161. Imagineer Daniel Joseph on Space 220, Flight of Passage, and Rise of the Resistance

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We’ve come to expect a lot more from theme parks than just passive entertainment. Competition from video games, streaming series, and other new technologies gives us plenty of choices every day. Even popular destinations like Walt Disney World need to offer innovative experiences and kept evolving. This makes the work of Illusioneers like Daniel Joseph even more crucial. Their work helps create the groundbreaking effects that lead to thrilling attractions.

Daniel is back on this episode of The Tomorrow Society Podcast to talk more about his work for Walt Disney Imagineering. In his first appearance, we covered his background and attractions like Test Track and the Hatbox Ghost. This time, our conversation digs further and focuses on more recent projects. Before that, Daniel explains why the Haunted Mansion’s popularity continues to grow and what makes a good haunt attraction. We also talk about setting up the Illusioneering Lab for Destination D23 in Florida.

Daniel has played a key role in some of Disney’s biggest recent attractions, including Rise of the Resistance. We talk about some of the challenges in creating visual effects that had never been done before for that mind-blowing attraction. Daniel also describes his work for Flight of Passage in Pandora: The World of Avatar. Another challenging project was the effects for Space 220, which opened last year. He explains why it was so important to work on the restaurant because of his fandom for Horizons and EPCOT Center. We close the interview by discussing some of Daniel’s personal creations during his free time at home. I really enjoyed the chance to learn more about Daniel’s amazing work for Disney.

Show Notes: Daniel Joseph

Listen to Daniel Joseph on his first appearance on The Tomorrow Society Podcast.

Learn more about Daniel’s story on the Haunted Mansion episode of Behind the Attraction on Disney Plus.

Follow Daniel on Instagram and learn more about his inventions and creations.

Note: Photos in this post were used with the permission of Daniel Joseph.

Transcript

Daniel Joseph: In the past year and a half where we’ve all been through so much and there’s just all this uncertainty in the world and everything, people want to see that magic and that realistic, but how do they do that type stuff? I feel more and more and more or craving it. I am excited; I think there’s a great big, beautiful tomorrow for these practical physical illusions and effects to happen in Disney theme parks more and more.

Dan Heaton: That is Disney Illusioneer Daniel Joseph, who is back to talk about Flight of Passage, Space 220, Rise of the Resistances and so much more. This is going to be cool. You’re listening to the Tomorrow Society Podcast.

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Dan Heaton: Thanks for joining me here on Episode 161 of the Tomorrow Society Podcast. I am your host, Dan Heaton. It’s an exciting time right now as we look to theme parks. We have a lot of new attractions opening around the country, roller coasters, Guardians of the Galaxy and some dark Rides. There are so many things at Disney and beyond and that fits perfectly with a lot of what we’re talking about here on this episode. I am thrilled to have Daniel Joseph back on the show. He was first here on episode 127 last year where we talked about his background building haunted houses in the basement, his fandom for Yale Gracey and the Haunted Mansion, and ultimately his work at Walt Disney Imagineering on some cool attractions like the Hatbox Ghost, which was added to Haunted Mansion.

This time we’re talking more about recent attractions including Rise of the Resistance and what were some of the challenges to build some of the effects that we take for granted that are mind blowing when we’re doing it, Flight of Passage and some of the elements that made that experience so believable, and Space 220 and how that connects to original Epcot Center and has some really interesting effects beyond its status as just a good restaurant at Walt Disney World.

A lot to cover and we also talk about Daniel’s excitement for what’s coming in the future and the landscape of theme parks and practical effects like you heard in the intro and where they’re going with and how they have a role in theme parks overall. There is a lot to cover, which is why I think it’s so cool to get another chance to talk to Daniel. You may be familiar with Daniel through his appearance on Behind the Attraction, the Haunted Mansion episode, or the setup he had there at Destination D23, which we do talk about on this show if you’re not familiar, he’s basically an illusioneer.

People have called him a wizard. His role is principal special effects designer and illusion development at Walt Disney Imagineering, but is essentially working on a lot of the cutting edge effects or some of the trickier challenges that are required for lots of the latest attractions at Walt Disney World and beyond and things coming in the future. Things we couldn’t even talk about yet, but I’m sure are going to be really exciting when they come out to the parks. So let’s get right to it. Once again, here is Daniel Joseph.

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Dan Heaton: Daniel, thank you for returning to the podcast to talk even more.

Daniel Joseph: Thank you so much for having me, Dan. Really appreciate it.

