Marty Sklar. "What is not yet done."

Disney Imagineering President and Disney Legend Marty Sklar passed away recently at 83. He was my boss and we had adjoining offices at Imagineering. Marty was a true survivor, enduring many "adminstrations," each with studio efficiency experts ready to "fix" Imagineering and reorganize the renegade band of disparate talents. Through it all, Marty weathered every storm by explaining to the Studio what we do and we just kept going. I met Marty, not at Disney, but as an 11 year old through his souvenir book describing Disneyland. I must have read it a dozen times as it was the only real inside story of the park, the how and why. Even then he was an inspiration to not just me, but many kids reading it. Having him inscribe the last page at his retirement party meant a lot. Marty's book left this kid sensing the DNA of Walt, it was always about "what is not yet done." Going further. 

Marty's inspirational inscription in his book "Disneyland"

At the Mouse.

Once at Disney Imagineering decades later, Sklar also shepherded many of us designers in our careers, allowing us to experience an "E ticket" thrill ride aboard the "Imagineering Bus", at times in the "front seat" with praise via his legendary "red pen" notes, or the occasional toss "below the wheels" to keep us humble. I especially needed that. Being a rabid UCLA alum, Marty admired Coach Wooden and felt there was no "I" in team, so his mentorship was widespread. He backed ideas you were passionate about without a spreadsheet, like what was to become "Mission:Space" at EPCOT. I laid on my back describing how guests will sense the G Forces of "blast off" and he agreed to fund development! He sensed our passion. His several post-Disney books were also a team effort as he asked many of us to contribute our thoughts. His final work lies unfinished, a design tome called "Mickey's 10 Commandments." He asked me to write something for it a week before he passed, and I was fortunate enough to hear that he wanted to include it. Sadly, that was the last communication we had.  Here it is. 

"The one thing that Marty’s guidelines have always meant to me is that success is fragile. The business we’re in is one of intangibles and there are balance sheets full of the red ink of those who have tried to merely copy the "Disney formula" and failed. Slavishly encrusting shallow “worlds" with detail and ornament, but lacking soul, clarity, or any understanding of how to connect emotionally with their audience. Building places in spite of their guest's dreams, instead of fulfilling them. There is a reason Disneyland has been called a “labor of love” and it is. The detail is not for art’s sake, it’s for your sake because someone wanted the “escape” to suspend your disbelief. The success of theme parks isn’t in getting people to come, it’s getting people to come back. For decades.

I love sitting on a Main Street bench and watching how the guests react, what works and gets a smile and what doesn’t, but they sense that we were all there. To me, "Mickey’s Ten Commandments" was best summarized by Walt himself in a story Marty likes to tell. Walt once explained that the parks were all about "satisfying people’s needs", and he meant emotional needs. Emotional needs are the reason we get up in the morning, they are our dreams for the future. Choosing the right themes to fulfill a hidden aspiration, playing just the right song, or directing the smell of candy into the street to trigger a memory. How do you do that without “knowing your audience” or "being in their shoes”? They sense the care, love, nostalgia, or childlike innocence of a reassuring experience when we do that job sincerely and earnestly, not because it promotes a movie or toy. No doubt Walt knew better than most what he missed about his own childhood and family, and knew how to build an upbuilding family experience that was a “ton of treat" for us to treasure in our own way." 

Marty Sklar meant a great deal to so many people, not just because he worked for Disney, but because he took time to write an encouraging note, listen to your idea, or push you to do your best.  I'm not into deification, as if you're looking for faults in Marty or anyone for that matter, you'll find them. Being none of us are perfect, we look for those outstanding qualities and habits worth admiring, celebrate their positive effects, and build on them.  Now that's Disney!

One could not have a more encouraging leader and inspiration. This was not rare as many Imagineers held on to Marty's "Red pen" notes and comments.

Thanks Marty! 

SSLA applauds Stan Lee becoming first "Icons of LA" award recipient.

Thanks to UCLA Extension's Rosemarie Piccioni I was able to attend an intimate, but highly charged mixer at the Westwood "W" hotel in honor of Spiderman's creator, Stan Lee. The Marvel legend is to receive the first "Icons of LA" award for his cultural contributions and spoke to us about his passion for mutual respect and education. UCLA Extension's Dean Smutz and Lee are committed (as we all are) to reimagining how we learn, and pulling together a diverse group to help make education more experiential. It was a great event to hear Dean Smutz's vision for the future, chime in with some thoughts, and discuss how we can tell better stories and transform them into life lessons. So many great conversations. Thanks to Dean Smutz and Rosemarie for the warm invite. - Eddie Sotto

"Experiential Designer" Yeah, right.

Currently featured on linkedin.

