Week Fifteen: Final Reviews

This week we are meeting individually to review your work and establish grades for the semester.  You should already have an appointment.  I look forward to talking with you about your semester in my class. If you have work I need to still see bring your laptop or tablet so you can show it to me. 

Week Fourteen: Final Project Presentations

Concept Art for Ghibli Theme Park Scheduled for 2020

This week we are having our final theme park presentations.  Each team will have 10 minutes and there will follow 5 minutes of questions and responses.   We will be joined for our final review by Dr. Chelsea Bruner designer and design historian who will be teaching classes related to the new Entertainment Design major starting next year.  I look forward to seeing your ideas for the Wakanda theme park. 

Remember to make sure you have an appointment for your final portfolio review during next week's final class time. 

Week Thirteen: Project Work Day

This week we will have a chance to work on your theme park proposals in your groups.  We will start the class with the required assessment, begin the appointment process for the final portfolio reviews and then break out into project groups.  Please bring your laptop or tablet as we will be writing in class this week.

Dreamflight Efteling Park Ride Along

Dreamflight Recreated as a Virtual Coaster Ride On Ride Video

Good Onride of Pirates of the Caribbean Shanghai 

Small World Holiday Version Disneyland

Small World Holiday Disneyland Nighttime

Week Twelve: The Theme Park as Narrative

This week's visiting speaker will be Dr. Carissa Baker from Seminole State College who is a scholar of theme parks and especially theme park narrative.  Besides her presentation, Dr. Baker will respond to some of the initial proposals for our theme park projects.  The emphasis in this week's session will be on building the storytelling aspects of  your particular project.

Because of the very uneven quality of the initial proposals I have decided not to hold the hurricane evacuation rehearsal next week.  The class will meet as usual and we will have another group work sessions on the theme park projects in preparation for final presentations. 

Fata Morgana Dark Ride Eftling Theme Park

The Flying Dutchman Eftling Theme Park

Week 11:Design Process for a Theme Park World

"Disney Imagineer Gary Landrum continually pointed out that the number one product that Disney sells is emotion. The parks don’t just contain stories; they are — in and of themselves — self-contained stories heavily influenced with both design and architecture to guide guests through their own personal hero’s journey. Every archway, every tower, every sightline and every color choice has been carefully selected not just to tell each individual story, but also to help tell your story as you walk through the park.

Individual attractions can be replaced and refreshed to keep up-to-date with today’s guests, but many of the decisions in how the park is formed remain untouched through the generations."

Link to PDF of today's Class Presentation on Theme Park Basics

This week we are going to explore worldbuilding within the design process for themed entertainment by undertaking a concept design for a Theme Park World based on Wakanda, in Marvel Comics Black Panther. 

Wakanda
The background for this week's class is to watch the Black Panther movie  and to read some of the recent Black Panther comics, check the resource page.  In Class we will review the parameters of the project and begin work on individual concepts.

Request For Proposals
Worldbuilding Imagineering Project "Wakanda"

Deadline for Initial Proposals is midnight Nov. 18. Your project must be posted by then to be considered for conceptual development.  If your project is not accepted for development, you have to work on someone else's project. Team projects are allowed.

Project Description:  We are seeking proposals for a 15 acre theme park with a total budget of $1.5 Billion U.S. dollars to provide an immersive entertainment experience for up to 15 million guests per year. The theme is "The World of Wakanda" and should reference the Marvel Studios franchise of Black Panther.  The park should embody an original story taking place in the Black Panther World of Wakanda. There should be at least 2 signature rides, one of which should be budgeted at roughly 500 million dollars. A description of other signature shows, merchandise, catering, and support services should be included. The park should be designed with inclement weather options and sufficiently complex to provide new experiences for repeat visits. All elements in the park should be themed to the park story.