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah. Well, I knew there was more to cover after we talked last year, and so let’s just dive in. I know you recently participated in the Destination D23 event as part of the Walt Disney Imagining Illusionary Lab. I saw some videos of you there presenting some cool, there was a hologram of your face that I thought was really fun. So what was it like for you to get involved in such a cool event?

Daniel Joseph: We came up with the idea to share the Illusionary Lab a few months before the event, and that kind of got all the planning going and we’re so excited because it’s here in Florida. I’m here in Florida, all of WDI is eventually moving here, but there’s so much to share with our lab here since we’ve started about five years ago at least in this location. So I wanted to bring out a bunch of our prototypes, mockups, things like that to show people that hey, this stuff is done here. It’s done in-house at Imagineering and we have a lot of fun doing it, and it was such a blast to connect with fans and guests to show them the inside behind the curtain of that.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, so you mentioned wanting to show them what you can do. I mean, why do you think that’s so important to show them those types of projects you’re doing at an event like this, which draws some of the biggest fans?

Daniel Joseph: Well, one of the things just I think over the years that a lot of people think is that Disney works on so many different projects and so many different things that we send a bunch of this stuff out to be developed and that we don’t necessarily do all of it in-house, and there’s certainly great partnerships we have with folks to do implementation of designs and things like that that we’ve come up with. But one of the cool things that I think is really unique with illusionary and special effects is we do so much of it in-house.

Disney is a really unique company that puts so much onus on that special development of brand new inventions and things like that that are magic tricks and illusions for the parks, and we’ve really tried to keep that as a core competency, something that people see and say, I’ve only seen that at Disney or only Disney can do that kind of thing. That’s kind of the first thing I wanted to convey.

And then the second thing I wanted to convey is the process, which is I went through in the event talking about we use a lot of foam core and hot glue and go to places to get different products to take apart and reconfigure into new parts and pieces, and it’s a messy process, but it’s also a creative process that’s really iterative, so these iterations kind of stay behind and then we move ahead to the next more and more refined pieces until we get these really finished completed things that we can put in the parks and most people don’t get to see that process, the non-finished parts and pieces.

So I wanted to show people some of that as well as the history too. That was one of the parts that I wanted to convey in the event was talking about some of the equipment that was built at the studio by Roger Broggie Jr for Epcot Center in 1982 that you just couldn’t go out and buy. These are artifacts that Disney developed and created in-house and some of them are even still running. So I had some examples of those things to show as well.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, it’s great to learn some of that info, especially like you mentioned with Epcot because I’m still amazed at how much custom work that was done originally for Epcot Center where they were inventing things on the fly to make it work a month later, and it’s still kind of baffling that that happened and that it actually worked.

Daniel Joseph: That it actually worked, and in a lot of cases is still working, which I think is just so amazing and a testament to these amazing Imagineers of the late ‘70s and ‘80s, the kind of can-do attitude that really existed at WED back then. That was just so cool. So many of these devices are things that really started industries unto themselves. So much of these things were because we didn’t have video projection technologies, so we were mapping surfaces with basically glorified slide projectors, and back then we didn’t know we were doing projection mapping unquote or things like that.

But nowadays, projection mapping is kind of a thing that’s seen everywhere. That’s just one example of one the things that was played with and tried in a very difficult and analog way that nowadays whole, whole companies have grown up around doing just that, for example.

Dan Heaton: It’s been awesome to see how it’s kind of evolved. I wanted to ask you about something different, which is I know you have a lot of history with the Eastern State Penitentiary and with haunts and making that at home when you grew up. We talked about that last time and we’re just seeing, especially setting aside Covid, just how these parks just keep expanding their Halloween events with these really themed haunted houses. And so I’m curious for you, I mean going back to your history and stuff, what’s the key or what are kind of the cool elements that make for a great haunted house or a great themed haunted attraction, whether it’s the Haunted Mansion or something that sprouts up for a month each year?

Daniel Joseph: Well, I’ve always been a proponent of the creepy eerie ambiance that haunted houses have and haunted attractions really as a kid. Like I said last time, that was my school of hard knocks into being an Imagineer was doing haunted basements in our house and stuff like that. One of the things I think that has been really cool is just the Halloween industry is booming and it’s really getting more and more and more sophisticated, and I think very much has a lot of credit to base a lot of that tech on things that Disney’s created many, many years ago that now again have become ubiquitous.

