System in the late ‘50s, after 9/11, my company—EDC—and many others took a page out of the movie production playbook and were able to survive the economic cycles that affect entertainment investment. By maintaining a small core management/design team, we would staff up, like a film production company, when we got the green-light for a big project. We would all draw from a central pool of freelance talent and often collaborate with one another. Today, most of my EDC staff have worked for Disney, Universal Creative, The Hettema Group, BRC, or Thinkwell, to mention a few, and the cross-pollination enriches all of us.

While the great mentoring tradition continues, there is a new generation of amazing talent that is graduating from schools that offer specific courses as well as degrees in entertainment design. Check some of them out here.

In 2009, I was in desperate need of an art director to support the design of the Crane Dance project that my company had conceived, designed, and was installing at Resorts World on Sentosa Island in Singapore, when my phone rang. It was Alex Calle, an earnest, 22-year-old who got my home number from an old Art Directors Guild directory he found in the dollar bin of a secondhand bookstore. He had started in the “As” and called every name in the book in search of a gig until he got to “R.”

Themed Entertainment 2.0

As we chatted, I learned that Alex had recently graduated from Cal Arts with a BFA in Scenic Design, had just finished an entry-level job at Thinkwell, and that his diverse background in scenic design, theatre, film, dance, and music closely mirrored mine. Alex knew every job I had ever done and even ones I had forgotten. He also knew of every project that was being developed, every music video, every Broadway show and movie director. When I asked him how he knew so much about my career, he replied simply, “I Googled you.” It was time for EDC to adapt.

Alex was my bridge to a generation that grew up with gaming, social media, and the Internet, and is innately comfortable with the synergy of digital art and technology that has infused our industry with new and exciting resources. After six years of working for EDC, Alex is CEO, a shareholder in my company, and has attracted a team of exciting young talent, like Francesca Nicholas, who hails from the Dominican Republic. Francesca came to us with a BFA in Themed Entertainment Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), one of the first universities to offer a degree in our business. She had been recommended by her professor, Mike Devine, a talented designer in his own right, who had been a Disney Imagineering consultant for many years and created the scenic design curriculum at Cal Arts. In my day, no such programs existed, and you had to climb the ladder by being mentored as assistant. At 25, Francesca is leading one of our projects due entirely to her technical skills, creative ingenuity, and dedication to the work.

Going Global

The creative pull of Los Angeles continues to attract an enormous pool of international talent that EDC and other companies like ours all draw from. Our staff includes men and women from Brazil, Columbia, Dominican Republic, Iran, Turkey, Zimbabwe, and, yes, even Los Angeles. Over the last decade, the international aspect of our industry has grown. Our projects have taken us to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Korea, Macau, Singapore, Monte Carlo, India, Moscow, and a dozen major cities in China.

From Kinney’s Venice in America to Disney’s Main Street to the generation of Disney-trained entrepreneurs, and now, the youngest generation of technicians and artists with degrees in themed entertainment, our industry has grown into a global, multi-billion dollar business that has weathered every economic downturn, from terrorist attacks to real estate bubbles.

The TEA has blossomed from a core group of founding members to an international association that sponsors technical/business forums, educational events, and annual award ceremonies that continue to set new benchmarks for innovation and entertainment. Themed entertainment has come of age and brought billions of dollars to California, where a rich pool of designers, producers, directors, writers, musicians, and engineers continues to attract clients from around the globe. 

Entertainment designer Jeremy Railton has made a career out of creating many of the “biggest” and “firsts” in themed entertainment, all in the pursuit of wow. His career spans design in theatre, dance, film, TV, concerts, spectacles of Olympian proportions, retail entertainment, and architectural projects. His company, Entertainment Design Corporation, can be found at www.entdesign.com.

For more, download the July issue of Live Design for free onto your iPad or iPhone from the Apple App Store, and onto your Android smartphone and tablet from Google Play.