Dream It! Do It! (Disney Editions Deluxe) (17 page)

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CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

Our Imagineering staff had developed some preliminary concepts, which I presented at the Epcot Future Technology Conferences in Florida. But the real creative thinking was just beginning in Glendale, California. And we were not thinking small.

We started with the aggressive conceit that we would develop
two
separate and distinct parks—one showcasing countries of the world, their people, cultures, and industries; the other featuring stories about “real world” subjects: energy, food, health, space, communications. Two issues developed as we began our master planning. First, almost all countries are members of the B.I.E. (Bureau of International Exhibitions). Their charter limits official participation by a country in a “World’s Fair” or “International Expo” to one a year; no permanent exhibitions are permitted. That meant that multiple sponsors per country would probably be necessary to finance the international pavilions. The king of Morocco could ignore the rules (and did so with his country’s pavilion that opened in 1984). But in most cases, industries and their export products—from food to specialty merchandise, souvenirs, and travel and tourism agencies—had to be sold individually on picking up the tab. Thus, except for Morocco, no nation is represented as such in Epcot’s World Showcase.

The second major factor was the time it took to develop a concept for Epcot’s Future World pavilions. Almost a decade earlier, it had taken us nine months to weave our way through all the vice presidents at RCA to finally have an audience with Chairman Robert Sarnoff…only to be rebuffed and sent back to the drawing board. Now we were dealing with real-world subjects that rarely had a precedent: how would we tell entertaining and meaningful stories about energy, transportation, communications, food? I well remember the day Card Walker asked me how we were going to entertain our visitors in The Land pavilion, on the boat ride we had conceived. The boats would be coursing through domed Living Laboratories, where we’d be growing a variety of food from around the world. “Don’t worry, Card,” I reassured him. “We’ll be watching lettuce grow!” He was not amused.

Of course, that’s what concerned Disney’s corporate management—that the science and technology would overwhelm the entertainment and storytelling. In a strong sense, we
were
in competition with the Magic Kingdom. If it wasn’t fun, why would people come to Epcot when Cinderella Castle, the Jungle Cruise, and Space Mountain were just two miles away?

My “rule book” was clear and direct. I told the Imagineers that our role was simple: create great stories, present them in unique ways (if possible), and don’t worry about communicating everything you learn about a pavilion’s subject. Instead, make it entertaining and
fun
. In fact, I said, it’s impossible for us to be the source of all relevant information about these subjects (we did create other sources as part of the project), so let’s concentrate on creating great stories that are “turn-ons,” encouraging our guests to want to know more about the subjects of our shows.

There was one more essential point I wanted the Imagineers to remember. Despite IBM’s passing on our sponsorship proposal, in my office I pinned up a full newspaper page ad they had run. It simply said: “
THE FUTURE IS A MOVING TARGET
!” Following that slogan, however, was
not
simple.

Most projects have a turning point or two, when it’s “fish or cut bait” time. For Epcot, there was a confluence of several key elements that ultimately made the project jell, and gain the green light we needed from Disney’s corporate management. Here are three of the most significant:

• In October 1976, Card Walker delivered a speech entitled “Walt Disney World: Master Planning for the Future” at the fortieth anniversary convocation of the Urban Land Institute. He outlined four major objectives for the creation of Epcot: a demonstration and proving ground for prototype concepts; an ongoing “Forum of the Future”; a communicator to the world; a permanent, international people-to-people exchange.
  

For the first time, Disney had “gone public” with a strong indication of its plans for Epcot.

• Harper Goff, who had designed the original Jungle Cruise for Disneyland and the iconic
  Nautilus
  submarine for Walt’s movie
  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
  created a painting that showed how the diverse architectural styles of countries as different as China and France, or the U.K. and Mexico, could be made to live side by side in our World Showcase area. With one major illustration, Harper sold everyone—from our designers to Disney management—on the concept. As the search for sponsors began in earnest, Harper’s rendering spoke volumes in presentations around the globe. With skills developed as a motion picture art director, Harper would go on to lead the design concepts for our Japan, Germany, and United Kingdom pavilions in Epcot.
  