One of the things that I love about the Halloween kind of genre is it doesn’t have to be gory, it doesn’t have to be bloody and all that stuff. It can simply just be eerie and weird. And something about that I think can connect with everyone, little kids and adults and doesn’t have to be about jump scares or shock value and all that stuff. It’s just kind of eerie and different. And doing that at the Disney parks obviously is different from location to location.

Doing it in Hong Kong for example, has a lot more gore and a lot more skeletal type forms and stuff like that. Even in Europe, in Paris, that’s the case, whereas here in the States when we do that in our parks, it’s much more kind of on the eerie creepy side, but without the visuals of the gore and all that other stuff. But it is booming and getting bigger and bigger and I love it. I think the opportunities are kind of endless and the Haunted Mansion obviously and Tower of Terror and things like that Mystic Manor give us the chance to do that kind of feel and have an area development around that last year round. So it’s like, cool, let’s do more of that.

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah. I mean I think about being a kid and going to the parks, even stuff that wasn’t the attraction you mentioned I would be freaked out by everything, and I think, but that in a good way, it was the sense of the unknown where you go into something and you’re like, I don’t know, Spaceship Earth, they have this caveman scene with lightning bolts and I’m like, what is this going to be? But that little bit, it just all works out so well, and extending that to Halloween is awesome. Just you said how many possibilities there are is just really cool

Daniel Joseph: And especially at a Disney Park that it’s going to be okay, whatever crazy visuals you see, whether it was the Extraterrorestrial alien encounter in Magic Kingdom in the mid nineties though, there’s some crazy visuals and audio effects that happened there that were quite intense in the end, this was Disney and that things were going to be safe, it was going to be okay, and you were going to walk outside to see a happy, optimistic world even after seeing something quite intense.

So I think there’s something to be said about that. I don’t remember if I said it in the last podcast, but someone had mentioned the Haunted Mansion sign, the plaque, the awesome bronze plaque that’s in front of our mansions says the Haunted Mansion, but there’s kind of an unspoken thing that it might as well say Disney’s Haunted Mansion because going into a haunted attraction just anywhere, you kind of have maybe very, very scary expectations in all this, and if you’re a little kid, you’re probably not going to want to immediately go in. But something about the fact that it’s in a Disney park and that it’s Haunted Mansion makes it okay that you can go in and that it will be okay. It’ll be fun and spooky and all that stuff, but it’s going to be most importantly a Disney type of attraction.

Dan Heaton: Yeah. You mentioned the Haunted Mansion. I mean, it’s been still more prominent. We had the Behind the Attraction episode, which I know you were a big part of, and then the Muppets Haunted Mansion, which I thought was a really fun special. I think we talked about your history, but what’s it been like to see even I feel like since we talked a year ago, the Mansion continuing to get more popular and even more prominent, and I think it’s just going to keep getting that way

Daniel Joseph: So right. It’s interesting. So the 50th of the Haunted Mansion happened in 2019, and then COVID-19 happened and things sort of went south everywhere for various reasons. Then we’ve kind of clawed back and things are getting back to normal little by little, but interestingly enough, the Mansion’s popularity has skyrocketed. And I’m not sure if that coincides with just the events of the world that’s happened or just the fact that as a property and as truly it’s a Disney IP, but it’s a Disney created internal to the parks IP is just getting more traction among new fans.

I do have to say, you mentioned the Muppets or the Muppets Haunted Mansion episode that was really surreal. I watched it two times in a row; I loved it. And one of the things that I thought after watching it the first time is all these kind of seemingly nerdy inside jokes that I think about a lot or talk with my Disney friends about are now this is mainstream. It almost kind of showed our secret club, the insides of our secret club to the whole rest of the world and the rest of the world loves it. It’s really kind of nuts.

And then to see merchandise, merchandise is exploding with new Haunted Mansion really cool things like new figurines and new clothing and stuff and things featuring Hatbox Ghosts that are really clever and creative that 20 years ago you would go into a merch shop like Baton Rouge, what it used to be called a Disneyland near Pirates, the Haunted Mansion store.

And there’d be maybe three or four Haunted Mansion things there that were interesting, like neat shirts and a figurine or a tea chain here and there, and now it’s full of tons and tons of stuff. Then on top of that, the thing that I’ve noticed this year, and I think this is probably because of Covid and what everyone’s been through is the home haunt community has made haunted mansions at their house.

