How Your Favorite Theme Park Attractions Were Designed, According to a Disney Imagineer
Filed under "Cool Jobs We Didn't Realize Existed".
(SPOT.ph) Hong Kong Disneyland's World of Frozen has officially opened. Should you be lucky enough to visit the Kingdom of Arendelle before the year ends, you'll agree with us that there's nothing like seeing the land with your very own eyes. From the rides, the shops, heck, even the grub—everything is perfectly themed to the world and it's all thanks to the Walt Disney Imagineers. You know, the folks over at the House of Mouse whose jobs we don't exactly understand. The Disney Plus show, Behind the Attraction, somewhat demystifies the job but nothing beats getting it straight from the source. SPOT.ph got the chance to chat with one of the lead Imagineers of the project, Executive Creative Director Michel den Dulk on what it took to build Disney's latest themed expansion, as well as what a typical day in the office is like for an Imagineer.
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Here's what it's like to build World of Frozen:
By definition, an Imagineer is someone who designs and builds Disney experiences such as theme parks, resorts, and cruise lines. A job that requires technical and creative skills, the JD also includes being hands-on with the creative aspects of other Disney enterprises like games, merchandise, and even books.
Michel has always been interested in theme parks and fantasy worlds, with the Dutch national often drawing little castles and fantasy villages even up to now. He already knew what he wanted to be even at a young age. "From the age of 12 actually, for the first time I realized that things in theme parks—in Disney theme parks—are not just there, but they’re actually created by people, drawn by artists...I realized, there’s actually people that have this as a job and that was the day I decided that I’m not gonna be a fireman, I’m not gonna be a pilot, I am going to draw theme park attractions."
Having joined Walt Disney Imagineering in 2010, he has since been part of projects like the Disney Princesses Meet & Greet spaces Fantasy Faire at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, as well as EPCOT's Royal Summerhus at Walt Disney World in Florida. As of this writing, his longest Disney project to date is the new themed expansion, World of Frozen which opened last November 20. He is also part of the team assigned to develop the upcoming Frozen-themed land in Disneyland Paris, of which he came onboard last 2018.
"It took over seven years to create this land, I started at the beginning of 2016 and it’s been quite a long process, a very complicated project..." he shares. True enough, the fruits of Michel and the rest of the team's labor can be seen all throughout the space—after all, no one does themed experiences better than Disney.
From the moment you enter Arendelle Village to the hours you'll likely spend queueing for a particular ride, no stone is left unturned when it comes to details as the House of Mouse makes sure you leave your real life at the gates, at least for a few hours.
"At the beginning, we work with a lot of artists, and at the end, we’re working with a lot of specialists to make sure all the special effects—the sounds, the theme finishes, the paint…the carving of the mountains—are all executed correctly. So there’s [sic] literally thousands of people that are involved in a project like this," recalls Michel.
When asked what was perhaps the most difficult aspect of the land, he only had one thing to say: man-made mountains. "If you can only see the back spots, there’s an enormous ton of engineering and steel to create something that looks like natural landscape," explains the Imagineer before adding that there's no other Disney park in existence that has real and man-made mountains as part of the background, with thanks to the natural landscape of Lantau Island. Said rock formations can be found covering the buildings in which the two attractions, Frozen Ever After and Wandering Oaken's Sliding Sleighs are housed.
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What a day is like for a Disney Imagineer
Construction and theme park-making aside, what makes the job interesting for Michel is the fact that no other job can give you the excitement and anticipation of what a new day brings.
In a way, an Imagineer's job is like someone's imagination, it can only take you as far as what you can think of. Michel happily shares that he "can wake up and have a meeting with somebody from horticulture and talk about trees, then the next hour it’s about the music recording and when does it take place; then the next meeting is about our audio-animatronic figures, like there’s an animation of an arm that needs to be adjusted so that the robot would work better. Then the next meeting could be about the pavement, like what type of stone are you going to have in the land so like I said, a spectrum of all you can think of to make a land like this grow. (So), it’s really broad. It also makes it really fun."