"Experiential designer" was a relatively unknown title when I began using it more than a decade ago. Brooks Branch, a brand guru and client at the time described what I was doing for him as such and so the moniker stuck. For the first few years it had to be explained, but now it's everywhere and might need explaining again. Like "storytelling", "experiential" has spread across the brand landscape like margarine to the point where applying underarm deodorant has suddenly become an "experiential storytelling journey". Yeah, right. 

The Snowjob.

So to that end, it might be relevant to revisit what made Brooks choose that label in the first place. I'm not the traditional "creative". Not being an architect, but designing architecture, not being an acoustician, but creating sonic environments, and not being a screenwriter, but penning brief project narratives, you realize that you're designing spaces as a total experience. Seeing things from every sensory perspective, then using design to immerse guests in a feeling. We certainly take in experiences in real time using all of our senses; so why not design that way? Who makes horror movies without sound? What chef ignores what his meal smells like? It all matters. Just visit a space where something feels kinda "off ", then it's a "de-tuned" experience. But what is an "experience"?

One dictionary described it as "a child's first experience of snow", a sensory feast. You taste it, touch it, crunch it, and watch it blanket a forest. It's bitter cold, it's fractal, and even transforms while melting in your hand, and if you're fast, it's nature's LEGO to erect a Snowman. 

Growing up as a kid in LA with a fascination for places like Disneyland, I longed to escape the gas stations on every corner for alternate "worlds" that were rich and immersive, but not all places made the cut. Fantasy relies on the suspension of disbelief and thematic contradiction trashes it.  Imagine watching a Western only to see a Tesla drive through the scene. The car is a contradiction to that world and breaks whatever spell it had on you. Like seeing a plastic vault door in a bank would cause you to lose trust.  Tiki Bars do immersion well, as those umbrella drinks support the "savage" logic or narrative (or you're too bombed to care.) Venice, Italy is really good at immersing us in its "world". Void of distractions like cars, it's a rat's maze of fractured streets that pay off with grand squares, singing gondoliers, Cappuccino and Campari; all held together by its own crumbling yet harmonious architecture. All in, we get a sense of the Renaissance by immersion. Venice succeeds eternally because of it's seamlessly unique experience (until they add a Marriot.)

Main Street "Discovery Arcade" Disneyland Paris

After being a designer at Disney Imagineering for 13 years, developing "lands" (like the victorian "Main Street USA") in places that already are adult theme parks like Paris, it dawns on you that the "real world" is much like the themed one, only with more contradictions. Leaving Disney to set up my own practice 10 years go, I sought to export some of that "form follows feeling"  sensory experience into brand development and place making. Even if it was not themed per se, the process of starting with the emotional "wow" then designing in total to sustain it, seemed to have value.  Why?

The Example.

To illustrate, we were tapped to create "Rivera", a chef driven restaurant that as an experience, had to define "modern latin dining." It was to have it's own abstract narrative and logic that was to be designed to match the chef's "mayan modern" vision. I created a playlist of music that I imagined guests would hear while dining. It truly guided a unique design, but that wasn't enough. To communicate this beyond presented artwork, we gave each potential investor my soundtrack to listen to so they too could imagine being there opening night. We got the money, opened the restaurant, and each investor was thrilled to hear their music scoring the real experience, which exceeded their expectations. We used one sense to convince another, by communicating the "wow" in advance bringing those investors into the soul of the idea. To me, the big win is in the synthesis of design with those sensory elements.  There is an exponential power when they all fire seamlessly as one, like a full orchestra over a soloist. 

"Experiential design scores the senses, then tunes them to shatter the mind's glass"

The Takeaway

So what's the point? It's to realize that the senses matter and that as much as the process typically is to just hire an architect, agency, or an interior specialist, as humans we experience so much more. De-silo the players and make it all important.  Galpin's ClubAston sells more than a car, it sells "James Bond", so we helped craft an experience to convey that aspiration, from music to martinis and it lives in a vault (opening image.) Experiential design scores the senses, then tunes them to shatter the mind's glass. I try to see things as scenes, as a camera does, where everything is there to support and collectively communicate a feeling. Having set designers as an inspiration and film in my family, I was fortunate to grow up around this organic story driven process, to design in a way that makes me prioritize by emotion, then love each detail. You can too. Concept is King and its execution deserves "special forces" as this stuff is not typically easy! Hope that is helpful to you, and thanks again Brooks! 

Innovation without Passion?

I was surprised to hear a colleague of mine express his desire to leave the  innovation lab that he had been with for years. More surprising was his reason. It wasn't more money, a neurotic boss, or a cabin in Montana. It was about passion. I assumed that he'd burned out and needed a change. Nope. He was told by top management that the company frowns on the passion he exudes toward developing concepts, and that his kind of passion is a quality they wanted to discourage.

