Bob Dennis, Senior Director of Creative Studio & Resort Development, Universal Beijing Resort, In conversation with Nicholas Gordon, Editor, Asia Fortune
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00:00So I thought there would be a fireplace.
00:03Fortune invited me to a fireside chat,
00:05so I thought there would be a fireplace.
00:08But we brought it.
00:09Is Wordplay part of your toolkit for memorable experiences?
00:13Yeah, it's immersion.
00:14Don't you feel cozy?
00:16So we're going to get to your thoughts on park design,
00:19how to build immersive experiences,
00:21how to leverage emotions.
00:23But I have to ask, I'm a fervent player of video games.
00:27What was it like for Universal to work with Nintendo?
00:32Amazing, first of all.
00:33Miyamoto-san is a genius.
00:36And it's a learning curve for both of us,
00:39because in the world of video games, it's digital.
00:43And our world is physical, with steel and concrete.
00:48So it's a learning curve on both sides,
00:49but an amazing partnership.
00:52So as mentioned, you've worked in this space
00:55for over 30 years.
00:56I believe your first gig was working for a Sanrio theme
00:59park back in 1988.
01:01How has theme park design changed over the decades?
01:05Well, I'm old.
01:07So when we were designing theme parks back in the 80s,
01:10we didn't have any computers.
01:12We didn't have computer-assisted design.
01:15It was all done with a pencil and then ink.
01:18And then, of course, you pulled your prints.
01:21But everything was exhibition then.
01:24And the industry has changed so much
01:26that now it's immersion.
01:28And we're getting better and better at that.
01:30But we've been doing immersion since before the term was even
01:33coined.
01:35So let's split it that.
01:37Given your long experience working
01:39with immersive experiences, before it was a buzzword
01:42that people used, how do you actually
01:44create such an immersive, memorable experience?
01:47What's your toolkit?
01:49And I believe we have some slides, maybe even
01:51some audience engagement a little bit
01:52as we go through this.
01:53So I think the table stakes, because of where we are,
01:57it's a good reference.
01:58The table stakes are excellent storytelling.
02:01And of course, you'll hear this often today,
02:04visual stimulation, sensory input.
02:06So you need a beautiful picture, but you also
02:09need a logical story that the guests can connect to and find
02:15their place in what it is that you're trying to present.
02:17So that's table stakes.
02:20And where you have to go further is you
02:23want people to connect to the story you have.
02:25And most people forget about emotion.
02:28So every memorable experience can be done by senses.
02:32Here in Macau, you get a sense of awe, a sense of grandeur.
02:36But what's missing to make it an episodical autobiographical
02:40memory is emotion.
02:42So the best connection is always made through emotions.
02:46And often, people confuse feelings with emotions.
02:50So there's a million colors.
02:53Everything that we do happens here.
02:56It happens inside the brain.
02:58Regardless of how good your design is
03:01or how grand your experience is, all of it
03:04has to be encoded so that we have an experience.
03:07Without the memory, what's the point?
03:10So most people don't realize that with three colors,
03:15you can make a million different colors.
03:18With eight basic emotions, you can also
03:20make a million different feelings.
03:23And it's very important to understand the difference
03:25between emotions and feelings.
03:27OK, can you guys guess what this emotion is?
03:30We don't need mics.
03:31You can just yell it out.
03:32It's fine.
03:33Play along, right?
03:34So this is obviously joy.
03:35I created these images to trick you in a minute.
03:39But yeah, these are facial expressions
03:42that evoke that particular chemistry happening
03:45in your limbic system so you understand joy.
03:48The opposite of joy, of course, the next one, sadness.
03:53And after sadness, I'll see if you can guess this one.
04:00This is the trick.
04:02Most of you are thinking love.
04:04However, love is not an emotion.
04:06Love is a feeling that is a combination
04:09of several emotions.
04:11It could be joy, sadness, disgust.
04:16And these all come together in a symphony inside our brain
04:20that we equate with the feeling of love.
04:23So it's trust.
04:24Trust is the emotion.
04:28This one's a good one.
04:29Disgust, right?
04:31This is baked into our limbic system for your survival.
04:35And so memories that are formed along with this emotion
04:38are deeply encoded.
04:39Anger, when we have a perceived wrong,
04:42these also are strongly recorded not as moments,
04:46but as experiences.
04:47So they're like little videos instead of a snapshot.
04:50If somebody makes you afraid, you
04:53will retell this experience over and over again in great detail.
05:00Anybody?
05:01Anger, same process.
05:04Oh, they made me so mad.
05:06And then they'll tell you every little detail
05:08because it's been recorded as an autobiographical memory.
05:12It was an experience.
05:16This one, Alfred Hitchcock was a master at this.
