This week we prepped and then went to our On-site visit at Give Kids The World Village located outside of Orlando, Florida.

To prepare for our onsite visit and the uninstall of our puppet, Tom Foolery, we assessed a list of needs.  This included: a list of tools, audio visual equipment for documentation, & a list of resources and similar experiences to visit while in the area.

We had a Skype meeting with one of our informal advisors and Disney Imagineer, Tim Eck, to make sure we were not missing anything in preparation for the uninstall and to narrow down a time to visit with him on location.

Since our timeline is abbreviated for a project with a scope of this magnitude, it is important that we rely on the knowledge of experts in the fields of animatronics, show development, engineering, robotics, pneumatics, etc., so we can deliver an experience that is robust enough to withstand years of daily operation with little to no maintenance.   

Since there were many things to accomplish during our trip, with no real way of knowing what to expect during our uninstall, scheduling became very important.  The team left first thing (6am) on a Thursday morning, so we could arrive to the Give Kids The World Village by that afternoon. While onsite we met with our amazing client, Abby, who gave us an overview and tour of the Village.

Give Kids The World pairs with wish-giving organizations to provide families of children with life threatening illnesses a free place to stay while visiting theme parks in central Florida.  They provide daily entertainment options at the Village and complimentary passes to the local theme parks to allow each family to plan a customized vacation.  It is a much-needed escape for these families who face so much adversity daily.  The heart and soul of the organization are the amazing volunteers who fill thousands of shifts weekly to bring the Village to life.

And that is where we come in- our project is located in The Castle of Miracles at the GKTW Village.  A themed hub of activity featuring a carousel, wishing well, magic mirror, pillow tree (ETC past project), star fairy (ETC past project), father time (talking animatronic clock), Tom Foolery and the home of the “Star Program.”

Every child is given a star to personalize while they are staying at the Village.  The child then brings the star to the Star Fairy where they place the star in the sky.  The ceiling is filled with thousands of these stars, each representing a child who has faced or is facing a life-threating illness.  Needless to say, the space is special on many levels, and there is certain level of reverence needed to be mindful of when designing our experience.

Tom sits on a balcony facing these stars, looking down on the atrium of the castle complete with a small stage with thrones fit for royalty.  While exploring the space, it became apparent why they need our help.  Access to Tom is indeed dark, scary and dangerous.

While the carousel is in operation, access to the puppet become a perilous activity of walking on a catwalk, while avoiding the rotating carousel.  The volunteer would then need to sit in a cramped space without any significant visual information or feedback in order to operate the puppet to the guests below.

Our client ultimately want us to update Tom so he is automated by a (perhaps naïve) Volunteer from below.  Designing an experience that is robust and interactive on some level are important factors as well.

After the Castle closed to day visitors, we met with Tim who gave us his perspective on the space and animating a puppet like Tom.  We set up a tentative plan on how to uninstall Tom and made arrangements to meet again when access to the puppet would be easier.

We spent the next day observing similar attractions at Disney parks in hopes to glean more information about their operation from a performer/ operator perspective and also from a guest perspective, and what goes into create a compelling experience.  We are fortunate in that our attraction will not have to have much re-playability as the audience is generally once-in-a lifetime guests, but we want our experience to be as transformative and interactive as possible, within scope.

For that reason, we focused on viewing attractions with interactive or puppeteering elements.  A few highlights include: Disney Junior – Live On Stage, Turtle Talk with Crush, Enchanted Tales with Belle, and Meet Mickey Mouse.  We also had the opportunity to speak with Jamie Kern, a Production Manager for Disney Parks Live Entertainment who was kind enough to share some insight in the creative process for producing a new show and tips for iterative show development.

We then returned to the Give Kids the World Village and began our uninstallation of Tom Foolery.  We are able to get him up and over his balcony with the assistance of two engineering personal from GKTW.  Although dusty, he is in remarkably good condition.

We then documented the space and Tom thoroughly, making sure we had everything we needed to return and install our finished deliverable successfully.  Tim was kind enough to return and give us some insight in how to start moving forward with design work and we set up getting Tom delivered to Pittsburgh.  We then made the journey home back to cold Pittsburgh, and instantly regretted getting on a plane to leave the Florida Sunshine.

Categories: Weekly Blog