Most of Tell Your Story the Walt Disney World Way is written in a fictional voice, but there is a single chapter that’s not part of the story, where I try to explain why I wrote this book and what I learned from writing it. The following excerpt is from the “Author’s Afterword”.
Imagineers ARE Storytellers
Writing this book has given me a new and better understanding of the idea that “Imagineers are storytellers”.
If I’m being completely honest, before I started to work on this book, I admit I used to roll my eyes a bit every time I’d see or hear the phrase “Imagineers are storytellers.” I just felt that that phrase overly simplified what the Imagineers do, and was too cliched to be of real value in terms of understanding what Imagineering is all about. However, in researching and writing this book, looking more closely at the principles of the Imagineering Pyramid as tools for communication, I’ve come to see things differently, and have a new perspective on that somewhat overused adage. In fact, I’ve come to believe that “Imagineers are Storytellers” is a very apt phrase that succinctly encapsulates what the Imagineers do.
In The Imagineering Pyramid, I wrote about that while story has been the “essential organizing principle” of Imagineering since its earliest days during the design of Disneyland, the idea that “Imagineers are storytellers” is a more modern one, born during Michael Eisner’s tenure as CEO and chairman of The Walt Disney Company, and promoted by the Disney company in blogs and videos. I also noted that many Disney park fans felt like I did, that to say “Imagineers are storytellers” overly simplifies what WDI does, and that some of the original Imagineers, primarily Marc Davis, didn’t consider themselves storytellers at all. None of that has changed. What’s changed is my perspective.
When you look closely at what the Imagineers do, you find that the heart of Imagineering is effective communication. The Imagineers use a variety of tools, techniques, and disciplines to convey specific ideas and experiences to their audience. Whether it be the idea of “pirates of the Caribbean”, or the experience of riding on “the wildest ride in the wilderness”, or of walking down the Main Street in turn-of-the-century America, the Imagineers use their Imagineering toolbox to create environments and attractions that communicate these ideas and experiences to their audience through sight, sound, touch, and even smell, along the way bringing characters and settings to life.
What’s another name for the ideas and experiences the Imagineers create? Stories. Not necessarily stories in the traditional sense of a fleshed-out, linear narrative with a plot, characters, and a beginning, middle, and end, but they’re stories nonetheless. For the Imagineers, “story” is just an elegant shorthand way of saying “the core idea or premise that underlies each attraction, land, or venue”, so when we talk about the Imagineers “telling a story”, what we really mean is that they’re communicating an idea.
What are the tools and techniques the Imagineers use to communicate their ideas? They include the principles described in this book, each of which tells a part of the story. For example wienies grab the audience’s attention, long, medium, and close shots help draw the audience into the story, forced perspective helps them not overwhelm the audience, attention to detail and theming provide for a consistent story experience, pre-shows prepare the audience for what they’re about to see, “read”-ability helps the audience understand what they’re seeing, post-shows help reinforce what the audience experienced, kinetics keep the environments active and dynamic, hidden Mickeys help engage the audience, and the “it’s a small world” effect makes sure the audience remembers what they’ve experienced. All of these (and more) help create the experience the Imagineers want for the audience and help them tell their story.
To put this more simply:
Imagineers communicate ideas and experiences.
Those ideas and experiences are stories.
Imagineers use a specific set tools and techniques to communicate their ideas and experiences – to tell their stories.
Imagineers ARE storytellers. I’m convinced.
The Imagineering Toolbox 