That set me off. 

Being a passionate designer by nature (and Italian), I found this to be a disturbing comment and wondered if it was something offensive he said, or his being unreasonable. He assured me that he was told that "passion" was not a positive quality in the creative process. Stop insisting on getting it right? Just ship "good enough"? How could it be possible that within a creative culture, where corporate, (to sniff out good ideas from bad), tests their "creatives" by measuring how passionately they fight for your projects? Disney CEO Michael Eisner wrote a memo once encouraging me to always remain passionate. He scrawled "Never say die! Don't give up till they drive a stake in your heart, and then get up and try three more times!" Years earlier, Eisner himself was known for laying on the floor of Paramount Studio Chief, Barry Diller's office, blocking his desk until he heard a "yes" to making a little film called "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Diller realized that "Mike most know something we don't". So it got the green light. That story inspired me to pitch to my boss, Disney Imagineering chief Marty Sklar what ultimately became "Mission:Space", a theme park attraction. We had no budget to produce a presentation, but a unique idea for a Rocket ride. In the hallway outside Marty's office, I explained the experience by laying on my back looking skyward in a suit and tie, mimicking the mission control com-chat, pretending to fly the Space Shuttle, suspended between two office chairs! Making due, it demonstrated the unique guest experience of vertical blast-off. At first, I think he wanted to call Security, but in the end, Marty saw the potential and funded development. "Mission:Space" has been part of Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center for more than a decade.

This passion thing still did not pass the smell test. Why would someone in a creative organization discourage it? Maybe it's not the passion, it's the side effects. Ask your doctor if passion is right for you. 

The dark side of persistence.

In all fairness, a "can-do" attitude can lead to lots of problems, as your team might believe they can do something they may not be qualified to do, or worse, rise to the occasion. Passion can jump to premature conclusions when improperly applied. Enthusiasm is contagious, hard to manage, and managers are scolded when the creatives run wild. At one firm, our team was told to stop this "can-do" spirit  because their engineers were getting too excited and who knows what would happen then? They might actually invent the future! True story. On the same token, being overly passionate, especially if you are persuasive, could lead into follies of design, goose chases and fiscal disaster, no?  I guess it depends on knowing the goose you are chasing, when to make your case, and then backing off before you are thrown off the cliff. 

Being a creative design consultant and working with many think tanks, you sometimes run into a darker reality that even passion cannot resolve. Some innovation departments might exist as Wall Street window dressing. In truth, some corporate cultures may not really be rightly disposed to actualize big ideas, as the upper management is timid. "Are we looking for refinements or breakthroughs?" It's a fair question to ask. There can be a built-in series of fiscal and operational filters that kill ideas no matter what, kind of an administrative "No" it's been called. You are encouraged to think "outside the box", but have to invent within it (Does it have to be a box?, why not a bag?) We've all seen the process where companies take a fresh idea and "puree" it in the "blander". Passion "jams the blades" so to speak, when you are the lone dissenter to the status quo. It's true that arguments that are emotionally driven without reason or pragmatism almost work against the idea. Passion may be best applied in measured doses and endurance fueled by a sound rational argument.

Creative groups are hard to deal with as inspiration cannot always be scheduled, so some posture obvious product refinements, as "breakthroughs". Making it thinner, faster, smaller, wider, based on the hit movie, anything but original. Today with focus groups, retina tracking, data mining, demographic and psychographic studies and more, management sometimes thinks intuition and gut instinct can be replaced by quantitative and predictive research. Why invent? let the data tell us. To a degree it works well. "The wise one listens" and that's true. I recall a Disney Studio strategic planner looking at bad quarterly results saying to the film Producer "Why don't you just make the "hit" movies?" Kind of says it all. Creativity unleashed is a messy and powerful force. There is room for structure, good research, planning and informed ideation, but it's easy to forget that instinct is what drives the "mind's eye".  I've found that surveyed people respond, rather than create, so you have to dream it and take them beyond their imagination. Great projects have passionate champions that incite others to rally around the vision. When you are the only one who can literally taste an experience that has never existed, expressing passion is a part of bringing the "unseen" to others along with you. Walt Disney said, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

Passion is worth fighting for.   

Eddie Sotto on Experiential Design.

"Fear Minus Death Equals Fun"

Eddie Sotto talks experiential design and it"s subliminal process.