Project Submission:  An initial synopsis of the project of no less than 300 words but no more than 750 words must be submitted by the deadline to be considered. The synopsis should include a preliminary description of salient signature details. A rough map may be included in the initial proposal and any images or reference.

Successful initial proposals will be developed over a two week period.  A phone call conference with each team/individual will be held on Nov. 27. 

Final proposals will be presented to the class as a whole, with possible outside reviewers present on Dec. 4. Final Proposal should include a conceptual map of the proposed park. 

Imagineering Project Schedule 

Nov. 13.  Introduction to Theme Park Concepts. Brainstorming charrette. PDF of introductory presentation. Team Formation. RFP Proposal.
Nov. 20.  Visiting Respondent, Dr. Carissa Baker, scholar of theme park narrative.  Initial RFP Proposals must be posted on your blog by this date so they can be read by Dr. Baker. Only projects selected during this review can go forward to conceptual phase.
Nov. 27.  Scheduled phone calls for extensive project reports for those projects in conceptual phase. Assessment. Final presentations scheduled.
Dec. 4. Conceptual projects are presented in class and reviewed. 

Dec. 11.  Final Class.  Individual Portfolio Reviews

Twine 2 Projects are past due.  Please check your planet link on the Encyclopedia Galactica and make sure it is your final version.  If it isn't, resend it to me please and I will update your link.


Projection Mapping of Sydney Opera House 2012

Omote Real Time Face Projection Mapping

You tube Video of Shanghai Pirates of the Caribbean

You tube video of Tron Coaster

Disney Avatar Flight of Passage

Ratatouille Ride at Paris Disneyland

Pooh's Hunny Hunt Tokyo Disneyland

Enchanted Tales with Belle

Week Ten

This week we will have our final session building our twine2 planets.  Our guest presenter will be Dr. Doug Chismar head of the liberal arts program and a philosopher whose specialty is ethics and empathy. We will consider the values that we have created in our worlds, what values have come into our constructions through our assumptions and what values we want to be reflected in the societies we have built. 

Completion of Twine2 Project--Next week, Nov. 6, there will be no class because of Faculty Professional Day.  Final Twine 2 Projects are due Friday,  Nov. 9; please send me your updated and complete files by then.  Include a 100 x 100 pixel planet skin if you want to replace the generic one on the Encyclopedia page. 

Next Class we will begin the final project, a conceptual plan for a theme park world rooted in the representation of Wakanda in the transmedia franchise Black Panther.  

Week Seven: Report from the Xenologist

This week I will be taking the class through a series of additions to our Twine2 story environments.  We will be using some of the basic approaches to anthropology in formulating a report for your planet from a xenologist, a scientist who studies extraterrestrial life. I have put a reasonably short reading on the course resource page that introduces many of the primary concepts of cultural anthropology. It is recommended that you read it before coming to class so that it will help you to understand the concepts we will talk about. You will also find a copy of this week's presentation and Rick Dakan's guide to basic Twine2 on the course resource page as well. Next week we will continue to develop our hypertext planets when Dr. Iva Petkova comes to talk about Sociology and the creation of societies.

I have created a page to link all the hypertext projects together.  This page is at 

https://webspace.ringling.edu/~dsteilin/Encyclopedia/Encyclopedia%20Home.html

and you can see a couple of the projects I have received linked there.  Please export (publish) your hypertext project to your laptop using the export feature in twine2 and then send me the resulting html file.  This can be sent ordinary email.  In addition to the hypertext file, please send me a 100 x 100 pixel image of your planet to go on the Encyclopedia page. If you want you can also include in your email a description of your planet of about 30 words in length.  If you don't send a description, I will write one based on the information in your hypertext survey. I have to receive projects from everyone by Friday evening, October 12, to be considered in time for mid-term grades.

Week Four: Fantastic Creatures and How to Fake Them

Expanding on last week, environmental scientist Tim Rumage returns with a presentation about the diversity of adaptations there are in the natural world.  Tim will talk about a variety of ways that life has to adapt to different environments.  He'll talk more about creating creatures through recombination and more about the relationships between environment, body and behavior. 