And there’s a guy on Instagram who made a working Doom Buggy that ran on a PVC track, and he built scenes that were complete replicas of the Haunted Mansion on his own time near his pool. And just the detail and quality of these recreations, you don’t see that too much with too many things out there where people are literally recreating a place that they love so much in their own house to that kind of detail. That was amazing to see this year. I think I saw three of those this year pop up.

Dan Heaton: No, that’s awesome. Especially for something that is over 50 years old, to still have as much or more relevance than it’s ever had is special. Well, I want to make sure we get to talk about a few of the things I referenced that you’ve worked on that we haven’t really addressed. One is Galaxy’s Edge in both parks, Disneyland and in the Hollywood Studios, and I know you were involved in the creation of Rise of the Resistance, which I will admit because of everything I haven’t even experienced. I’ve been to Galaxy’s Edge but haven’t gotten the chance to experience, but I’m curious what your role was in that ambitious attraction. That to me still just looks incredible.

Daniel Joseph: Yeah, yeah. Well, I got to work with a whole bunch of other, of course, talented Imagineers and special effects people on all that and was just like you said, so ambitious. From the beginning, people like John Lorena and Scott Trowbridge really pushed us and asked questions and brainstorms that were just like, really? How are we going to do that? How are we going to make real blaster bolt beams shoot through the air in real life?

I mean, that was all done in post that was done in the old chem days with photo chem technology in the ‘70s and then CGI in the late ‘90s and 2000s, but that doesn’t exist in real life. So that was kind of like, wow, this is a fun ask. And then the same thing with Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, which is kind of like a flame. How do you do that in real life and make it really look real?

Because obviously in the films it’s all done in post. So I think that was kind of the common thread that there’s so many cool things in those films that we want to do in this attraction that are done in post-processing with computer generated imagery that doing them in real life kind of hasn’t ever been done. Like the hologram looking things in the show, as I said, the blaster beams, the Kylo Ren lightsaber, Kylo Ren running toward your vehicle in one of the scenes and then him sticking as a lightsaber through the ceiling and cutting the ceiling.

Those are all things that I got to work on and help invent. And I’m really proud, honestly, of how they all turned out because surprisingly, they all got in. We come up with a lot of different illusions and inventions when we’re coming up with these brand new shows and not all of them make the cut sometimes.

Sometimes they hit the cutting room floor, so to speak, or go on the shelf and maybe are useful for another show later. But this team really wanted to develop all these things and use them all in the show, and that was just so cool to have the first blaster beam effect work and show a slug of light flying through space midair and show that to the project team and have everyone clap at the end and just be like, holy mackerel, you did it. Those are the moments that you don’t forget. Those are just so cool.

Dan Heaton: The response from guests is just everyone who rides. It just seems it’s one of those where they’re so blown away by it and they say videos can’t do any justice to coming out. They don’t know how things were done, which is the normal for theme park attractions, but there’s so much, it’s almost like mind blowing. Well, you mentioned the pressure. I mean, what’s it like to work on something that has Star Wars has such popularity and such interest to be able to work on that? I mean, is there added pressure for you or is that just so rewarding or kind of accommodation of both?

Daniel Joseph: I think it’s kind of the exact place I like to be. There’s one other effects person who’s a mentor and a good friend of mine who I think I mentioned last time, Joe Gutierrez, who he has 30 years experience doing Disney effects, and I’m barely going on my 15th though I know that seems like a long time.

He and I would go out to lunch and brainstorm after a brainstorm with the rest of the project teams and just kind of look at each other while we’re eating and be like, how could we do that? How possibly could we get Kylo Ren running at you and just kind of get into that uncomfortable zone of, we don’t know the answer yet, but we know we can get there. That’s a really, I would say, an uncomfortable but fun place. I really like to be on projects and I tend to be put into injected into that part of projects more and more I guess in the past five or 10 years.

But from a story standpoint, like Star Wars obviously is very, very loved and beloved. I approach it the same way as I approach every other Disney project I’m on is as a fan myself, and I think a lot of us are, and whether you’re a fan of Marvel or Star Wars or classic Disney stuff, there’s this feeling you get when you get to the point where something is working, where the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when you see the effect, do what you want it to do and you’re like, okay, I know the other fans are going to dig this. I know they’re going to appreciate this and like this.

So it’s kind of a personal litmus test that I would say we put all of these things through before really allowing them to be seen by everyone else, and hopefully by then the idea is that it had passed my test, so everyone else is going to really, really love it. So far that has been luckily accurate.

