Paul Torrigino’s stories last fall about the never-built Dragon
Tower attraction (read part 1 |
part 2) were very well received
and prompted many questions about his work on the Maelstrom attraction at
Epcot’s Norway pavilion. Paul returns with a multi-part series about his experiences
with the Maelstrom. — Mark Goldhaber
Joining the team
I owe my involvement in the Norway project to Bob Kurzweil,
a great guy who was a designer at Imagineering for some years back then.
Bob was the designer of the Disneyland Alice in Wonderland attraction
(the last ride built for New Fantasyland) in the early ’80s, and he was
the art director of the production of all the sets and figures for Alice
at Imagineering’s Tujunga production facility.
I had worked on all the other Fantasyland rides up until then, doing
figure finishing and some black light scenic painting. Gosh, you know
I spent a couple of years working in the black light rooms and I got really
good at it.
So Bob really liked my work and we got on very well. He had a great sense
of humor. I did a lot of the figure painting on that show, and also sculpted
some props and some small figures. All the big figures for Alice were
sculpted by Blaine Gibson, Peter Kermode, and Adolpho over in the sculpture
shop, but we sculpted most of the props and some of the smaller things
over at Tujunga.
I remember in particular sculpting a small hedgehog figure, the small
hedgehog that the queen is about to hit with the flamingo croquet mallet.
The hedgehog had this funny scared expression looking up at the queen
and the figure came out really nice. Bob liked the job I did on it so
I guess he remembered me after the project ended.
Paul still has this sketch of a hedgehog in his scrapbook. It was drawn
for the Alice in Wonderland attraction at Disneyland. Image courtesy of
Paul Torrigino.
After Alice finished, I stayed over at Tujunga and spent a year or so
working with my good friend Helena Hutchinson on various little figure-finishing
projects, including the Country Bear Band Christmas show make-over. We
did the costumes for it. I learned how to sew real well on that one. All
that fake fur!
Out of the blue one day I got a call from my boss at the time, Michael
Morris, asking me to move back over to the model shop in Glendale to make
some models for the new Norway project. Bob Kurzweil had asked for me.
The troll ride
Bob was the designer of the project, and Randy Carter was the producer.
Bob and Randy did most of the negotiations with the Norwegian sponsors,
along with Marty Sklar and the late Randy Bright (who were the top creative
executives at Imagineering).
Paul and Helena Hutchinson work on new costumes for the Country Bears
Christmas Show. Photo courtesy of Paul Torrigino.
Between the four of them, I think, they came up with the initial idea
of having it be a boat ride, and the idea of having the boat turn around
and go backwards. That idea was in the concept from the beginning, because
they wanted the ride to have something unique about it that hadn’t been
done before. They worked this out with Dave Van Wyk, who was the head
ride engineer of the project. Everybody thought it was a great idea and
it was a great hook for the sponsors to get excited about.
Joe Rohde did all the early conceptual illustrations and I made the models.
Bob mostly would come down to the model shop and work with us. Bob wasn’t
really a hands-on guy; mostly he would come up with the concepts and layouts,
but wouldn’t do illustrations or anything. He had the neatest office I
would ever seen—sparse, with everything neat as a pin and nothing
out of place—and normally he would have one piece of blank paper
with a pencil next to it centered on the blank desk. And those were the
days before computers. He was very well-organized. I’ve always been a
slob—with piles of stuff all over my desk—so I was always very
impressed on how neat he was.
Very early on, Bob had the whole ride designed with a Norwegian troll
story. It was going to be a fun fantasy type ride all about the Norwegian
troll legends that are very popular in that country. I remember doing
some really rough little layout models—nothing too detailed—just
quick studies out of foam core.
Bob and Randy were talking about getting the Sherman brothers to write
a song for it, and one day they got them to come in for a meeting at the
model. I was really excited to meet them and we explained the ride concept
to them. They were very interested and were ready to go off and write
a song.
Back to the drawing board
In the next few days after the Sherman brothers’ meeting, Bob and Randy
met with the Norwegian sponsors, who flew in from Norway (they were the
heads of some big Norwegian corporations). The sponsors liked the boat
ride concept but they made it clear that they were not interested in a
troll ride representing their country. They wanted more of a travelogue
showing all the different things that make Norway unique.
Bob and Randy came out of the meeting with a whole list of things that
the sponsors specifically wanted to see in the ride; Vikings, a fishing
village, polar bears, a fjord, an oil rig, and yes, maybe a troll or two.
So they let the Sherman brothers know right away that the concept had
changed, and as it turned out they never hired them back after that. Too
bad.
This early load model for the attraction has a more atmospheric backdrop
than the mural that was eventually created. Photo courtesy of Paul Torrigino.
So Bob, Randy, Joe and I met and went over the list from the meeting,
and we were all scratching our heads. How the heck were we going to incorporate
all this stuff into a story for the ride that made any kind of sense?!
I think Bob came up with the time travel idea right away, and then everything
kind of fell into place, sort of. We planned it out with a Viking scene
first and then went right into the troll mythology. Then magically somehow
the guests would get transported to the present day with the sea theme
kind of tying it all together. Kind of a mishmash, but it served our purposes.
We were really grasping at straws trying to fit everything in.
Our research was mainly from books and magazines. I had every book about
Norway I could find right there at hand on my desk. Our research library
had some good information, and we had some books the Norwegian sponsors
gave us.
