Foreword


Heading south along Highway 5, from Los Angeles to San Diego, this palm-fringed land in Southern California is home to a number of themed entertainment industries including Six Flags, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm, Disney, Lego World and San Diego Ocean Park. The author studied and worked in Los Angeles. In recent years, he has been fortunate to participate in the design of indoor theme parks in a children's world in China. While sighing at the scale of this indoor project, he also did some research on the domestic indoor theme attractions. The talk is not big, but their experience in operational promotion, storytelling and goal setting may be worth learning.






Today, I will introduce you to an investigation tour of the author, and explore the stories about American indoor attractions from some aspects.


This attraction is owned by Netflix - the strange story maze: Strange Things Maze (hereinafter referred to as STM), the main designer is Universal Creative. The following is the text.


A
Design background introduction


STM is located in Universal Studios. The maze of this maze series is inseparable from the support of Universal Studios and Netflix. Universal Studios on the north side of Hollywood is not so much a theme park, it is more like a film and film studio. What's interesting is that these studios are not static, but are constantly updated according to the needs of the project. This is also in the Universal Studios Park. There is a reason for leaving a development area. This piece of land is adjacent to Hollywood, Beverly, downtown Los Angeles, and Disney's hometown Glendale and Burbank form a stable triangle across the creative land of the north side of Los Angeles.






So when it comes to strange places, there is no doubt that this labyrinth is located in the Universal Studios Park. Where is it? When I took the staff's vehicle along the winding road and passed through many classic movie shooting studios and slowly headed for the destination, we couldn't think of the maze completely indoors, specifically a large 27-foot high studio. Inside - a steel skeleton warehouse, called Universal Studio (Skystage), this studio is located in the northeast corner of Universal Studios Park, and is concentrated with other stages. In the history of Universal Studios Hollywood, STM is the first indoor attraction to use Soundstage (the former Aliens Vs Predators are not officially used in Soundstage). As mentioned at the beginning, Universal Studios is still performing a lot of shooting tasks. This Soundstage numbered 29 is used for the construction of the strange story maze before Steve Harvey has just completed part of the Family Feud mission. The side will be stationed immediately.


As for the reason of using the whole room, the first reason is to avoid the influence of the weather on the scenic spots, and it is more convenient to use the sound and photoelectric equipment in the studio to maximize the performance of the equipment, thereby serving the special effects of the scenic spots; at the same time, due to the large and spacious space, the maze itself It can be done higher. Compared to building a maze at a tent, the height of some core links can be twice as high as before. The larger real-world scale allows visitors to be more intense when approaching the Void lab entrance. Feel the atmosphere of shocking horror; in addition, the whole indoors also facilitate the maintenance and use of the life of the attraction props, not to mention the air conditioning that is particularly important in Los Angeles during the summer. In fact, many indoor parks in China can think of these points. The only difference is that the labyrinth will be dismantled after three months of opening up. The new film studio will be stationed and filmed. The local film and television industry is The use of these Soundstages provides a solid guarantee that as a venue, you don't have to worry about being idle.






The whole story of the labyrinth is highly friendly. It is basically based on the main story of the first season. It is built around the hero's disappearance, the small partner to find, the monster Demogorgon, and Eleven to control the monster. Core scenes, such as the letter wall in the bedroom of the protagonist Will, the groves and huts behind the house, the lab, the classroom, including the van, all appear in the maze. Whether you are a loyal fan or a newcomer (such as me who is here to do my homework for the first night), it's easy to find the prototype in the show and not drop it. The story takes place in the town of Hawkins, Indiana. As soon as everyone enters the maze, you can see the bike damaged by the actor Will, and you will hear the sound team using the walki-talkie (intercom) that is played on the speaker above your head. The cries of the children, using the walkie-talkie audio to let the characters in the play accompany the tourists to visit the maze, is a small highlight of this attraction, because you can't let the 20-year-old actor play the 12-14 year old actor. This is arguably the only realistic solution, but what the tourists really fear in the audio is the sound of Demogorgon (hereafter referred to as the monster). The sound effects team set up different kinds of speakers in this attraction. The entrance preview area is located on the top of the speakers. The story surrounds the surrounding speakers and the speakers in the open sections of the woods are installed in rocks and tree holes. 5.1 surround sound is used. In addition to the special sound clips collected/synthesized by the sound team on weekdays, almost all sound clips and music audio come from the original drama itself.