05:21We use it often, too.
05:23Anticipation.
05:26And then finally, this is where you take your redirect.
05:30So if you use the emotion, you can
05:33is where you take your redirect.
05:34So if you use the emotion of anticipation,
05:38the brain starts creating all kinds of scenarios on its own.
05:41And it engages deeply in the frontal cortex.
05:44And what this does is creates more engagement.
05:47And people are doing their own self-reflection.
05:50And then, of course, you do the redirect.
05:52You take them into a way that they did not
05:54expect the outcome to be.
05:56And we get surprise.
05:58So we have these eight emotions.
06:00How are you putting them all together
06:03and leveraging them into a memorable experience?
06:05I mean, some of these emotions make sense
06:07for a theme park setting.
06:08Joy, surprise, anticipation, even fear.
06:11Some feel a little bit maybe not quite as easy
06:16to put into an entertainment setting, like disgust.
06:18So how are you leveraging all of these emotions
06:21together to tell a story in the real world?
06:24That's a good point.
06:25So you don't want to manipulate people.
06:27And you don't want to use emotions as trickery.
06:31So it has to be authentic.
06:33And so I think most designers forget
06:36about engineering those emotions in putting together
06:40a recipe or a symphony that causes crescendos
06:43and decrescendos.
06:44And that working together engages the person into a story.
06:50And they're all useful.
06:53But some we use more than others.
06:55Obviously, joy is a great one.
06:58Anticipation.
06:59We try to stay away from fear and disgust.
07:02But they're used.
07:03We do use them.
07:06I want to dive a bit deeper about adapting these ideas.
07:09A lot of Universal's own properties,
07:11the properties of your partners, like Warner for Harry
07:13Potter or Nintendo.
07:14These are things that exist on the page or on the screen.
07:18They don't exist in the real world.
07:20As much as some of us would love magic to exist
07:22in the real world, it doesn't.
07:24But how do you take these things that only exist in fiction,
07:29and make them work as a real world experience?
07:32So this is why I'm losing my hair.
07:35So our creatives, Miyamoto-san, J.K. Rowling,
07:41they're amazing at creating worlds in print
07:44or production designers like Stuart Craig for film.
07:48And they can pretty much create anything that they can imagine.
07:53So our job is to take that world and those stories
07:57and connect our guests to those characters.
08:01But we have to do it with steel and concrete,
08:04building codes, safety requirements,
08:06throughputs, operability.
08:09Basically, we shouldn't do anything
08:12because it's almost impossible.
08:14And yet, we have many parks around the world
08:16that do just that.
08:17So it's very difficult to translate.
08:22But we're very fortunate because we work with our IP partners.
08:25And the films are there.
08:26We only get three or four minutes
08:28to get people through that experience.
08:32And so we do a lot of callbacks, a lot of bringing up things
08:36that they saw or remembered in the film.
08:39And we have to do that in a way they can touch it.
08:42So a gag has to work every time, every day, for years,
08:46not just to capture it on film.
08:49So I would say we use all the sciences and all the arts,
08:54and that our attractions are some of the most sophisticated
08:57machines there are.
08:59And I think that when you go to a theme park,
09:01we don't want you to know that.
09:03We try to keep that secret.
09:04But it's a fact.
09:05I want to stick on this film point for a second
09:08and how it connects, particularly to one memory
09:10I have of going to Universal Studios Japan
09:12when I was a very small child.
09:14I still remember seeing the Waterworld exhibit.
09:16For those who don't know, Waterworld
09:18is a 1995 film starring Kevin Costner.
09:21I'll say reactions to the film were mixed.
09:25But I dare say the attraction is more famous
09:28than the film at this point.
09:30It's in many of Universal's parks.
09:34And so why do you think this attraction in particular
09:38is so popular?
09:39And how does it fit in your philosophy
09:41for immersion and experience?
09:43We actually have some video.
09:44I'll let you talk for a bit first.
09:45It's a very good example.
09:47So the film, mixed reviews on the film.
09:49I don't think it was a blockbuster.
09:53But we were able to take from that film
09:57and use the emotions that are created by it
09:59and do a stunt spectacular.
10:01So not only was it visual, which is great, and great sound,
10:05and great lighting, and great special effects,
10:08but everything is real.
10:09We don't use projections.
10:10There's real flames.
10:11We set the entire lagoon on fire.
10:14And you will feel the heat from that.
10:15And you will get wet.
10:18But in the story itself, we also engage many of the emotions.
10:22You may be angry at the villain.
10:25You feel some joy.
10:27So I think that the theme park experience in this example
10:32has outlived the film.
10:33And we're going to show a little bit of what
10:35actually happens on screen.
10:36Let's go!
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