Iger Planning to Kill Imagineering?

[Sarangel]

Here's the Article from Jim Hill. In it he discusses the possibility of Iger laying off most of WDI, in order to make the process (and end product) work better.

 

[mjstaceyuofm]

Very interesting. So far (imho) Iger hasn't made any bad moves since taking over Disney. If imagineering is as dysfunctional as JH writes in his article, then this really is a good move. I guess time will tell but what's really important is that they keep their core, creative people - who those are, I have no idea, but I'd assume there are a few there still....

 

[YoHo]

Well of course WDI is filled with schemeing backstabber. The whole company is filled with middle managment jerks with no love of the company.

The worst part about that article is that he conviently forgets that a couple years ago Eisner slashed most of the creative WDI jobs already. Maybe, if they had cut middle managment instead of artists, they wouldn't have had this problem in the first place.

 

[cxcelica]

I am taking the article at face value and don’t know if Jim Hill has a reason to exaggerate the problems or not, but I think it is actually a good thing what Iger is doing. Noone likes to see people lose their job, but it sounds like they are cutting out the poison of the company. If 200-300 people were doing this much damage to the company then I see no reason why they should not be let go!!! Surely there are some downsides to things not being kept in house any more, but I don’t see them outweighing the positives. If by letting these people go, Iger is confident that productivity and creation of rides/attractions will increase more efficiently and more cost-effectively than he has to do it. In the end the customer will benefit and so will the shareholders!

 

[ChrisFL]

So basically if this is true then WDI will not be WDI but outsourced on a project basis?

somehow I dont know if they can keep quality control that way.

 

[yearbook50]

I hope not. I want to be an Imagineer.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

I hope not. I want to be an Imagineer.

There will be Imagineers as long as Disney keeps enhancing their theme parks and resorts — but it seems that an ever-increasing percentage of those Imagineers don't work directly for The Walt Disney Company.

Even back in the days when Walt ran the show, WED turned to outside companies. For example, the innovative Matterhorn ride system was built by Arrow Development. However, Disneyland's real creative work was performed by Walt's trusted creative staff.

Does it really matter if an attraction was designed and built by Disney Imagineering or by BRC Imagination Arts? The attraction should be immersive, entertaining, and just as fun the tenth time as the first time. That's what really matters.

To me, it seems that the best way to achieve high quality attractions is to nurture a highly skilled, highly creative, in-house organization that applies its experience to make Disney's worldwide theme parks better year after year.

However, the reality is that many Disney Imagineers were let go years ago, and Disney (and other companies) contract with outside design and fabrication companies — who employ many of the same Imagineers that Disney let go.

 

[YoHo]

While they retained the useless middle managers that caused all the problems. This all a bunch of closing the barn door after the horse has run off.

 

[DVCconvert]

Having done independent contract work for WDI, I can say that this has been an expanding trend for years and I think likely to continue. That said, I believe there will always be a core in control at WDI.

 

[erikthewise]

It is possible that after the inefficiencies and "deadwood" are cleared out, they will later find it convenient to take on a reduced number of permanent design/art/engineering personnel in addition to planners and managers. While the current trend in this and other industries is to "outsource everything", it's just that, a trend. It's unlikely that it's the best way to do everything. There is such a thing as institutional memory, and it does have value.

But sometimes changes have to be made this way. At least Disney has this option. Now if only we could do the same thing with Congress and the Pentagon.

 

[mjstaceyuofm]

While they retained the useless middle managers that caused all the problems. This all a bunch of closing the barn door after the horse has run off.

Nobody's disputing that fact and maybe Iger sees it too. Maybe this is damage control that Iger views as an opportunity to set the creative arm of the company up for better times... I agree with erikthewise (and maybe Iger does too) - that by clearing out the crap and hay from the stables and cleaning up the barn a little bit, they might be able to attract a few prize-winning animals.

 

[cxcelica]

It seems from the report that Iger intends to keep intact a group to design and create and come up with artistic ideas, but when it comes time to put paper into reality it will seek outside assistance. I don't see a real problem with this. If Disney is still creating the ideas and concepts but some other company is putting them into action more quickly and more cost effictively but with the same quality(very important) is that really a problem?!

I also disagree that "outsourcing" in general is a "trend". At this point it is a way of business and with the global economy growing it will only become more entrenched.

 

[Another Voice]

I want to be an Imagineer.

They’re haven’t been any real ones in about five years.

Disney has been closing down WDI project by project for five years now. All of the creative staff – the ones with the original ideas – have already been fired. The only people left were the middle management with the political skills to avoid the layoffs.

This has been a process that’s been in the making for a long time. Eisner hated Imagineering from the first day. He dumped as much blame for the failures on Euro Disney as possible on them. Then, after being banned from California Adventure, turned around and tried to dump the blame on them for that as well. Things have only gotten worse when WDI was changed from an independent business unit into a division of the parks.

According to the rumors, in this is how new rides will be developed in the future. Each park will develop a long term marketing plan. These will be coordinated at Corporate and turned into a “facility addition” action plan. Various outside (e.g., non-Disney) companies will be asked to submit ideas for attractions. Disney corporate will select the idea that fits into as many parks’ plans as possible and order the required number. Almost all rides will go into multiple parks – one of WDI’s primary jobs will be to resell these attractions to Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong. The out side company will design and construct the ride; WDI will work on fitting the ride into the park’s existing infrastructure.

In a lot of ways this is a “studio” approach to making movies – a movie is actually made by an outside production company and then marketed by a studio. Disney has been using this method for a while now – it brought us the Pop Century Hotel and most of ‘Mission: Space’ (the ride designers were fired because they objected to how Disney was running the project’s management).

What this really means is the end of the unique Disney attraction. The best Disney rides have been the ones where Imagineers sat around and dreamed up their wildest adventures – exploring a haunted house, going on a pirate adventure, traveling to outer space – and then figuring out how to make their dreams real.

Now we get salesmen pitching their company’s latest wares, competing for the lowest price to fill a bullet point on a PowerPoint presentation. Welcome to Six Flags over Orlando.

 

[GrimGhost]

..... Eisner hated Imagineering from the first day. He dumped as much blame for the failures on Euro Disney as possible on them...

Funny, Ive read just the opposite, he found them kindred spirits in that he considered himself creative and the heir to Walts legacy and ability. Theme Park executives on the on the other hand, yes, he had disdain for them. He once said ' Any monkey could run the theme parks'.

.....And hey, weren't we talking about Bob Iger? Ofcourse, I for one don't believe him to be the "mini-Eisner" others do.

 

[MJMcBride]

What this really means is the end of the unique Disney attraction. The best Disney rides have been the ones where Imagineers sat around and dreamed up their wildest adventures – exploring a haunted house, going on a pirate adventure, traveling to outer space – and then figuring out how to make their dreams real.

Where does Expedition Everest fit. I haven't done it yet, but it seems like a unique attraction.

 

[mjstaceyuofm]

I was waiting for AV to jump in on this thread..... Basically, what AV says backs up the need to clean house in imagineering if the only ones left are imanagers as opposed to imagineers.

I'll stick to my hope that the greater plan is to clean house, get a core of creative people in there to oversee creative content and then hire a bunch of hawks to make sure outside companies deliver "the magic" (as envisioned by those uber-creative imagineers) on attractions... That really is the way things have gone in the business world of late. There's too many technologies/areas for people to master - even an imagineer. At some point you need some specialty firms to handle things.

I wonder where Lasseter fit into all this? Maybe he can help stock WDI with some good creative minds....

 

[Keyser]

I was going to start a new thread about this, but it fits in too well with this one. Today at the SIGGRAPH conference, Joe Rohde gave the keynote talk. He's an Imagineering executive, the chief designer of AK and most recently the Expedition Everest Ride. Most of his talk focused on the development of EE. It was incredibly interesting. Most of the talk focused on the nature of storytelling, the importance of theme (as opposed to setting) and that sort of thing. I haven't seen the EE ride myself, but from this talk I am amazed at the amount of background work that went into it.

They’re haven’t been any real ones in about five years.

Disney has been closing down WDI project by project for five years now. All of the creative staff – the ones with the original ideas – have already been fired. The only people left were the middle management with the political skills to avoid the layoffs.

It was kind of bizarre for me to read this today, just hours after hearing Rohde's talk. The strong impression I got from him (at least in regards to the development of EE - maybe this was the last of the original rides) was 180 degrees different from what you're saying, here. Everything he discussed about the ride (other than the initial directive to put together a thrill ride for AK) seems to have been done with a lot of thought. It's certainly far from picking up an external ride and slapping decorations on to it. His talk outlined the whole process they went through, from picking the idea for the ride all the way down to how they designed the ride details, and how all of this fit into the storytelling framework. He spent a lot of time emphasizing the need for telling a story and how that can be done in a physical installation.

What this really means is the end of the unique Disney attraction. The best Disney rides have been the ones where Imagineers sat around and dreamed up their wildest adventures – exploring a haunted house, going on a pirate adventure, traveling to outer space – and then figuring out how to make their dreams real.

Now we get salesmen pitching their company’s latest wares, competing for the lowest price to fill a bullet point on a PowerPoint presentation. Welcome to Six Flags over Orlando.

Boy, if this is the case, it would have to be a complete change from everything about the process as discussed today. In fact, if this talk was even somewhat reflective of the general procedure at Disney, I think you would have a much easier time of making the case that Imagineering was too focused on storytelling (!) over trying to contain costs. I can see that the detail they went into probably cost a lot of $, and honestly I think most people won't realize how deep the story for this ride goes (though maybe that's part of the point).

I've followed this board for a while, and read how many folks (including AV) lament the decline in Disney quality. Honestly, today's talk seemed exactly like the type of speech that such people would like. Really - it was completely the opposite of the bottom-line oriented management that I have seen criticized. If this was reflective of Imagineering (and it was reflective of at least one Imagineering exec), I don't think you should consider a gutting of Imagineering to be a good thing...

 

[DisneyFanGuy]

Hopefully Disney will keep some of the creative project leads. A small but effecient Imagineering might be a very good thing. Expand teams for individual projects. Keep full benefits staff to a minimum. If it's just a full budget slash with no direction then it's a problem. Iger hasn't made any big mistakes yet......so hopefully this isn't the first whopper. "Six Flags over Orlando" seems a bit cynical, and a bit premature.

 

[YoHo]

Joe Rhodes is a useless twit who mistakes urban tribalism/piercings for creativity. I wouldn't put any stock in what he tells you.

 

[mjstaceyuofm]

Joe Rhodes is a useless twit who mistakes urban tribalism/piercings for creativity. I wouldn't put any stock in what he tells you.

Wow that's harsh!