march 1, 2008
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Approved Vendor, n. (Return
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Art Director, n. (Return
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Audience-ize, v.
But
in our mass attendance, modern 'A-GoGo world, all entertainment must,
by design, be for a big audience. Sure, individual stuff is nice and we
are always shooting off our collective mouths about "touch-screen
interactives" and individual immersive VR Freak-O-Scopes, and like
that. But when we start to look at the numbers of visitors, guests,
customers or whatever nomenclature best describes those eager humans
you hope to attract, unless you plan to make these "individual" events
spectacularly boring (as is often requested by some of the more serious
museum/National Park Visitor Center types of clients), you are going to
have long lines and fairly pissed off people who aren't going to be in
a good mood and will not buy lots of stuff like coffee mugs and
T-shirts in the gift shops.
But
there are so many cool things that are intended for use by one person
at a time! So, what to do? Just say "Audience-ize it, please!"
Audience-izing, v.
Touch-screen
interactives? Sure you can still have 'em, but now you add a bunch of
slave monitors so that all the people standing nearby can become a part
of the experience (which, considering how lame most touch-screen
interactive stuff can be, it's not that much less an experience).
Immersive
VR? Dump those dazzling images on a big domed screen and instead of
having one person decide "on the fly" what to do, have the audience
make choices before the experience begins and then let the show roll
out from there.
Jaglom-Fest? Dunno . . . we'll work on it. Maybe a simulator-base theatre or
free beer or something.
Anyway,you get the idea. Or as the Romans would have said had it been an
issue: "E Unum Pluribus."
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While
it is true that big budgets in and of themselves can't spawn
creativity, tiny budgets can easily kill it.
By
and large, budgets are scientifically based on vague financial
assumptions that are themselves usually vaguely based on what some
vice-president wants to be true, what the client wants to hear, or what
the marketing gurus have divined is the absolute minimum amount on
which any given project can be cheaped through and still allow them to
draw their astronomical fees.
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Budget, v. (Return
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Budget Rot, v.
Budget rot happens slowly, sneaking up on you like, well, like rot: a
slight reduction in this part of the project there, a minor downward
adjustment of the budget in that part of the project there, and so on.
Much less painless, at first, and can actually seem like a
"fun" challenge ("fun" here
being defined very loosely) and produces something of a "how
to boil a frog" kind of situation, with you and your bottom
line being the frog.
Rather than all of your money going away early on (OK, your
client's money of which you may someday get a small taste to
do wild things like pay the well-past 30 days net invoices from the
freelancers or, better, go out and recharge your Starbucks card),
budget rot happens as the project continues, making it harder and
harder to readjust your continuing work to meet the slowly narrowing
chute through which it is passing.
Budget rot is one of the reasons you hear people at the free booze
mixers at IAAPA and AAM, when crowing about their latest and greatest
project success, comment as the tequila hits their cerebellum,
"Jee-zus! Another success like that, and I'm
screwed."
Catering, n.
The
most important elements in a creative charette? 5 X 7 cards? Check. A
big box of those deadly, 1/2 inch long metal push pins? Sure. Lots of
multi-colored marking pens? OK. Endless pads of foolscap sketch paper
for the concept artists to quick-draw nasty caricatures of the finance
and R & D people? Well, yeah. A cadre of eager, imaginative,
very creative, culturally / pop-culturally attuned individuals who each
brings to that "swirling maelstrom of concept that must be navigated
around if a cohesive design, educational and / or entertainment
experience may be crafted to further the delight, the imaginations, the
intellects, the emotions, and the viscera of the public and turn a buck
for the client? Uh, well, sure...I guess.
But
if you get all of these elements together in some airless space for
longer than three hours without any hope of sustenance, tempers will
flare, blood sugar will drop, and all that can be expected to come of
it is a sort of half-hearted agreement to think about maybe considering
planning to begin to arrange for a second meeting...as soon as
everybody can fit it into their schedules. And there you are on the
phone to the client hemming, hawing and "no, really, it went well. We
are studying the matter in greater detail, that's all" for all you are
worth.
But dangle the opportunity and grabbing a smoked turkey and Swiss on
sourdough, dill pickle slice, bag of Kettle chips, Peach Snapple, and a
couple of Macadamia nut and white chocolate cookies in front of them,
and you own their souls, if not the hearts and/or minds,
for at least another 3 hours. And having been fed, the room will at least feel
the vaguest sort of obligation to, if not produce something today, at
least have something worth looking at the next time, provided there is
catering there, too.
Or
as the Second String Yog Sogoth of So-Cal once observed: if you feed
them, they will come."
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Charette, n.
Based around the
central notion of
"brainstorming," in which all ideas are equally valid (except for those
of the boss or the Übber-client, whose ideas always carry
slightly more weight -- "golly! Another homerun, sure fire
crowd-pleasing hit, Sir!), participants, once given a basic framework
from which to begin (the creation of a new attraction, for example),
begin to offer up elements that could possibly become a part of the
ultimate product (the new attraction, for example). A seemingly
scattergun approach (which, after doing this sort of thing for a while,
is what many people begin to fantasize using on some of the more
obnoxious attendees of the charette) that sometime proves the notion of
a orderly universe as seen in the chaos theory. That is, when you throw
a lot of crap at a wall with sufficient force (or conviction, which,
when the other definition of this word is considered, is what keeps
those scattergun thoughts to a minimum), actual huckleberries might be
produced. Or at least enough of the illusion of a result can be
imagined as to allow the participants to go away and not feel like
complete bandits for billing at their full day rate what has been, in
essence, a catered bull session.