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah. I mean it’s really the whole area and just what’s been done looks incredible. And I  know another major expansion you worked on was Pandora: The World of Avatar. You had some work on that, and for me, I don’t have the same affinity for the film that I obviously had for Star Wars, but I remember going to that and just being stunned by how well it works. So I’d love to know a little bit about your experience working on that, because I feel like those attractions and that land is kind of a miracle how well they work.

Daniel Joseph: Yeah, that’s a good point. I think for me as well, I wasn’t that familiar with the film when I was brought in to work on the project, but after working on it for a few years, I enjoyed, I appreciated what everyone was appreciating about it and really thought there were some cool elements to it. But what I found that was so exciting about it was, again, the design questions being asked, we want you guys to try to float a mountain. We want you guys to make these creatures in the queue that look absolutely alien and other worldly. I want you to make a giant nine-foot animated figure, float in water and be lifelike and just crazy outlandish design.

Basically design questions that I didn’t immediately know the answers to. And I think that those are the most fun ones. For one of the things was trying to figure out a way in Flight of Passage to make you not know really what we’re doing with the ride vehicle when we raise up a big safety shield and then reveal the amazing screens that are in front of you. And we had someone on the team just talk about what can we do to do that kind of thing? That’s where we came up with the dashboard that you’re looking at yourself, which I worked on that dashboard design and how to do that whole system basically kind of figuring out little by little and then putting it into the mockup, which is a full mockup we had in Glendale of that whole ride system.

It was really cool that you could basically look at yourself and this thing would play all the media over your face, and then we would flash all these blinky lights in a very specific way and fly the shield away and you couldn’t see the shield fly away. It was a magic trick. So things like that were just such a blast to figure out and work on and mock up. We built prototypes of that dashboard over and over and over again in different ways and all different kinds of techniques to make it finally work as well as it does.

So that was a blast. But then also the queue, if you’ve been in the Flight of Passage queue, there’s a lot of little creatures and futuristic displays in there that I got to work on, and that was just a blast. It was basically crazy contraptions and inventions from my office in my lab that we found finally a home for. So these are things, other projects that I’ve been developing and things like that that haven’t been used. And they’re basically saying, Daniel, we’re giving you free reign to put some crazy wacky things in the queue here. What do you have? And that was kind of the impetus for all that crazy stuff.

Dan Heaton: Oh, well, you mentioned calling it a magic trick. I mean, the queue sets it up so well, but then even the reveal, like you mentioned, I had not seen any ride videos or anything and was kind of like, oh, it’s going to be like Soarin’ or something like that. Then that reveal happens and it’s like, whoa. It’s connects with people so strongly emotionally who don’t have that strong connection to the film. How important was it to kind of grab them with all of that, or I wouldn’t even say distract them, but just to bring them right into it with some of those choices you were making?

Daniel Joseph: That was entirely the whole point, was bringing people into that story into in the most intimate way, I think was the design criteria. I think going forward. Gosh, we really tried to knock off every single thing that would take you out of that and whether it was seeing something that we didn’t want you to see or turning you in different directions in the queue so you wouldn’t quite know which direction you’re going to ultimately be brought out to the ride vehicle, all that stuff is part of that greater magic trick of getting you on the back of a banshee and flying around. It was really, really, I think that alone is what makes people so receptive to feeling so emotionally captivated by that ride.

Dan Heaton: Definitely. It totally clicks more than I ever would’ve guessed. So I want to ask you about one more individual attraction before we have some more overall questions. And that’s Space 220, which ultimately opened in September, and the effects look really cool and the technology for a restaurant, which is very different. What was it like to work on some technologies for a very different type of setting?

Daniel Joseph: It was great, actually. It’s one of my favorite projects, even if it is a smaller project compared to a lot of the other big lands and things I’ve gotten to work on. But this project Space 220, believe it or not, went on for about five years. It’s a restaurant, but there is a lot of thought and a lot of planning that had to go into making it the way it is. Truthfully, it’s one of the most sophisticated show type restaurants we’ve ever done on property as far as the inside design and theming, as well as the special effects that I came up with and we came up with for the show.

So the scope of it was kind of unlike any other restaurant we’ve ever done anywhere. So that was the first part of it. And then the second part was we had to start and stop a few times while doing it, obviously because of Covid and all that chaos that happened. So we were very close to being finished and then Covid hit and we kind of had to leave it all sitting for a while, and then we got to come back to it and pick up where we left off, which was great that everything, we hit kind of a new stride again. But one of the cool things that I found with that project was number one, it’s in Epcot, the intellectual property for it.

