The Amazing Adventure of Creating a Spider-Man Attraction
“We are going to talk about the art, craftsmanship, and sheer audacity” that was required to create “The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man,” said Bob Rogers, founder and chief creative officer of BRC Imagination Arts, who returned to IAAPA Expo to convene the popular Legends panel. “Many attractions claim to be a game changer. This one really was,” he added as he introduced three of the veteran designers who helped develop the signature, $100 million Universal’s Islands of Adventure attraction: Thierry Coup, senior vice president and chief creative officer at Universal Creative; Phil Hettema, president and creative director of The Hettema Group; and Scott Trowbridge, portfolio creative executive and studio leader for Walt Disney Imagineering.
Wildly ambitious in scope, Rogers asked the panel what motivated them to take on Spider-Man. “It was going to be the most incredible ride in the universe,” Coup recalled. When Universal gave them the green light to design it, he said that was all they needed to hear.
Among the many things that had never been done before, the highly complex attraction incorporated roving motion-base vehicles and rear-projected, 3D digital media that had to be viewed on multiple screens and with shifting perspectives.
“We had a lot of experts telling us what we were thinking about was not possible,” Trowbridge acknowledged. To prove the naysayers wrong, the team sought and discovered solutions. Among the breakthroughs they developed was the concept of “squinching,” a technique that involves compensating for the distortion that passengers would see as they moved past the 3D screens by intentionally distorting the image in the opposite direction.
Hettema explained that the panels on either side of the vehicles establish the field of view and effectively serve as a motion picture frame. “Every scene is designed so that we are carefully controlling what you can see,” he said. “That’s what makes it amazing. That was truly the breakthrough achievement.”
The result is a seamless experience that is utterly convincing. For the finale, passengers scale a skyscraper and then plummet headlong off the top of it until (spoiler alert) Spider-Man rescues them at the last moment. The ride vehicles never actually leave the ground, however. “My body can’t tell how they’re doing it, and I know how it works,” Hettema added.
Beyond the incredible technical achievements, Coup said that it’s all about the storytelling. “The pacing of the attraction is perfect. It’s very much like a symphony. It uses pacing to deliver a story and capture the emotions of the guest,” he said. “That’s what makes ‘Spider-Man’ one of the most successful attractions to date.”
- View a recap from the Legends panel from Show Daily TV below:
