The story behind Disney’s magical storytelling
D’Amaro shares a peek into the company’s creative process
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Magicians never reveal their secrets. That’s prestidigitation 101. But Josh D’Amaro, who oversees the magical spectacles that are the Disney theme parks in his role as chairman of the company’s experiences division, broke the code a bit. At HubSpot’s recent Inbound conference and expo in Boston, the affable exec delivered one of the keynote presentations, Dream to Reality: How a Disney Story Comes to Life. It turns out there’s more to it than cutting a check for $60 billion and waving a magic wand.
Admitting that it might sound hokey to talk about “the Disney magic,” D’Amaro contended that it is nonetheless “real and what makes us different. It sets the Disney company apart.” The magic all comes down to storytelling and conjuring the power of great stories. The chairman traced this tenet of the company, as well as other core principles that he shared throughout his talk, back to the man who started it all, Walt Disney.
One of the ways that Imagineers harness the power of stories, D’Amaro revealed, is by fostering emotional connections. He is not immune to the potent sway that Disney attractions wield. When he was ten years old, D’Amaro’s family drove across the country to Disneyland. (Like me, the exec is from the Boston area.) After his dad told him that Peter Pan’s Flight was his favorite ride and that he‘d really feel like he’d be flying, the two shared a knowing smile as their galleon rose into the air.
“When I sit in that pirate ship today, I’m immediately ten years old again, and I feel like I’m sitting there with my parents flying over London,” D’Amaro stated. The tale was all the more poignant when he acknowledged that his parents were in the audience at the presentation. “There’s a good chance that I wouldn’t be talking to you today if I didn’t have some of those emotional connections that I made with my family at Disneyland as a kid,” D’Amaro added.
Another key component of Disney’s magic formula is innovation, which is driven by curiosity. D’Amaro said that the original Pirates of the Caribbean, which opened in 1967 at Disneyland and was one of the last projects in which Walt was personally involved, was a “massive leap forward in our experiential storytelling.” It capitalized on the then-nascent audio-animatronics technology with grand-scale sets and a huge cast of mechanized buccaneers and other characters. More recently, Imagineers took innovation to the next level with the highly complex Pirates of the Caribbean Battle for the Sunken Treasure at Shanghai Disneyland. Beyond its highly sophisticated animatronics, the attraction also incorporates, among many other elements, large-format, highly immersive media that is positively mind boggling and a new magnetic ride system that precisely synchronizes the boat vehicles as the story unfolds.
To demonstrate the company’s innovation, D’Amaro invited a pair of BD-X droids onto the stage that Imagineers had developed and recently introduced at Disneyland. The small robots were remarkably agile and filled with personality. The droids dovetailed with the next storytelling principle the chairman noted: relatability. It’s not enough to wow guests with whiz-bang technology; they have to relate to the characters and buy into the stories. Cast members, the frontline employees that are an integral part of the show at the parks, are key to making relatable connections with guests. By bringing experiences to life, “you start to believe these magical places are real,” D’Amaro said.
Another way that Disney helps to make magical places real, according to D’Amaro, is attention to detail. Guests may not notice all of the minutiae, but the details help create an aura of authenticity, even if it’s on a subconscious level. The chairman says that the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge lands are prime examples of the company’s keen focus on details. The droid track marks that punctuate the walkways are not just from any robot; they were made using the original R2D2.
“The finance teams were over here saying, ‘You’re nuts. You’re going to get the real R2D2?’” D’Amaro noted. “The answer is yes. The Imagineers won that one.”
It’s that kind of thinking that exemplifies Disney’s fifth storytelling principle: courage.
“We may not always get this right, but I believe Walt would have wanted us to try. He would have wanted us to be courageous,” said D’Amaro.
That means swinging for the fences sometimes, whether it’s carving out 14 acres at land-starved Disneyland by eliminating Big Thunder Ranch or allocating $60 billion in new capital for Disney’s parks and experiences soon after the company introduced austerity measures.
Finally, D’Amaro said that boundless faith is another core principle driving the company’s storytelling. It can’t rest on its laurels; instead its creative visionaries have to strive for the next big idea. As examples, he pointed to the startling Spider-Man Stuntronic figure that takes flight above Avengers Campus in Disney California Adventure as well as the company’s plans to create a digital Disney playground with Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite.
“We want to be boundless in our thinking as a tribute to our past,” said D’Amaro.
What emotional connections have you made at the Disney parks? Is the “Disney magic” real for you?
My first trip to Disney World was when I was probably 3 or 4 years old, and my last visit was when I was 40, so it really is one of those destinations by which I can mark milestones in my life. There were the trips as a kid with family, the trip I took with my foreign exchange student in high school, the impromptu road trip I took with my college classmates, my honeymoon trip with my wife, and then the trips I took with my own kids. I can think of few other destinations that have so regularly been a stop on my life journey.
As far Disney magic, I think the one thing that Disney does really well that a lot of other kid-oriented companies struggle to do is to instill that sense of wonder. I feel that part of the "magic" people talk about when referencing Disney is that they have a way of making you feel that excitement and curiosity of being a kid again. Part of that may be the nostalgia edge they have over other companies - many of us experienced Disney movies and parks as kids, so they have an instant hook into that emotion that other companies lack.
But beyond that, I feel like Disney does a good job of not talking down to kids. It's easy to appeal to a 5-year old with a fart joke or a pratfall. And a lot of animated films just lean into that cheap, easy side of it. But Disney tends to deal with real emotional concepts that kids might not fully understand now, but their parents do. And those kids will grow up with those films understanding more and more as they mature. Part of that wonder and mystery may be that kids sense there is content in these films beyond their current understanding.
There is a difference between making content to make kids laugh, and making content to make kids think. And I think that's the DIsney difference.