• From the very first communication about Epcot in his film, Walt Disney had emphasized that
  no one company
  could accomplish this project alone. In his 1976 speech to the Urban Land Institute, Card Walker had noted “gratifying interest and dialogue” regarding sponsorship with “many of America’s leading corporations,” specifically citing IBM, RCA, Sperry Univac (now Unisys Corporation), AT&T, General Electric, Westinghouse, Ford, General Motors, Exxon, Gulf Oil, and Kodak. But no one had yet signed up. What we needed was one major corporation to show its faith in the values of participation in Epcot—a ten-year commitment starting with the yet-to-be-established Opening Day. That’s where the story of Ty Nagy became so important.
  

One of the interesting people Peggie Fariss turned up in her research for outside experts to attend the first Epcot Future Technology Conference was the aforementioned scientist at General Motors named Ty Nagy. My recollection is that he, like many others we invited to these Epcot Forums, decided to participate more out of curiosity—“What’s a company like Disney doing outside their fantasy kingdom in the
real
world?”—than anything else. (To some participants, of course, spending a weekend at Walt Disney World wasn’t exactly the most unpleasant assignment.) But Ty Nagy was intrigued; after the exchange of several notes and telephone conversations, he convinced the chairman of a key GM committee that he served on to let Disney come to Michigan and present the Epcot project. That committee, it turned out, was charged with recommending a future course of action and direction for GM. It was called The Scenario 2000 Advisory Committee, and its chairman was Roger Smith, soon to become chairman and CEO of what was then, in 1977, the second largest industrial company in the world.

This was the opportunity we needed, and we pulled out all the stops.

First, we loaded every model we had under way for the project—an overall concept layout in detail, models of half a dozen pavilions ranging from energy to space, and facades of countries in the World Showcase—into trucks, accompanied by dozens of illustrations, some as large as four-by-eight-foot storyboards. GM allowed us to take over the main rotunda floor area of its Technical Center in Warren, Michigan—a space so large, that the company used it sometimes to introduce their full line of cars within it.

To organize our presentation and maximize the total impact of the Epcot Center project, we brought in one of Hollywood’s great talents, John DeCuir. DeCuir had served as art director for The Hall of Presidents in the Magic Kingdom, but more significantly to us (and to GM) were his film credits for art direction or production design. They included
South Pacific
,
The King and I
,
Cleopatra
, and
There’s No Business Like Show Business
, among others. We wanted GM’s brass to know that “show business is
our
business.” Recognizing the opportunity, Card Walker filled the Disney company aircraft—that same Gulfstream I Walt used—with every key executive who might later be involved with GM. Movies and television, consumer products, the parks, educational materials, marketing, and the soon-to-debut Disney Channel—all were represented.

Roger Smith was impressed. As the chief financial executive of GM at that time, he saw an opportunity to take advantage of the excellent year GM was having in 1977, and at the same time continue GM’s tradition of leading the way in world’s fairs. On the spot, Smith made up his mind that GM should become Epcot’s first major stakeholder. His only hesitation was how to present the project to other top GM executives, whose support he would need to commit perhaps $50 million for participation (including Disney fees, a corporate VIP area, and a postshow “product area”).

The answer turned out to be simple—for Roger Smith and Card Walker. They agreed that while the rest of the Disney group would depart as scheduled, Marketing Vice President Jack Lindquist and I would be left behind, along with all the models and artwork, so that GM president Pete Estes and other executives could view the concepts early the following morning. Who knew that a corporate president would take a 7:00
A.M.
meeting? Jack and I agreed to accommodate Roger Smith’s request, on one condition: that we be taken to a local store to buy clean dress shirts for the presentations. Dressed in our new finery, the next morning between 7:00 and 9:00
A.M.
we did indeed meet and present to President Estes and other key GM leaders. And by December 31, 1977, General Motors had become the first major Epcot corporate sponsor.