The average
charette usually begins with
coffee, juice and Danish, a quick rehash of what the work that the
participants have been doing lately (embellishments, half truths, and
career-enhancing white lies), their golf games (outrageous
embellishments, quarter truths, and handicap-enhancing over the top
lies).
The substance of
the charette is usually a
matter of the participants recycling
stuff that they've done for other clients, stuff that they'd tried to
get other clients to do, but had been declined because that client
chose not to bankrupt themselves for the same of this stroke of genius
(the philistines!), stuff they'd seen at IAAPA, stuff they'd seem at
AAM, stuff they'd seen at the "Thus Spake Zarathustra Goofy Gold and
Batting Cages" in Blackwell, TX, or stuff they saw in an episode of
"McGyver." All this is carefully worded to make it not sound like an
complete rip-off, but rather a creative "repurposing," dutifully
written on the endless supply of 5 X 7 cards, and stuck up on the wall.
The secret is to move quickly and not get
bogged down. Supposedly, this is to stop the "gatekeeper" "jeez, I
dunno you guys . . ." thinking that is death to creativity. However,
the real reason is to fill up the wall with as many cards as possible
so that it looks like something was actually done before it's time for
the next important part of the charette: lunch. As soon as the charette
participants catch Chinese Chicken Salad and roast beef and sprouts on
whole wheat pita whiff and hear the exciting "clink" of bottles of
Snapple being set out, well, you might as well forget about it.
Lunch over, and the
minds of the
participants floating on a thick layer of corporate-supplied chow, the
charette kicks into the long, low, hellish slide toward the end. The
vague ideas and half notions from the morning are reexamined and found
to be, uh, well . . . kinda off the mark. But that's OK, as now begins
the process of discarding parts that just don't stick (the lame-o,
trite, and tired stolen ideas suggested by others), re-pitching stuff
that was really, really liked (their own repurposed ideas), and coming
to the realization that within a few hours, they'll have to pretend
with a straight face that they actually CAN see the germ of a workable
concept emerging.
As this process
continues, a palpable
lethargy will settle onto the room like a woolen blanket soaked in
mercury, and there is a real danger of the charette disbanding for lack
of an awake quorum. That's when another of the vital elements for a
charette that doesn't end in fisticuffs should arrive: plates of
sugar-rich cookies and other sucrose-blast inducing goodies.
If possible, a
charette should end shortly
after the last cookie has been shoved into the ravenous maw of one or
more of the participants, preferably at a time that is late enough in
the day as to allow all and sundry in attendance to acknowledge that,
by God, some good, solid creative work was done here today, damn it!
yet still allow every one to get the hell away from there and home (or
to the bar at El Coyote) earlier than usual.
Not unlike the
Black Hole of Calcutta,
except with people in nifty PDAs, logoed polo shirts, and with titles
like "Director of Wacky," (usually burned out marketing people who had
worked a couple of summers as a rubberhead walkaround character at
Waldemeer Park), the goals of any charette are an array of
synergistically created concepts . . . and personal survival.
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Char-etiquette, n.
One may not know
what the rules of char-
etiquette may be, but they will always know it when they have been
violated.
A few examples of
char-etiquette may be:
Violators of these
rules of char-etiquette
make find themselves not being invited to charettes, being made to sit
in the old, icky chairs in the conference room, or getting stuck with
an abnormally large and largely un-expense accountable bar tab.
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Client, n.
2.) Clients are the people with the money. That's usually their one claim
to any kind of value. Money. That, or they have access to somebody
else's money that may or may not come your way directly (money that you
had to whine, scream, and threaten legal action about, burning up more
hours than you actually worked on the client's project to finally get)
or indirectly as the honest-to-goodness working budget
for your client's project. Or, it may not exist at all, but was only a
financial carrot to get you to cough up a lot of creative effort so
that the client can go out and find money with the results of your hard
work. Or they may tell you that yes, money will be on it's way real, real
soon, but in the meanwhile, how's about some work on spec and we Swear
To Gawd that when this thing gets funded you, and you alone, will be
handcuffed to it clear through to opening and beyond.
3.) Clients are also very often liars. Clients will tell you, swear to you,
grab you by the lapels and scream into your sallow face that what they
want is something new! Different! Exciting! Innovative! Creative! Edgy,
for Gawd's sake...EDGY
when what they really want is something that won't cause them to have
to think or, worse, have the courage to do anything about it that is
even the slightest bit differently than they've always done.
4.) Clients are the ones who don't know what they want, but know that it
isn't what you're showing them. Clients are the people who when they
don't now what they want , are certain that what you are showing them
isn't what they want, would rather die than tell you what they want and
when backed into a corner as they reviewing your first round of
treatments / drawing / plans / whatever, will avoid the issue of their not
knowing what they want and, more importantly, not even being able to
express coherently what it is that they really want or what it is about
what you've shown them that isn't quite right, will suddenly become
fixated on the one (or three) typos in your documents, an incidental
"just to show the scale of things" character in an illustration that
looks sorta-kinda like maybe Richard Nixon in a clown suit, or some
obscure code violation that your plans might incur if they weren't
"preliminary to being preliminary" and might actually be in the works
to someday get built.
5.) Clients are the inattentive gatekeepers between you and getting a job
done in a manner that'll make the work worthwhile. They are the
pontificating know-nothings (or, worse,
know-just-enough-to-screw-things-up) who, unable to articulate what it
is that they think they need,
will lecture you endlessly about what they don't want ("Hey, look, were
don't want Disneyland
here!").