The theme for it is space, it’s NASA, it’s space, it’s science, and that’s kind of as pure as you can get as far as Epcot goes. And that’s enough. Everyone agrees that that is absolutely appropriate for it, and it delivers on that in a way that is absolutely captivating and really, really amazing without having face characters and things like that in the show. So I think that’s a really neat testament to the brand of Epcot and the interest in science and technology that people have with it all.

But we started on mockups for that in 2015 where we built a full-size section of one of the windows for the restaurant in Glendale, and we basically had to figure out some brand new projection technology and brand new screen technology to make space look as black as possible. Because one of the things that I think people take for granted is, well, why don’t you guys just project a 250 foot set of mapped video media across the back of that restaurant? And yeah, you could definitely do that and have all kinds of dynamic things happening, but when you project black with video, it’s actually gray usually.

So we call it video black, truly not black. It’s kind of a shade of darkish gray, but we wanted the true black inky darkness of space. So we came up with really a new kind of paint technology and a new kind of projection technology to make that all happen back there while still getting really, really bright stars. That was one of the things in talking to people at the Johnson Space Center and at JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, that space is really bright and you wouldn’t think so, but it’s all in the contrast because you’re out there, there’s really dark space, there’s really, really dark surrounding you.

But then you come next to the moon and it’s extraordinarily bright because it’s basically reflecting the sun, which, what’s brighter, what’s brighter than the sun. So as an overall illusion for the restaurant, we basically wanted to get something that was as dark as possible, dark as space and as bright as possible, being the sunlight being a source, reflecting off of the ships and the moon and all that stuff. It luckily arose to a new technique and a new technology that we’re able to pull off.

Dan Heaton: I love the connection, like you mentioned to Epcot and just the idea, like you said, that the theme is just space. And that reminds me, you mentioned in the last podcast about being inspired by Horizons, and I think about growing up and going there, and there’s a whole section on space that definitely feels similar to me, not exactly, but has a similar vibe to what is in Space 220. So did that inspire you at all, that type of interest in that attraction when you work, putting things together with Space 220?

Daniel Joseph: I’d say a hundred percent. Actually. One of the cool things was, first of all, the first marketing image or concept image of that was drawn by this amazing concept designer. We have Nick Kori, and that basically came out of his head with Tom Fitzgerald basically whispering in his ear, and it was Tom’s baby and Nick made it visually kind of click, and then I was brought into the mix and everything, and we were all of us talking about different things we can have in the show that would make it really cool. And one of them was, we lovingly call it the giant salad spinner, which is basically rotating gravity, artificial gravity growth corridor. Tom Fitzgerald, as you know, worked heavily on Horizons and was even in Horizons.

So he was just such a great advocate of all this stuff and was an honor to be able to brainstorm with him on what we could do in there. That was one of the ideas that came out of there, which from the original Land pavilion in 1982, they actually had a version of that a lot smaller, but that would rotate and show how you can grow plants in artificial gravity with ultraviolet light. I think we were all kind of inspired by that original Epcot from The Land as well as the space part of Horizons and putting a version of that in here.

But what we kept saying was a realized version like that 1982 version for the Land Pavilion, the 1983 scenery that was for Horizons, fast forward, 37 plus years came true, and that’s what we were kind of trying to convey in there. Look, here’s a giant version of that and we’re using it in the restaurant to now create food that you’re going to actually eat. That was such a cool thought and a cool conceit. And then of course, figuring out how to do that illusion in such a giant way was really, really fun too.

Dan Heaton: I love the throwbacks to those attractions, but with new technology, which I think is always something that’s cool to see. Well, last time you mentioned that Horizons inspired you, the Haunted Mansion we talked about, but I’m curious for you, whether it’s at theme parks or other mediums, kind of other inspirations or other attractions that really kind of connect to your work now or even that interested you that kind of led you into what you’re doing.

Daniel Joseph: Yeah, well, certainly Horizons and Haunted Mansion, I did get to work on some development work for Spaceship Earth a few years ago, and that just working on that and going through the building at length and really, really understanding how crazy that building is, gave me an absolute newfound love for that attraction.

I think what’s so special about it is it’s pretty much the way it was when the park opened, but it’s a testament to, like I was saying before, people asking crazy design questions like, well, we want to put the whole attraction inside a sphere. And everyone left that meeting and was like, these people are crazy. What do you mean? How can we possibly do that? Let’s come up with a way to maybe do it in a dome, not a sphere. We could do it in a sphere, but it has to sit on the ground.