Realistic attractions are inseparable from the common support of software and hardware. I have to mention the professionalism of the props here. It is said that the general director John Murdy has watched more than 40,000 original drama photos with the art direction team. The interesting details are that the story happened in the 80s, and the eye-catching friends found that some of the props in the maze were produced in the 70s. This is because the protagonist's family is not rich, so the second-hand items used more than a decade ago will be used. So even if the John team has a huge props warehouse in Universal Studios, in order to accurately restore the scene, they still have to use social resources, so whether it is a flea market, the residents sell their yards on weekends, antique shops, or online craiglist, Ebay, the team will use and try to match the description of the original items, like the burnt phone landline, even the paintings drawn by the protagonist himself, and even copy the texture of the wallpaper of the protagonist bedroom in the play.






When you actually enter the maze, you will find that it is more like a single-line sequential play experience than a labyrinth. Some people may ask, in case there are tourists who want to sit in the maze or lie in bed in the maze (similar to IKEA), these have actually been considered, you will see that the staff has placed a lot of sundries on it, you should not I want to sit on it; at the same time, the real actors will let you not want to get close to certain areas through specific positions; every time there will be a live actors or motor models urging everyone to enter the next step, in fact, this is the maze walking class for the thriller theme. This is a bit more convenient, because these push will make the situation more tense, while ensuring the progress of THRC (hour passenger flow). But this also inevitably brings a problem. The design team carefully studied the details of the layout and it is likely to be passed along. Then there is no need to carry out a high degree of restoration. The John team’s answer is this: I imagine that we are about to receive this one. The dead loyalty of the drama, what flaws will be easily found in front of them, and our job is to avoid this happening, give each audience an immersive and highly restored experience, and not let any audience pick out the clues. Give them a surprise at the same time.






Yes, the maze facility is actually very demanding on script creation. It is not easy to refine and place the core story of a play/movie in a 10-minute scenic experience. On the basis of full respect for the original script, the scriptwriter will reorganize the classic scenes in the original drama. In addition to the highly recognizable scenes, the details that fans want to see cannot be less, and they cannot make the new audience feel too strange. Fortunately, such mazes have their own themes, such as horror, magic, parent-child, etc., which invisibly narrows the range of story lines. For example, this strange story basically covers only the first few episodes of the first season. Content, this part also fits the atmosphere of horror night, and in order to achieve such a goal, the team uses a variety of methods: using live actors, sound effects, lighting, motor models, puppets/images and other special effects. Without the assistance of CGI in the film and television drama, it is really necessary to make more efforts to build a physical attraction based on the script, and sometimes it requires more imagination.


Here I think of a scene: there is a place in the labyrinth called UpsideDown (upside down the city). A famous scene in the original drama is the dust particles floating in the air. In order to simulate the closest effect, the creative team tried it. Using ice-making machine to make ice crystal particles, it was too cold and almost suffocating; later tried the fog machine, but found that the fog caused interference to the projection picture. After many failures, they finally found the fiber optic lamp placed on the cotton ball. Suspending it creates an unexpectedly elegant and ethereal effect. This UpsideDown section also became the most expensive part of the John Murdy team, and the interior was also installed in the outside warehouse. Another very characteristic design is: because the monsters in the play and we are living in different dimensions, they are trying to break through the sub-walls into the human time and space. Everyone may remember the new, the kind of distortion caused by the space and space. How to create it in reality? The creative team used the spandex fiber to make a “wallpaper/cloth” on the wall. The excellent ductility makes the monster look very real when it is torn behind the wallpaper, as if it is a distortion of the space.






From the design details back to the construction process, the labyrinth is naturally not screwed onto the concrete floor. The whole facility is built on a wooden foundation. Compared with traditional architects, the theme park architects need to consider the construction process. The impact of equipment vibration on the building itself, including how to support the catwalk (air corridor) layout, roof structure strength and so on. The order of construction should also be noted. For example, if a van is to be placed inside, then the car must be put in first, and the subsequent walls are built around it. How does the Poverty Encounter put the bus from Haiti into the attraction? It is a truth.


Structure construction, the production process of some scene props is also quite interesting, want a paint that does not fade? What materials are used for curtains? How to do fire treatment and so on are all interesting topics. For example, the dark brown shaped structure on the door of Upside Down (laboratory), the general production process is sprayed with Spray Foam (spray foam); after the shape is carved, the texture displayed in the original play is carved out; The next material is more eccentric called Kaos, its function is to make a lot of small holes on the surface of the material; after the basic detail texture process, the staff will pull and shape the material, a bit like tearing the web; when the basic shape is determined After that, it is immersed in the silicone resin for a certain period of time to fix the deformation; after a period of time, it is taken out and air-dried, and the final painting operation is carried out; after standing for a while, it is fixed on the wall, and finally becomes the appearance we have now built. It can be seen that the work of the prop group and the clothing group is not easy. Spectral Motion, which is responsible for monster costumes and masks, spent more than five months from project development to finishing monster costumes and mask making.
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