6.) Clients are very often fronts for still other clients, dropping you yet
one more layer away from the real source of what passes for authority
and money. It's a rare day when you don't find yourself working for not
one client, but for many: the people who may or may not eventually pony
up some cash to rent your fading genius is actually in the employ of
someone else, usually a much larger client, someone who you'd really
rather be working for but your client, like a cloud passing between the
sun and your tan, is soaking up their own hunk of the financial rays,
giving you just the burn. This relationship can be beneficial,
especially if you can get your middleman client to pay up before the
giant, übber-client goes bust or realizes that rather than
giving away duffel bags of cash to a bunch of arts-fartsy designers,
they rather simply embezzle it themselves. Don't think of working your
ass off for a middleman client (who will take all the glory if what you
do is worth a damn) as a complete waste (albeit, hopefully, a well-paid
waste) of your time, think of it as a crypto-audition for the
übber-client ("Gee, Mr. Soze, as it turns out, I actually did
all that work for you. Of course, you shoulda seen it before they
dehumorized it . . . don't know what they where thinking . . .")
7.) Clients are necessary and unavoidable evil, like the Death Penalty,
souvenir logo plastic cups, Lifetime on cable, or "American Idol."
8.) Clients are your best friend on the face of the planet, especially when
the check finally arrives, the project actually opens and you get
invited to the opening, or when the phone rings and they ask (ask,
mind you) if you have some free time because, wow, they're really, really
gonna need your style, talent, expertise, and vast knowledge of
pop-culture on this week-long charette in the Bahamas at your full fee
plus travel.
Gosh . . . clients are
sooooo great (especially when their check clears).
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Concept Design, n. or v.
The end result of concept design presents guests (or visitors or users or audience members or whatever nomenclature is applicable and acceptable) with a mediated kit of experiential elements — the intended story, message, lesson, or experiences — over which they can imagine their personal schema that allows them to take ownership of the larger story (or lesson or experience) and see themselves as being at the center of that story or experience.
Concept design is more than assembling a kit of ideas to tell a story and create some experiences. It's about developing a deep understanding of who the guests are, what they want and need, what they've already done ("already" being anywhere from previous 2 seconds to, possibly, the previous span of their lives) before they arrive at a place, what they want and need to do while there, what the "story" (or client, as the case may be) wants them to do, and how they will leave it behind to move on to their next thing.
Namely, to go and spend more money in the gift shop than they originally intended.
Consultant, n.
Consultants
are often the same thing as a freelancer (a qualified employee who a
design group should hire as a full-time employee, but would rather
exploit and/or be exploited by for generally short-sighted economic
reasons), but not always. In these days of modern times, the notion of
"consultant" has come to imply (with a frequency that roughly matches
the overall decline in the fortunes of the themed entertainment world)
either someone whose powers and abilities far outstrip those of mere
garden variety freelance talents or that they Offer A Certain Magical
Something That No Others In The Entire Themed Entertainment World Can
Match, Even At A Lower Price.
On
what do consultants consult? Anything and everything, from more of less
"real" services (writer, producer, designer, colourist, architect,
composer. etc.) to stuff that only the most gullible of clueless VPs
would think was worth the while to spend their money on (Entertainment
Trends Futurist, RDE Integration Engineer, Retail Experience
Enhancement Technician, and, the classic, Story Guru. There are others,
but we are using those titles in our current incarnation as
consultants. When we've worn them out, we'll let you know).
Consultants
shouldn't be confused with "charlatans," but even we have to admit that
there are times when it's difficult to tell the real-deals from the
self-designated "geniuses." But before we get all high and/or mighty on
this subject, we might want to remember that there is hardly a
freelancer/consultant who hasn't at least for a brief and
well-calculated moment during a meeting, has slipped into charlatan
mode. It's in the nature of the biz, I guess.
The announcement of
descoping usually
happens after you have been lulled into a false sense of security by
endless claims from the people who have all the money that you should
"dream big!" Well, you do and then it turns out that isn't
what was wanted at all. Oops.
Descoping is not
usually a good thing. Darn
it, it's never a good thing.
Except when it
happens to a project or
design (or whatever) that you let slide while you were busy working on
more fun stuff and letting the descoped whatever slide. Or if it
happens to your rival, that rat bastard who thinks that they are such a
"design god"
and always gets a good table (near the exit, back where the water park
rowdies sit) at the THEA Awards . . .
DeScoping should not be confused with Muntzing, the process of finding not the biggest solution to a creative challenge, but the right solution.
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Disneyland, n.
So
many times over the years, clients have said during discussions about
different projects (and this has even been the case with conventional
theme entertainment forays) "Hey, we don't want Disneyland, here." If
the subject at hand is one of budget, your inner monologue is "well, of
course not, you cheap bastard!" while saying aloud "We understand.
Fiscal responsibility is our middle name!" (prompting the clients'
inner monologue to reply "well, of course it is, you cheap bastards!").
When it is on the subject of show elements and presentation, and guest
experience, however, I am often prompted to think (never yet to say out
loud . . . ) "OK, fine. What part of Disneyland don't you want?
The well developed 'environment-as-story?' The attention to detail? The
concern for human needs? The over-arching desire to treat the guests as
the 'first-person' central characters in engrossing and memorable story
experiences? The cleanliness? The long term repeatability? The
long-term profitability? You tell me, and we'll make sure that doesn't
happen here."