But no, they figured out ultimately how to do it in a sphere and without computers and without AutoCAD and all that stuff. That attraction is just amazing how it’s laid out. That to me just really kind of reinvigorated my passion for, I guess design and problem solving because none of it was possible at the time, but people made it possible. And I look at Spaceship Earth, I’ve always loved it, but look at it when I’m working on a new illusion or something that seems impossible and be like, well, they figured out Spaceship Earth, I can figure this out. So that’s kind of cool, especially to have been crawling around and all the different nooks and crannies of that amazing building. When I was working on that, that was just absolutely outstanding.

Dan Heaton: I know a few people that got to do a special tour up in Spaceship Earth, and they said, you cannot believe how tight everything is and how everything is just kind of crammed in there. And I mean, I would love to see it, but it’s just one of those that they did it basically in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s and set the structure. That’s basically the same with new effects in the animatronics. My brain has a hard time with that figuring that out.

Daniel Joseph: I agree. I didn’t understand the track layout. I’ve seen two dimensional drawings of it for years until finally someone had created a very detailed 3D design drawing of it that we were using when we were working on it, and it was like, oh, oh, that’s how it all nests together and works together. That’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Dan Heaton: Yeah. And you referenced even, you mentioned this last time, but you also just mentioned it talking about how they didn’t have access to all the computers, and I know a lot of the work you do is with computers, but also you’re still trying to create things physically. So I’m curious for you, how do you find creative ways to build effects without just relying on computers more using them as a tool to create something?

Daniel Joseph: That’s a great point. I think people come to our parks all over the world to see things physically. The park is a physical place. Being inside an attraction and seeing things in three-dimensional, three-dimensional presentations in the round, smelling the smells and feeling the wind and all those things are all visceral type things.

We know that so often when we go to see things in the movie theaters, especially now, you can kind of do a catchall and say, well, it’s just CGI, it’s just a computer-generated thing, or it was just all done in postOne of the things that I absolutely, it’s kind of like my life’s goal and my life’s work is to be able to do things that are just as compelling as seen in movies and seen on a flat screen on a tv, but in real life. And that is really hard.

It’s a really hard lofty goal, but like you said, it’s something that is in one respect, easier to do on a screen than it is in real life. We want to default to what is cooler, not what is easier. So I think one of the examples of that is what we were just talking about with Rise the of Resistance. So much of that, honestly, like the blaster beams, there’s apps on your cell phone now where you can edit video and add blaster beams that are coming at you and your friends, and it’s like a $4.99 app or something and looks amazing, but it’s not real.

But doing that in a real physical way where you don’t know how it’s done because there’s no screen, you’re not looking in a screen, you’re sitting in a room with real things happening immediately makes people kind of switch and have this notion that, oh my God, I’m really in the middle of this.

How did they do that? This is real. The suspension of disbelief kind of clicks in and happens. And that’s what really has been guiding, I think me and some of the other people that work with me in the lab to do more and more and more of this work. It seems interestingly enough, like 4K technology and 8K video technology, all the video technology is just getting better and better and better out there.

But what I’m noticing is my little team is getting busier and busier and busier, and it’s because I truly think one of the big differentiators at Disney and at Imagineering is this notion of doing real magic tricks in front of people. How do they do that stuff? And whether a video or computers is a component of that, it isn’t necessarily the main driver of it. It’s really a tool that’s used in the overall magic trick that is what we do here.

So I think that to me seems like it’s actually accelerating more than slowing down. And in the past year and a half where we’ve all been through so much and there’s just all this uncertainty in the world and everything, people want to see that magic and that realistic, but how do they do that type stuff? I feel more and more and more or craving it. I am excited; I think there’s great big beautiful tomorrow for these practical physical illusions and effects to happen in Disney theme parks more and more and more. And it certainly feels like we’re getting to do more of that work.

Dan Heaton: I agree. And that leads in, I have a few more quick questions here. This leads well into this one though, which is, I know we talked last time about some advice you would give to designers or people interested in joining the industry, but even another year has passed and the parks are open, but the industry is still going to be changing based on COVID-19 and how everything is going there. I mean, kind of given where we are now, I mean you just addressed it with even the focus on tangible experiences, but what advice would you give to someone who’s looking, either they’re in the industry or is looking to get into it for things that maybe they could, their mentality or maybe what they focus on?