Assignment for Today: After you have completed the visualizations, please write a couple of paragraphs of a scenario that describes the basics of your world and its general characteristics. Post it to on your blog and be prepared to read part of it during your visualization or make a .wav file to go with your planet as in the Extra Credit assignment below.  Here is what I have written for my planet:


Kewpie By-the-Little-Rip

At what might be the very edge of the universe (unless it’s not) is The Little Rip. In The Little Rip a portion of the known universe may have expanded as much as it probably can. Just how this expansion remains localized is not, in the least, understood, in part because whenever it is probed it registers as a single point. What is clear is that molecules of special conditions spin out from this near-to-possibly-beyond infinite cataclysm. Intention seems particularly massive and slow at the event horizon of Little Rip, and just beyond this horizon the space/time sea pulses with storms of uncertain probabilities, billows of dark intentions, and malstroms of anti-time.

It's just the sort of place to catch the attention of any multi-galactic set of species that happened to inhabit the roughly nearuniverse to The Little Rip. Which it has.

The region surrounding the rip is called The Ancients Archipelago, a set of islands of the standard universe washed by waves of Dark Fluid. There are a substantial number of probable worlds in The Archipelago, but strikingly, all the worlds fit into just three categories: usual Baryonic Worlds, worlds that might be made up of Dark Matter, and a set of worlds that all seem to be Chaplygin gas giants. These worlds are distributed in no reasonable order or stable relationship but float with the tides of reality emerging from the rip.

At the presumed time of the Encyclopedia Galactica it is hypothesized that the arrangement of worlds along The Archipelago is intentional and is meant to house the three general types of entities inhabiting our corner of the matterverse. We think we may have been at war with one of those other types of entities for millenia, unless we weren’t.

At the constantly rearranging center of the Baryonic worlds, was Archipelago Prime, (called “Kewpie”) a planet along whose axis balanced on a continuum of probabilities: at the equator possibilities were fixed, mechanics were predictable, cause and effect were certain; at the poles, forces could only be harnessed by will and attention until any rules at the polar extreme into quarksands of infinite possibility, frozen desserts of dark intentions through which only wizards could roam.

Due Today:  You should have completed by class today your two planet images. One, the planet skin and two, the panorama with lifeforms.  Include your name in the name of the files so that we can keep track of them. These two images should be placed in a folder in google docs.  Then send Howard Hochhalter, the Planetarium Manager an invitation to access this folder in your google docs.  When you email your invitation to him, make sure it says Worldbuilding in the subject line so he can tell it is our class. Send it again with Worldbuilding in the subject line if you have already sent it to him. This is how your work will get to the planetarium.  His email address is

HHochhalter@southfloridamuseum.org

By today you should also have completed your planet description which should include a description of the physical features of your planet and some of its signature lifeforms. Post this on your blog along with low/res versions of your planet skin and panorama. 

Xtra Credit:  Want to go for the A?  Get Xtra credit for taking your planet description and make a .wav file of you (or someone else) reading your description.  Put the .wav file in your Google docs folder along with your planetarium images.  This is an experiment this year but we hope to be able to play your .wav files as an introduction to your planet as we show them.  There is a ninety (90) second limit on the .wav file.  This can be done using your laptop or tablet.  You can look at Youtube for a tutorial.

Remember that next week we will meeting at the Bishop Planetarium at the South Florida Museum, which is in downtown Bradenton at 201 10th St. West,  almost to the riverfront on 10th Street. Please be there by 8:50.  We will discuss ride sharing in class and try to arrange a car pool for everyone.  Uber is possible.  There is also a bus that goes by the school and goes to the station in downtown Bradenton. You have to walk a few blocks from the bus station near the Manatee courthouse to the museum.  Allow for extra time if you take the bus.