OK,
OK . . . we both know that what the client/check writers are
saying (by and large) is that they don't want a sanitized, simplified,
single-dimensional . . . whatever it is that is being done (I've
also noticed that people who bring up the negative "Disneyland" shtick
also want you to know -- by Gawd! -- that what they have in mind is
SERIOUSNESS! and not something, well, that just there for people to
enjoy). Those sorts of people are often the same types who use phrases
like "new contextual model" and "re-paradigming the audience
experience" and "cutting edge." High Priests/Priestesses of Museums and
their lower rent cousins, the members of the visitor center bund.
And
OK, OK, knowing what they mean we should (when we have to) acknowledge
that it is easy in the exhibit/entertainment racket to get caught up in
the sizzle and forget that the steak is still in the freezer and that
we haven't even bothered to light the bar-b-que.
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Edgy, adj.
When
applied to design or the desired attitude for an attraction or show or
something, it seems to indicate that what is wanted is a wee bit
dangerous, a tad avant-garde, and something that might actually
challenge an audience's placid notions of how whatever this sort of
thing is normally encountered.
The
freak shows at Lollapalooza? Edgy.
All
too often, however, "edgy" doesn't really mean anything. Like
"interactive," it's the sort of word that is too often used by suits
and assorted other almost, but not quite creative, "dull chumps in
custom-tailored suit" types when they want to challenge the actual
creative folks (see the description above of the guy with the golf ball
eyes) to give them something that is a bit out of the ordinary, but not
too out of the ordinary. Actually, most of the tooth-grinding creative
folks would pay cash money if they had any to actually work on
something that was, in reality, edgy. But whenever they mistakenly
stray into the parking lot of "EdgyLand Country, Safari," the
edgy-wanna-bes give 'em the old "Whoa! Down, there, big fellah! I mean,
fun's fun, and all that, but jeez; we got a family audience here. And
we'd like to actually show a profit on this sucker. What have you guys
been smoking, anyways?"
It's
that constant challenge to make things edgy but not really that makes
edgy people edgy.
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Fun, n. "What
this wants to be is . . . fun."
Sure,
themed entertainment being, by name anyway, half entertainment (and the
other half that ever-elusive thing called "theme") would seem to imply
that there is supposed to be an element of "fun" involved. Right: not
everything entertaining (in the wider world of entertainment, themed
and otherwise) is supposed to be "fun." "Who's Afraid of Virginia
Wolff" is entertaining, but "The George and Martha: 'Get the Guests'
Stunt Spectacular" is one project that if it should occur to anyone to
suggest it, had better be ready to hear only the faintest of snickers
from the creative team and a stony, hostile silence from the marketing
people. No: the entertainment in themed entertainment, by and large,
tends to be the happy, wacky, "well, I'll be dig-dang-doggled" sort of
entertainment. That is to say: fun.
And
at the outset of a project, that's certainly the intention, isn't it?
Everybody, without necessarily talking about what "fun" is, will all
heartily agree, just before they swoop down on the deli trays of
stuffed pita sandwiches, bags of Kettle Chips, and bottles of Dannon
water, that when all is said and done, the mission of this
attraction / parade / ride / retail facility / buffet-eria / whatever should be
to (and here's a bit over-themed speak for you) "engender a sense of
playfulness, of wonder, of delightful release, of...well, yes,
gentlemen and ladies, of fun in the left, right, front, and even the
ancient lower "lizard" lobes of our guest's brains. A good morning's
work. Now, let's hit them stuffed pitas!"
But
as has been seen elsewhere, along with the dignity of the creative
team, the one element most consistently whittled away at between that
first bite of Rumanian Chicken Salad and opening day, is the over-all
"fun" content. Well, fine, to be fair, it's usually no so much whittled
away at, but redefined
into all-but oblivion. On day one, it's all "engendering" and
"playfulness" and "wonder." Then the "experts" (insert the demon of
your choice: finance people, marketing people, designers with an
art/architecture school ax to grind, concept people with a
finance/marketing/designer ax to grind, or the über-client
(whom or whatever they may be) who Just Don't Freaking Get It And
Haven't Since Day Freaking One, begin to decide that what's fun for a
group of people hopped up on Kettle Chips isn't going to be always fun
for the guests.
Sometimes,
this redefinition happens in secret, as a
writer / artist / architect / whatever, toiling away in their workspace,
makes little "alterations" to the over-all idea to suit whatever
curious entertainment / professional agendas they might have. Yet other
redefinition is more out in the open, more along the lines of "Hey,
isn't all this (fill in the blank: story, design, safety, non-marketing
material) just a lot of filler? I'm not saying we need to get rid of
all of it, just a little . . . for the good of the show-value and the
bottom line" And, indeed, a little gets snipped off of the scope and
the world doesn't come to an end. But in time these post-pita decisions
add up and what was once envisioned as the most entertaining, engaging,
fun
thing in the whole wide THEA Award Winning world, is, well, very often
less than fun.
In
the museum / historical site / visitor center venue world . . .
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Interactive, n. or v. In
a nutshell, "interactivity" has to do with the audience thinking they
are making choices in the flow of a story or experience in an
entertainment setting. The few workable attempts to do this have met
with horror and end up desperately "dumbed down" by the lower level
suits and upper level (i.e. the something to lose crowd) creative
types. They seem to think that anything like this will be expensive
(well, yeah, kinda...) but more importantly they fear that they will be
somehow losing control of the "guest experience" (that is, made useless
by some sort of technology that will allow the guests to make the
creative decisions without their steady and experienced entertainment
hands at the wheel).