Facing the dilemma of not enough industry sponsors for Epcot’s Future World, or international participation in the World Showcase, John Hench and I made a major design decision, literally, about one hour before a key meeting with the Studio brass. With the help of our Model Shop staff, we pushed the project models for Future World and World Showcase together—creating one project with enough potential participants combined to provide the seed money that suggested the sales effort could be a success. Imagineering’s model makers set a new record for patching and painting the two models into one complete idea, making it look as though it had been designed that way, and not slapped together in a matter of minutes. Disney’s corporate management praised our stealth development of the concept; no word had leaked out about this total reconceiving of the projects. We were lucky it didn’t occur to us in time for internal rumors to leapfrog from Glendale to the Burbank Studios. Explaining such a major change by telephone in response to rumors would have been a disaster—especially if one of the ever-present corporate naysayers had beaten us to the key decision makers.

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All our energies were now focused on leading the Imagineering staff in the development of hundreds of individual pieces of the project. With the two halves of Epcot now one, John Hench and I, in concert with the team that would operate the Epcot Center, recommended that the Main Entrance be located in the middle—between the Future World and World Showcase areas. That way, the two sections could operate together on the same schedule—or the hours of operation could be changed for each, almost on a daily basis, if necessary. The operations team could also monitor the number of guests entering, and direct them to one side or the other, depending on capacities and wait times for attractions.

Excited by the opportunities that our new scheme presented, we hastened to present it to Card Walker for his approval. I’m not sure I ever saw him more agitated than by our Main Entrance proposal. He immediately tossed away his CEO hat and donned the marketing hat he had worn for so many years at Disney.

“There’s no way we can do this,” Card lectured. “When our guests enter and exit through Future World, our corporate sponsors get two shots at them—coming in, and going out. With your scheme, guests may pass the Future World pavilions only once—or not at all! I’m not going back to Roger Smith or Cliff Garvin (Exxon’s chairman) with this plan—the entrance stays at Spaceship Earth!”

And it did. But by the dawn of the 1990s, with the opening of the “Epcot Resort Area” southwest of the park where two Disney resorts (Yacht Club and Beach Club) and the Dolphin and Swan hotels had become major accommodations, another entrance into Epcot was needed. The so-called Epcot International Gateway, opened in 1990, brings guests directly into the World Showcase area, across from the France pavilion. (A third Disney resort, the Boardwalk Inn, opened in the Epcot Resort Area in 1996.)

A second major controversy erupted over the location of The American Adventure pavilion. On a visit to Washington, D.C., John Hench and I had become enamored with the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall. Designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to house contemporary art, the building is basically a raised, open circle elevated by four major “piers” with its entry located in the central courtyard. “The central plan,” wrote Paul Goldberger, architecture critic of
The New York Times
, in 1974, “is not only clear, but also provides a pleasant processional sequence…”

That sequence was exactly what John and I wanted. By placing the pavilion at the entrance to World Showcase and elevating it in a manner similar to the Hirshhorn, we envisioned guests walking under the pavilion and emerging at an overlook into the World Showcase. The conceit was as though America was opening its arms and saying “Welcome!” to all the pavilions of countries around the world.

This concept was a wonderful idea—on paper. But a Disney park is a live community of people and events, and often an idea, no matter how eloquently expressed in writing or through an illustration, must take a backseat to the realities of life in that community.

Dick Nunis, Disney’s chief of operations for all the parks, pounced on the concept—not the design of the building, but its location. “We have to give our guests a key reason to go all the way around that big lagoon,” he argued, focusing on the Promenade, the full circle of walkways around the body of water in the center of the World Showcase. “We need to put the big attraction—like the castle of the Magic Kingdom—at the far side of the lagoon to make people
want
to go there!” In other words, we needed what Walt Disney called “a wienie”—the beckoning finger that says, “Come this way or you’ll miss the fun.”