Soon after we got into the real design of it, the Norwegian sponsors
offered to send some of the project team off to Norway for the grand research
tour of the country—all the major museums, a helicopter flight to
an oil rig, a trip to a reindeer farm and more. I was hoping to get to
go along, but the word came down from Marty that model makers normally
didn’t go on research trips and he didn’t want to start a precedent by
sending me, so I didn’t get to go. I was pretty sad that I didn’t get
to go, especially because I was the one that was actually doing the design
work! But the few that went brought back lots of brochures and books for
me to use as research.
Modeling the attraction
Paul stands with a model of the fishing village holding area in 1987.
Photo courtesy of Paul Torrigino.
After the initial concept was approved, we started designing it for real.
The way we would work is that Bob would come down from his office with
a CAD (computer-assisted design) drawing of how he wanted the ride track
to go through, with rough dimensions of the building layout. He would
then tell me what his idea for the scene was, and I would block it out
in dimension in half-inch scale. I just built the model the way I thought
it should look. He would come down again after I got something built and
then critique it. He liked most everything. Most of his critiques were
on really little minor details. For example, he would say something like,
“The top of this rock looks funny to me. Move it over an inch to
the right,” and like that. I would build each little scene and finish
it off real nice with paint and everything.
All the sections of the model were built on platforms so that you could
see them at eye level. When we got a scene to where we liked it, we would
review it with Marty and Randy Bright for a “buy-off”—meaning
they would give it final approval and it could be drawn up. So I would
set up each finished section of the model in a curtained off area where
we could control the lighting and we would light them with mini-mole spotlights
with colored gels in them or black lights depending on the scene.
After the model was approved by them, the show set department would come
down and tear each section of it apart to measure it and draw it up to
make the set of construction plans. The show set effort was headed up
by Maureen Sullivan. Maureen worked on tons of projects for years and
finally retired a few years ago. She was great to work with—a real
professional—and later, I was able to work with her again on other
projects over the years.
Coming next week
In the next part of the story, Paul discusses more of the design process
and the construction of parts of the attraction at Imagineering in California.
About Paul Torrigino
Designer Paul Torrigino was a great Disney fan in his high school and
college years and in 1980 he interviewed and was hired for a position
at Imagineering’s model shop by creative manager Maggie Elliot. In his
portfolio he showed pictures of his home made models of the Haunted Mansion,
Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. Paul also
had worked with theatrical production, film-making and art in college
and had been working in architectural model shops in San Francisco and
Los Angeles.
Over the next 21 years as a versatile Imagineer, he held a variety of
other titles including Production Artisan, Production Designer, Art Director,
Concept Designer and Show Designer and worked on most of the large Imagineering
projects.
After making models for EPCOT Paul transferred into Imagineering’s show
production department. There he worked on audio-animatronic figure finishing,
scenic painting and props and sets for about 5 years. The projects included
EPCOT, Disneyland New Fantasyland, Tokyo Disneyland and a variety of other
smaller projects like the Country Bear Holiday show. He was relocated
to Tokyo for a short while to do on-site figure finishing for Tokyo Disneyland
before the park opened and worked on the figures for the Fantasyland dark
rides, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean
and other attractions.
In 1986 he was asked to be the production designer of the new ride for
the Norway Pavilion for EPCOT World Showcase. Paul relocated to Orlando
to art direct the installation of the attraction.
1988 Paul returned to the Imagineering model shop and began working on
models for Paris Disneyland and did quite a bit of black light painting
on the show models of the Fantasyland rides. Soon after, he was asked
to art direct the production of all the audio-animatronic figures for
the park, and relocated to Orlando for two and a half years to oversee
the production of the figures at Disneyworld Central Shops. Work included
art directing all phases of the production of the figures for Phantom
Manor, “it’s a small world,” Pirates of the Caribbean and the Fantasyland
attractions Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland Hedge
Maze, King Arthur’s Carrousel and other smaller attractions. Work continued
on the project when Paul relocated to Paris for a year and a half for
the installation and also to oversee the hiring and training of the French
animatronic figure maintenance crew.
After returning to California in 1992, Paul was asked to work on the
new Animal Kingdom project. Paul worked for two years on concepts for
the fabled “Beastlie Kingdomme” project that eventually was
cancelled. Continuing on with Animal Kingdom, he designed the Countdown
to Extinction attraction (name changed to Dinosaur later} and again relocated
to Orlando for the installation.
In 1998 Paul was asked to help art direct various parts of the huge Tokyo
Disney Sea project including aspects of Mysterious Island and the ExplorerÕs
Landing Fortress and art directed much of the California production of
the various show pieces.
When the Tokyo Disney Sea project ended Paul worked on a variety of smaller
projects including art directing aspects of animatronic projects like
the new Lincoln at Disneyland, the George Bush figure for the Hall of
Presidents and the figures for the Tokyo Disneyland Winnie the Pooh attraction.
Paul was working on new ideas for attractions, as well as some new secret
animatronic development projects when he was laid-off under the direction
of Paul Pressler a month after 9/11 happened in 2001.
Since leaving Disney, Paul has moved to Sacramento, California and has
created an online custom tiki bar sign business called Pariarts, which
he runs with his partner, ex-theme park designer Richard Gutierrez (visit
Pariarts here to to enjoy—and
purchase—some of Paul’s incredible handiwork!).
Paul says, “I really love our little home business and laid back
lifestyle now. We have a great studio workshop and we always have a ton
of little art projects going. After Disney laid me off, I’ve had no desire
to return to the theme park industry. I got to work on some of the most
amazing projects Disney ever did, and I’m very satisfied with the career
I had.”