This
is hogwash: it's still all gotta come from the fevered brains of the
middle-level creative types to begin with, whatever the interactive
elements are to be. Any and all stories that any non-LSD altered guest
experiences is, at any one time, linear. The "interactivity" is just an
added story device, albeit a nifty one, if you actually get to do it.
Kinda.
Hard to describe. Here, I've made a detailed flow chart. No, wait!
Where are you going? C'mon, just have a look! it's really easy to
understand! Hello?
Like
the word "edgy," "interactive" says so little, requires the creative
types to really bust their butts, and is something everybody thinks
about but nobody can clearly define. And it can keep the suit/wanna-bes
from getting fired if their superiors don't like what the creative come
up with it because interactivity, like pornography, is in the eye of
the beholder and is something a suit "just knows when they see it."
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Project Director, n.
Queue, n.
But of
course, the whole "queue" thing is an issue to us living the wild
themed entertainment life when it's viewed in terms of "human use
issues." For example:
Somebody Else (speaking to you, the theme park tourist-zombie): "Hey! Is it really a two
hour wait?"
You (perking up): Aw, it ain't that
bad!"
The
secret of the successful queue is to not only get lots and lots and
lots of THRC-ers
into your attraction (or whatever) and out of the way of the people
behind them, ad nauseam (especially in the 99% humidity after several
orders of funnel cake), but to do so in a way that won't make the
guests viewing the attraction see an endless line of people who
probably didn't have the good fashion sense to dress to match the
carefully created design of the façade instead of the
expensive art direction of your expensive art director. You also don't
want their first thought upon entering the deceptively short-appearing
queue that they are in for a seeming death march on their way to fun,
fun, fun!
The
other secret: tell the people that it is going to be a longer wait that
it really will be. This both covers you in the event of a pesky
"101"/temporary shut-down slowing the move towards exhilaration and if
all goes well, when the guests get to the attraction "ahead of
schedule," they feel like they got a little something
extra . . . at no extra cost, muss, or themed fuss.
No
matter what your personal thoughts on the role and value of a preshow
might be, the first thing your guests will do (or so you hope) before
experiencing your blockbuster attraction is stand in a line. A
repetitive "first day of college registration-style" back-and-forth
zigzag may satisfy the needs the just getting people into a controlled
situation, but at what cost? Jeez, you already got their dough so at
least pretend like you don't want 'em all to live lives of quiet
desperation as they head toward the pay-off. Vary the route a bit. Give
'em something to look at besides just the sweaty back of the guy in
front of 'em and the ratty little kid that keeps pushing them from
behind while they attempt to make eye contact with the astonishingly
ginchie person behind/in front of them in the queue who they pass every
few minutes or so as they both slowly make their ways along.
And
a little shade would kill ya, or the guests, either.
2.) The use of the word. (Return
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Scope Creep, n.
More often than not, these are the sorts of services one might possibly
be sorta-kinda expected to have originally provided under the terms
originally set between you and the client (often called a
"contract" or "scope of
services;" sometimes a fancy-shmancy well-typed document, but
might also be a legally binding thing like a hastily scribbled list on
damp cocktail napkin). "Might possibly,"
"sorta-kinda," yes, but because nobody knew that
they'd be needed, or the client didn't want them
and/or you couldn't convince your client to pony up the dough
for them, or you needed to cut your contingency percentage to less-than
zero to fake a workable budget, they weren't included.
Ah, but now you are in the thick of things, working like the
cutting-edge design and development worker bee you are to meet all of
the "Geez, if we only had one more week . . ." deadlines.
Suddenly, the phone rings or the e-mail window
beeps and it's the client with a little, simple, no big deal
request: an extra concept line drawing, a new version of a treatment
with the name of a prospective sponsor casually worked into the
narrative (". . . As guests stroll across the drawbridge
toward the Great Hall of Valhalla, huge animatronic figures of Geirrod
and Ymir threaten them with fearsome growls. But not so
fearsome as to cause the guests to spill their properly iced Pepsi Ones
in their Keyspan Energy Norse Legends Land Park logoed
cups.").
"All for the good of the
project," says the client, with an eye toward their own
bottom line.
'All for the project," you
say to yourself and your protesting co-theme drones, "all for
the good of, you know, uh . . ."
And, yes, at first it is for the good of the project, and, yes it is no
big deal.
At first.
But, as mentioned above, this
is a slow and certain process, and after that first "oh, why
not?" come more "little, simple"
requests.
And more and more and . . . and suddenly, you find
that you are missing real deadlines to make way for these
"Oh, yeah, one other thing" mini-deadlines and that
your fellow drones have gone from being over-worked, under-paid coffee
and doughnut sponges to insanely over-worked, vastly and cruelly
underpaid victims of a life not of our own making (sort of).
Is there a cure for scope creep? Hell yes! Putting your
foot down with the client from day one!
Hell, before day one,
you wimps!
Be bold! Kick pre-charette contract
negotiation ass! Why the hell not?
Gawdamn it, you are the seasoned professionals here,
right? And your clients, well, they are the
amateurs! If not, why do they need to come crawling to you
for your expertise (this notion works best, by the way, if you
completely forget about the endless desperate proposals you went so
deeply into debt to present to the client to get this gig in the first
place.
Where was I? Oh, yeah: putting your foot down with the client.