Daniel Joseph: Absolutely. Things have changed a lot and have changed even a lot over the last decade. They’ve just accelerated in the past year and a half. And the thing that I think everyone is very, very used to seeing right now is amazing visuals at home on streaming and all that stuff. So that makes a theme park and themed entertainment designer’s job different and that much more challenging.

How can we differentiate what we offer in a theme park Disney or any theme park to what you can see at home on a really, really great high quality HD display or 4K display that is worth going out for? And I think the answer to that is combined techniques and experiences. Some of the things over the years that we’ve done many, many years ago, like 3D shows like Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and things like that were amazing at their time, but we’re kind of in a sense, a one-trick pony, right?

It’s a theater show. There’s a lot of practical physical effects that are super cool, but the conceit is that’s kind of one technology, one technique, and as soon as you put on your glasses, you are in it, but the conceit that you put on glasses never leaves your mind. So for new people that are trying to get into the industry or people who are interested in themed entertainment and all that, I really think the answer is understanding a lot of different mediums and a lot of different techniques of taking people out of normal life. And I think some people, their means in which to do that is sketching and drawing and concept design.

Other people like to make models and other people will write scripts and think about it that way. But one of the things that I really like when I’m bringing people onto my team and into work with is people who can do, even if they’re not good at it, but at least try to do all of those things while you’re coming up with the layout of a new themed land.

You’re thinking of the story and thinking of the background to why you’re laying things out physically the way you are, but also thinking about sight lines and how you can fool the eye and do things that way. So I think our industry used to be very siloed, where there would be people who are expert model makers and expert illustrators and expert story people to where now I think the industry is kind of begging for people who are a little more holistic in their thinking about it all at once, and at least trying those different avenues of artistic expression, even if they’re not the best model maker, they’re not the best writer. It’s super important in this day and age.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, that’s a great point. Well, I just have one more question. This is kind of just a less serious one, but I know on your Instagram you create a lot of things at home for Halloween for others, and they’re really fun. So I’m curious for something that’s one of your favorites or even just the type of things you create that you’ve really enjoyed doing kind of on your off time when you’re not working on big attraction.

Daniel Joseph: Oh, it’s kind of my way to de-stress, because the cool thing about working in your garage and making something either for your kids or your house is there’s no outside influence. You get to just do it. And one of my favorite things just because my son really flipped out when I gave it to him, was this Luigi’s Mansion, which is a video game on Nintendo Switch vacuum. So I made basically a full backpack vacuum for him. At the time, he was five, now he’s six, but he would go around the house with a lights soft in his vacuum and press the button, and then you were able to see ghosts appear on the wall, different ghosts, depending on which button you pressed, and then pressing another button, you could suck them into the vacuum and you would hear noise and all that stuff.

It was basically a special effects show and attraction that you could wear. And wherever you go, you can make the scenery and the effects and the illusions and sound effects happen on those surfaces. So I thought it was kind of a neat new way of doing. I mean, maybe that would be called augmented reality in a way, but the cool thing with this one is you don’t have to wear any glasses.

Dan Heaton: Wow, that’s awesome. Yeah. My daughters recently have been playing that game and that would blow their mind. Something like that. That’s an amazing, amazing creation and also really fun, like you said, for your son to be able to do that at home. That’s great.

Daniel Joseph: It’s kind of funny, I have these different experiments and things going in my home shop, an office that are just different explorations and things I’m playing with and toying with that maybe will end up in something big at Disney or maybe will just be something that inspires me for something else. But it’s so funny when my son comes in in the shop and sees that stuff at home, and he kind of in his own way.

I mean, he’s definitely fascinated by it and thinks it’s cool stuff, but he expects it because of how he’s grown up and who his parents are and everything like that. And it never ceases to make me laugh how he will be like, I’ll show him something this big tornado tube or something in the garage, and he will see it and just look at it and be like, oh, well, couldn’t it be bigger?

Things like that just absolutely, absolutely make me crack up. And he’s going to go to college when he’s older and think this was the normal upbringing and talk to his friends who have normal parents and stuff like that, and they’re going to be like, what did your parents do? What?

Dan Heaton: You’ve set the bar so high, there’s no way that anything can live up to that. Daniel, this has been great. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. It’s been awesome to dig even further into what you’ve done. It’s been a blast. Thanks so much.

Daniel Joseph: Yeah, yeah, my pleasure and always love chatting with you and pulling the curtain back from our crazy and wacky Illusioneering Lab here at Imagineering.