Jul 30, 2015

Prior to forming an experiential design studio a decade ago, I was one of those designers Disney calls an "Imagineer". Walt himself created the term and the division of the company because architects alone could not deliver the experience he saw in his mind. Today Imagineering is known for it's talented amalgam of design and engineering misfits tasked with creating the company's theme parks and attractions.  Back in 1955, Walt Disney proved he was the Yoda of experiential design with a masterpiece he called Disneyland. Never satisfied, he would stand incognito at the exits to his attractions watching his guests faces, and if they weren't blown away by what they saw, he made changes till they were. He handed down those ways, creating a culture where details matter and the experience is king. These days "experiential" is fast becoming another overused term being applied to everything from snack foods to time shares. Before it's beaten to death, I thought it might be useful to briefly share what I learned from an experiential process that works. 

Formulaic Fun.

Someone asked me once what the formula was for a great thrill ride. Many things came to mind, but in the end "Fear minus death...equals fun" was all I could respond with. Why? To me, experiential design is about thinking in terms of emotional ingredients first for everything else to follow. Many gravitate to thrill rides, not expecting to die, but to exit their comfort zone, cheating death to survive reassured, feeling more alive than before. Disney legend John Hench told me once that the parks were about the reassurance of survival, a "rite of passage" of sorts for kids. Are you tall enough to ride the Matterhorn? The bigger the "Mountain", be it Swiss, Space or Splash, the greater the feeling of accomplishment, as the 12 year old somehow looks back and feels reassured as they just did the impossible. That's the magic. Without that feeling at the end, it's just another ride. I'm no psychologist, but understanding the emotional result you want at the beginning of creating a brand experience can be the key to delivering it. Disney's brand is all about how you feel in their parks. After leaving the mouse into private practice, the E in "E Ticket" stood for emotion. It was my most useful takeaway, but not always easy to do. 

Start at "Wow!" and work backwards

Here's an example of emotion driving design. This was back in the 90's and we were about to add a on-board musical soundtrack to Disneyland's Space Mountain, (an indoor roller coaster through outer space). At that time, rollercoasters were still in their "silent era", accompanied only by blood curdling screams, creaking boards, and the rhythmic clatter of the lift chain. Space Mountain was more cinematic as it was telling a story within galactic environments with some sounds, yet lacked a synchronized on-board soundtrack. Like scoring a movie, we needed to first understand the "emotional roller coaster" that riders were enduring in each scene of the show, then enhance it to greater effect. We rode the ride dozens of times to get the feel (and got paid for it).

The Right Stuff

Then Disney CEO Michael Eisner wanted a recognizable classical score as in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey", but a waltz, given the dynamic speed of the ride, felt inappropriate to the action. Composer Arrin Richard and I finally settled on using a classical melody that was familiar, but with a faster tempo. Although the mood was there, it was not driven by the action and movement of the vehicle. We wanted to accentuate the G-forces guests feel when pressed into the twists, turns, and drops each rocket endures. An electric guitar "lick" or "riff" over the score might give us that effect; (think of Led Zeppelin's "Whole lotta' love"). To that end, we brought in rock pioneer Dick Dale, "King of the surf guitar", who had experienced a renewed popularity due to his music being featured in the film "Pulp Fiction". He lent us his best "licks". We rode Space Mountain after hours at least 30 times, listening and timing each solo of Dale's guitar over the score till they were synced perfectly to the action. 

We soon realized that the only emotion we had not fully addressed was the "fear" in our equation. The bigger the dread, the greater the relief when the ride speeds up. This anticipation is mostly felt when each rocket creeps upward on the lift. Roughly half of the time spent on most coasters is spent on those slow sacrificial inclines where we all look down and wonder why we got on the stupid ride in the first place. To heighten all of that, we mimicked a similar moment of anxiety found in those classic 50's Sci-Fi movies; (think saucer door cracking open). The alien strains of a theremin, (a tonal oscillator) created just the right frenzy. That sense of dread climaxes as we dangle at the peak before blasting off into the galaxy. It was a great place to pause in silence before we have "ignition". Filling the silence with a lone bass drum "heartbeat" helped put one last lump in the throat. Increasing the tempo into the climatic final curve was the icing. We were finally there, the music had landed. 

Need for Speed

The exit survey results of guests coming off of the attraction were very interesting. Thankfully, over 95% of the guests viewed the score favorably, but the most unexpected result was how many commented that they liked the increased speed, thinking that was the improvement. Of course, the ride system itself remained unchanged. We all believed that subtly enhancing the fear and anxiety, then relieving it with the increased tempo of the score had something to do with it. Treating an experience as a sensory system that you could adjust and hone, helped us to see that enhancing something as incidental as music and pacing could lift the rest of the experience to a much higher level. Knowing what the "wow" wants to be is job one. Next time someone says "Where's the wow?" you'll know the experience needs tuning. 

Fear minus death equals fundamentals.