Yes, sure, right: you should do it; you should be strong and insistent
about the terms of your contracts to prevent the usually innocently
beginning scope creep from eating away at your brain, integrity, and
your own bottom line.
However, in these days of modern
economic times, when the huge, huge design and development dollars are,
well, not so huge not no more, and you find yourself not unlike some
big doofus with a pick up truck who knows full-well that the beach
babes are only talking to you because they are moving to a better
apartment and need someone to haul their furniture.
But, hey! Somebody seeing you hefting their stuff might think that
even though you are a doofus, you are hanging with beach babes and are
not such a doofus after all (this analogy makes more sense if you
substitute the name of your design group for
"doofus," your client you are pretending is
high-profile for "beach babes," and the wobbly
second-hand desks in your office for "pick up
truck").
Gad, but what about all that extra, creeping scope that pushed you to
the brink of financial, moral, and spiritual bankruptcy? If
you are still alive when the project goes out the door and still have a
door for it to go out through, you can justify it by thinking to
yourself that it'll look great on the "Projects
& Clients" page on your Website: lots of extra
pictures and/or "project features" to trumpet to
the milling rubes who've dialed you up for a look.
Nobody need know how badly you got bitch-slapped by scope creep to
provide the eager design and development seekers all that additional
second-hand online content.
Now, uh, any chance we could have a second version that
doesn't mention Pepsi? You know, just in case the Stay Free Maxi Pad people return our
call? No big deal: "all for the good of the project!"
Thanks . . . you chump!
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THRC, n.
Theoretically,
"THRC" stands for:
Don't
let the word "rider" confuse
you. Sure, it's the kind of number very often associated with, well,
"rides." But that just shows off it's roots as having come from the
pre-nomenclaturally correct days when much of our themed world was
centered around "rides" as opposed to "attractions" or "immersive
guests experiences," or whatever we've convinced our bosses and/or
clients is the jargon pâtí of the day. "Theoretic"
because
it assumes that there are going to be at least the X number of people
that the THRC describe clambering to zip through this nifty attraction.
Ordinarily,
THRC is (when the first
two definitions are used) a shorthand by which an attraction can be
described in the most basic terms of it's size and the nature of the
experience. The definition of "attraction" here is a pretty loose
thing: ride, museum, theatre, whatever: any place that will have people
in it and moving through it. So, something with a low THRC is a small
attraction and something with a high THRC is a large attraction.
Simple . . . or not.
To
be all account-erly about it,
it's also a way of defining the budget for this thing. An attraction
with a price-tag of $600,000 that is designed to have a THRC of 2100
(2100 people, theoretically, moving through it in an hour) is a "home
run, great idea." 2100 THRC is what is usually considered to be the
minimum for an "E Ticket," or "really, really bitchen'" attraction. And
600 large for that is going to be considered a really great price.
However, an attraction with, say a bottom line of $180,000,000 that can
only handle a THRC of, say, 700 may make for some nifty concept, but
you don't want to be there when the Bean Counters take the boss/client
aside and inform them that you have your creative team head up your
creative team keester.
Speaking of our good pals in the
otherwise known as the Finance
People (also known as "Bean Counters," also known as "Them freakin' money bags kill-joys. I mean, c'mon, it ain't like it's their money, you know," also know as . . . well, stuff that'd make my blush if'n I were to type it), it is usually they who invoke the third definition of THRC:
"The Horrible Realities Conundrum." See, spending money to make money
is an odd idea to these people (don't even try to get the "spending
money to provide quality entertainment" argument past them. This notion
was suppressed in them as a part of their receiving their MBAs) and
they will attempt to squash anything that smacks of spending the
boss' / client's dough for what it was intended: the creation of a
really nifty attraction. One of their first lines of defense against
actually having to expend capital on something that those "pot-smoking
Martians" on the creative team is to damn it through proving that it
makes no sense from the standpoint of the THRC. "Well, OUR numbers show
(and when the Finance people say the word "numbers" people listen 'cuz
they Know From Numbers) (and we all know that number are never wrong)
that this attraction can't possibly
maintain a THRC of more than 1200. That simply won't do for our budget.
It's simply does not represent an adequate cost-to-guest ratio.
Instead, we thing the area would be better served as a themed
retail space / iced latte bar. Here, Mr. Iger, have a look at these numbers . . ."
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Vendor, n.
Vice President, n.
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Weenie, n.
A "weenie" is the long-distance
attention-grabbing device; the thing that catches the eye and draws a
guest (or sucker, depending on your sense of who and what those
"starved for entertainment" people with money in their pockets are)
deep into an area.
More
than a marquee, the design or
contextual framing of an area that helps to define it as a separate
place, the weenie should usually be back inside the area, rising above
everything else, drawing the guests back to their entertainment doom.
The marquee should act as the frame for the weenie, creating for the
guests an immediate, snapshot, right brain picture of what the place as
all about.
Brightly
colored and lit things are
good. Spinning things are better. Brightly colored and lit things that
people can ride on or get food, beverage, or merchandise from (or all
three) are best.
As
a concept, "weenie" is a
marvelous device for designing a themed area of any sort. Better still,
it's a great bit of jargon to spring on a client if they aren't
familiar with the term? "Did you say 'weenie?"" Snort, chuckle. Later:
"Then, of course, we'll need a good view of the 'weenie.'" Sly smirk in
your direction.
Client's
like saying the word
"weenie" (see also Lenny Bruce on "Blah-blah-blah"). They think it's
cute and will make fun of it seemingly at your expense. Let 'em. It's a
solid design concept described with a junior high school giggly term.
