Designer Times
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The original Animated Show Productions - Applied Entertainment Systems - Phoenix Group of ex-Disney folks found a new home in Sun Valley, California under the new name Sequoia Creative, Inc. Funded with venture capital by Triangle Investments, we were eager to re-start afresh after the prior bankruptcy disasters.
Triangle and Sequoia had argued over....get a project, then we'll get a factory vs get a factory then the projects will come. So, lo and behold, a Taiwanese Theme Park job walked in the door along with a new Universal Studios Tour project. We moved quickly into a 26,000 square foot plant near Burbank. Now Sequoia looked like a real company that could provide full turnkey projects.
Dave Schweninger had tons of Disney manufacturing experience, Tom Reidenbach was an enthusiastic architect/artist, and Bob Gurr had designed a big variety of mechanical stuff, from Monorails to Abraham Lincolns. Sequoia could do it all.....art to mechanicals under the same roof. We had expertise in costumes and plastics, architecture and animation, theme park planning, and a shop big enough to eventually build a 30 foot tall King Kong. Man, we were on roll.
The Universal Studios Tour (UST) had two sound stages used for showcasing special effects (EFX) to tour guests. These were composed of three different scenes which were changed out every few years to keep their show fresh.
Based upon the Universal Studios movie 2010, UST planned to install a new EFX show to demonstrate how the blue screen process works where one scene is composited into a second scene for the final shot. The first scene is shot against a blue (sometimes green) background, then combined optically into a second background scene.
This is usually done in an optical process lab, but UST wanted to demonstrate this before a live audience in a 15 minute show. The theme was a short story segment depicting a rescue in outer space from the 2010 movie.
The backgound shot was a spectacular space setting while the action scene would be live actors in space suits shot before the live audience. After the shot, the audience would watch the complete combined action replayed on a large TV screen.
However, the live actors would be guests selected from the audience just before the show. They would be outfitted with space suits and hung by blue painted wires from an overhead flying rig. Say that again! Fly guests in space on tiny little wires? And do the whole deal in 15 minutes? Why, Disneyland lawyers would have a heart attack over the very thought. But UST was fearless and very serious. They figured that the Sequoia ex-Disney folks would be ready to figure out this wacko scheme. Well, we couldn't wait to jump on it fast enough. Sequoia now had a big contract, with more stuff to come.
We invited some professional flying rig folks over to demo how this flying stuff works, and what to watch out for. Sure, the experienced flyers made it look real easy.....but untrained public? I figured on using a multi-axis overhead flying wire machine so that we could program all the action in sync with the background setting. We could move the actor-guests in predictable paths up/dn right left in/out with turns to boot. So far so good.
But getting a space suit costume fitted with some kind of internal frame work that could be quickly hooked up to the wires offstage just prior to the show turned out to be a nightmare. This feature of the show was not completely worked out until several months into the actual running of the 2010 EFX show. Everyone at Sequoia contributed various ideas. We built a mockup very early in the project to try out various schemes only to find that nothing worked as easy as it sounded on paper.
First off, there's the issue of how much street clothing the guest would have to remove. Underware? some kind of light coverall under the space suit?
How about sanitary conditions of multi-guest use? Can the wire hookup be quick and never fail? What if the guest-actor got airsick? Oh gosh, how did Sequoia get themselves into this fix? Good thing that the UST folks were very flexible and inventive to work with. We eventually developed great relationships with Universal Studios that lasted for many years into the future.
While the space suit rig was in development, I continued the engineering on the overhead animation rig. I found that if I used 1/16 inch diameter aircraft cables arranged in a diagonally braced manner, we could totally control the space suit with no twist or sway....as long as we didn't make any quick moves. The special effects stage at UST was equipped with an overhead grid used for hanging lighting and setwork....perfect for hanging an overhead longitudinal track to carry two moving dollys (two guest actors required). These dollys carried a rotational beam with a second small tracked carriage which mounted the up/down winch from which were suspended the space suit flying rigs.
Anitech Systems supplied the overall show control system. Sequoia's shop manufactured the complete mechanical rig system from engineering drawings our drafters made from my design layouts. We had previously evolved a fast documentation system on the Michael Jackson Victory Tour project, and refined it further on the 2010 job. Since my new secret weapon was the then new MacIntosh computer, I could keep track of every single item very quickly every day. No need for a production control department.
We had drafters who could make perspective view drawings of individual parts and assemblies for use in the manufacturing shop. With the daily revision updates to all the parts data, it was an easy editing job to produce an operation and service parts manual. No need for a separate manual publishing gang, just edit stuff on the fly from initial description thru to illustrated shop manual for use by UST.
We developed a super fast outside vendor parts and inspection system. When a guy brought in his parts, made from our drawings, we inspected them immediately while they were still in his truck. If they passed, we cut him a check on the spot. If not, we sent him away without even unloading the parts, telling him he was now late . By golly, no one ever failed the second time to deliver the perfect part and receive prompt payment. We loved the vendors and they loved us.
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Posted: 11/7/09