Written by Eve Katz, Photos courtesy of Jeffrey Garris and THEDscapes
It all started in Pumpkintown. Or, more clearly, it started when Disney Imagineer Don Carson decided that he wanted to share with the public the process of creating a dark ride.
Although themed entertainment projects, especially ones with Disney, are usually kept under non-disclosure agreements. So Carson designed Pumpkintown, a fictional ride that exists in virtual reality and is accessible through Carson’s YouTube page, along with his recreation of Disneyland’s Alice in Wonderland dark ride.
Carson was inspired by another theme park engineer, who goes by the name Rover, to take on the virtual recreation of the 1958 version of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland attraction. Which, Carson walked SCAD students through that process in his THEDscapes talk.
The Alice in Wonderland ride took a lot of inspiration from Mary Blair’s artwork and 1960s style. This was sort of a time capsule project that Carson was interested in seeing recreated virtually.
When starting the process, Carson realized that there wasn’t a lot to work with. Before vloggers and bloggers were around, the ride was shut down in the 80s and very few pictures exist. Carson found himself lucky to get his hands on some “badly xeroxed” notes on the ride and a blueprint plan. “What we were doing was we were creating our loving interpretation of what this attraction would look like, but we were definitely taking artistic license when it came to how we were going to be representing it,” Carson said.
“One of the great things about using VR is that no matter where you are in the process, you can visit your model,” Carson said. He showed a video of virtually “walking through” his attraction, demonstrating how you can look at your project from different angles and see every detail, just like walking through it in real life.
This project was completed in June 2020, two months after it began. It took the hard and dedicated work of a very small team to complete. “We did it as a passion project,” Carson said. “I wasn’t paying anyone.”
Although, it may not be as prestigious as some of Carson’s other projects, like Splash Mountain, this project is both helpful to those new to theme park design. Now they can learn more about the project and utilize a new tool from the industry: virtual reality.
“We as storytellers have a new medium [with virtual reality],” Carson said. “Doing an entire dark ride with 4 people in 2 months couldn’t be fathomed before, but now it can.”