And it just shows them that you exist in a world of nomenclature that
they can visit, but are not a full-time part.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Etc.
A vendor worth enough to be worth suing. Paid scapegoat for Project
Directors. Sure, half the stuff that you get or get done through
outside vendors could be done in-house at the same or at a possibly
much lower price (and with a lot less paper work). The real value of
vendors is that they come custom-equipped with a "kick Me!" sign taped
to their back and an almost masochistic nature, at least until the
contract is done and the check clears.
Not to be trusted (take their drawings and run). Sometimes very
charming (to the point of being, well, scary about it). Moe often,
these Joes and Janes are geniuses -- GENIUSES! - of the highest order,
and if you don't think so, just ask 'em, they'd be happy to remind you
of how they and they alone have set the standard for all themed
entertainment design (and stage, film, internet, fashion, automotive,
and cardboard six-pack carrying case design, as well). But, of course,
you won't have to ask them, because it is in their natures (and, it is
rumored, drilled into them in art school) to automatically remind you
of their genius every 30 or 40 seconds, sooner if your client is within
earshot. Keep them around if you have no vendors.
Just
as there are two kinds of people in the world (people who think there
are two kinds of people and those who don't), it can be said that there
are two kinds of entertainment. There are those kinds experienced by a
single person at a time (like reading, playing an interactive computer
game, immersive virtual reality, or attending a Henry Jaglom film
festival), and those that can be experienced by a group of people,
often called an "audience." These activities can include reading a book
on a crowded subway, playing an interactive computer game in a crowded
office on a Friday afternoon, theorizing about what we could do with
immersive virtual reality if it wasn't so damned expensive, or
attending a . . . no, sorry, Henry, I still don't see the
"audience" thing there . . .
The process (or, more usually the promise to begin the process) of
taking some really cool thing that is ordinarily a one person activity
and making it satisfyingly available for a mass audience.
Theoretically hard and fast rules about how little a slice of the project pie it is
with which the creative-types will be allowed to work, ruling how much
honest-to-goodness cash you can squeeze out of a project, how insanely
little time they'll
have to it that squeezing, and, usually, how little "wiggle room" there
will be for miscellaneous perks (such as boondoggles, "three pitcher of
Margaritas" charettes, research materials from Amazon.com that find
there way into your personal library, and the over-all tonnage of
Chinese chicken salad that can affordably be consumed) that the project
can be made to blow your way. For the most part, budgets, once set, do
not get larger, being as they are set in stone. However, the stone in
which they are set has the ability to weather away from mighty
boulder-size to annoying pebble in your shoe-size in a surprisingly
short amount of time (see also: DeScope). Rarely do these amazing
shrinking budgets have an effect on such things as the number of
director-level and above fingers that are slipped into the project pie.
The
practice of managing time and activity to maximize effort in the most
efficient manner. This, of course, a terrible myth created by
over-achieving speed freaks and those Franklin bullies: Covey and
Daytimer.
The curious habit of money that you haven't even gotten yet,
but have probably already spent, slowly but surely disappearing.
Similar, in the end, to the dreaded "descope," but
unlike the heinous post-first client presentation "OK,
that's great. But as it turns out, we will only be able to
fund this sucker at about 55% of what we had thought. But
we've got to keep selling it as if it was a big deal, so what
are you going to do to keep all the bang for way, way fewer bucks,
punk?" type of descoping.
By the time you realize that you have no money to actually do what
you've been working on, it's too late to gracefully
attempt to reorganize the project (because, so far as you could tell,
there was no reason to worry about things before because then there was
money!).
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Food;
usually deli platters of half sandwiches, bags of chips, bowls of pasta
and/or Chinese chicken salad, and a platoon of cans of (mostly) diet
soda and squat bottle-upon-bottle of Snapple or some other well
marketed flavored ice tea in a bottle (and thank God for these kinds of
drinks for keeping in our little lives the glory that is the Kiwi
Fruit). Also: mounds of "afternoon sugar fix-ers" such as cookies,
brownies, and, if the caterer has a proper sense of the
otré, a gooey mound of marshmallow squares or individual
boxes of Boston Baked Beans candies. Catering, however, comes in all
shapes and sizes and can be as grand as Sterno-heated steamer trays
filled with beautifully prepared (albeit still rubbery) chicken breasts
in a pine nut and white wine sauce nestled on a bed of lightly
sautéed spinach, artichoke hearts, and okra or as basic as
"Gee-zus! I am dying here! Will somebody just freakin' call Nino's and
order up a couple 'a extra-large pies, extra cheese. Yeah, yeah, and a
medium Veggie pizza for the facilities guys."
Ostensibly a means to channel creative
effort in order to generate large numbers of ideas through a free-flow
of discussion, charettes are actually a system invented by the
corporate catering and 5 X 7 note card and Sharpie pen supplier bunds.
An ill-defined and
constantly shifting set
of rules that governs the behavior of the participants who are involved
in a creative, planning, or other scheduled event known for no real
reason as a "charette."
1.) A person, persons, or a variety of
institutions who engages you, or your organization, for professional
advice or services.
The evolving process (as in, a process that is allowed to evolve to meet changing design and project needs as the design is developed in a natural fashion as needed) that brings together diverse sets of factors — personal schema, physical needs, external story or context budget, footprint constraints, personalities of the designers and those for who the design is being executed, the need to mention the client's name early and often, etc. — with the specific intention of presenting opportunities for immersive, first-person (including groups of "first-persons" having individual experiences in a group) multisensory, multischemic experiences.
Schema: mental structures, conscious ideas and unconscious needs. People use their personal schema to organize their knowledge and memories and provide a framework for understanding the world from one moment to the next.
In other words, it's doing whatever it takes to give people a good story to which they can relate, framed by whatever needs are important — setting, message, etc. — to the project at hand.
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Person
or persons who consult, eg. "Why that CONSULTANT was a cost efficient
saviour of creative thought." Also, eg. "Harrumph!
Those . . . those . . . those CONSULTANTS were nothing more
than money wasting charlatans suckling at the themed entertainment
mother hog at our expense!"
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To cut back the
size, budget, purpose,
vision, or all of the above on a project or design (or whatever). While
this sort of thing happens often, it nearly always comes as a nasty
surprise.
The
"Happiest Place on Earth™." The wide spot in the orange
fields of Anaheim, in a crook of the path of the Santa Ana Freeway that
started the themed design revolution (or, more properly, was the
big-bucks, premiered on TV, household name beginning of it) and
jump-started the development of Orange County, CA. The biggest little
theme park in the world! It's what everybody wants, but, with the
exception of a select honest few, what people want you to believe
they'd rather die than be like.
On the verge of being too much, on the verge of being outrageous, on
the verge of going over the edge. As in "I dunno, Sarge, his eyes where
as big as golf balls, he was sweating profusely, bouncing around like a
gerbil in a cocktail shaker, his jaws where clamped together like a pit
bull's on a chunk of frozen Spam, and he was emitting a high whine,
like a caged raccoon at the county fair."
In
the Themed Entertainment world...
"Anybody
having fun isn't learning, nor are they appreciating the historical
significance of this facility. Besides, fun causes lines that are hard
to manage. Non-fun lines are always so much more docile, and a rarity
at best and just the way we like them. Fun may induce our visitors to
run around or raise their voices. I mean, this isn't...Disneyland
(sneer / grimace, word dripping with envious venom), you know! Now stop
smiling and learn, you barbarians!"
Along
with "edgy" and "guest experience," one of the great, over-used,
under-understood concepts currently around in the themed entertainment
field. Usually used by suits or suit wanna-bes who want to say
something that sounds like they know what they are saying and lets
everyone else know that they have some vague idea that something is
needed for the audience to do.
All the responsibility, none of the authority of a vice president. More to be pitied than laughed at.
1.)The thing itself
A queue, as any Anglophile or themed entertainment wonk will tell you,
is a line, rarely pure and never simple. For theme parks, it usually
means a line of people (for those of you in really big offices with
lots of employees and only one laser printer, the whole notion of
"print queue" takes on a different meaning of hell, but I digress) and,
unless it's a line of Brits in a German theme park, it also implies
that there is some sort of stanchion system that directs the people
into the many and various zigzagging configurations that will
efficiently manage their use of space and completely drain them of if
not their wills to live, then certainly their wills to get overly
boisterous or at least too tired to complain until their they reach the
(circle all that apply) show building, ride, parking lot tram, cash
register, buffet-eria, restroom, other.
You (eager theme park guest): "'Wait
from this point: 120 minutes.' Hunh? How can that be? The line starts
right here and I can see it disappearing into the show building right
there and the people look like there are moving along pretty smoothly
(even though the people that are just entering the building kinda look
like theme park tourist-zombies) and I can see almost all of the line,
except for that little sorta dog leg it makes behind the faux-tiki god
trash can set in the lush, largely plastic jungle undergrowth. But
that's like, what, 20 feet of line? No big deal. The sign must be
wrong. C'mon, gang, let's go have some themed and simulated thrills!"
(100 minutes later)
You (theme park tourist-zombie): Must get to show building . . . must get to show
building . . . kill me, please kill me . . .
It's "queue," OK? Not "queue line," fer crying out loud. Unless you are
from the Department of Redundancy Department (or a freaking idiot), you don't need "line"
after "queue." Got it? People who say "queue line" have no damned idea
what they are talking about and therefore shouldn't be trusted or, if
they are the client, be soaked for as much money as possible. Either
that or the use of the phrase "queue line" could be an indication that
the person who said it is hoped up on too much Starbucks or Nyquil or
adrenaline or exhaustion and is thereby a person to be pitied, not
censured. But if they are a client, you should still invoice the heck
out of 'em.
The slow but, oh, so certainly uncertain process of additional work and
services being added to the "hard and fast, set in stone and
in contractual ink" scope of a project.
Usage:
"Nice work, but there's
just no way. As you know, to be considered an "E Ticket" kinda
attraction, it really needs a HRC of 2100 to meet the standard economic
model. Next!"
1.) "Theoretic Hourly Rider
Count,"
2.) "Total
Hourly Rider
Count,"
or 3.) "The
Horrible Realities Conundrum."
Paid scapegoat for Project Directors. Sure, half the stuff that you get
or get done through outside vendors could be done in-house at the same
or at a possibly much lower price (and with a lot less paper work). The
real value of vendors is that they come custom-equipped with a "kick
Me!" sign taped to their back and an almost masochistic nature, at
least until the contract is done and the check clears.
All the authority and none of the responsibility of presdients. Often referred to as "Seagulls," because of their habits of
making a lot of noise (mostly nonsensical and irritating), crap all
over everything, and then flying off to parts unknown.
Supposedly
coined by W. E. Disney, it
was something he no doubt picked up from all of his carnival
midway / carousel buddies in Santa Monica
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