The Fabulous Disney Babe
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Barry Braverman at the February 8th opening of Disney's California Adventure

Barry Braverman, Senior Vice President and Executive Producer, Walt Disney Imagineering, was kind enough to grant me an interview last month.  

Barry started out as a schoolteacher, a self-described "radical" who wanted to rewrite all of the textbooks and bring a fresh approach to teaching.  Marty Sklar, Vice Chairman and Principal Creative Executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, recalls a young Barry getting hold of him to ask about teaching materials for his students.  Marty liked what he saw, and gave Barry a job working on projects for Imagineering.  

I asked Barry how it felt to look at how the scope of his teaching job has changed, from 25 kids to 25 million kids, and he said that while he's still teaching in his present position, he doesn't "pretend it's 'Capital E-Education' The jobs teachers do," he continued, "are under appreciated, but the most important jobs there are.  I'm certainly not doing what they do.  In the Entertainment business we provide a turn-on, open people's eyes to the world around them.  Acquiring and mastering skills are what real teachers teach, and my hat's off to them."

Barry had mentioned that he wanted to change the textbooks when he was a teacher; I asked how he was changing the old WED textbooks, "Revolutionizing the Curriculum", as he says, in his present position.   "The audience is evolving," he explained.  "it takes more now to amaze people.  We have to increase the intensity (of attractions) and also try to communicate with the tried and true elements of Disney storytelling.  When Disneyland opened, people were amazed to see moving figures and 3D environments.  Now people expect more impact, full visual presentation, more than one sense, audio AND visual AND smell.  People want to see new stuff."  "New stuff?" I asked. "Armageddon?"  Nod.  "Tower?" Nod.  "Rock and Roller Coaster?" He tented his fingers under his chin and smiled at me in an I-know-something-you-don't-know kind of way.  Poop.

Okay, then, another subject: DCA will obviously have different traffic patterns than Disneyland, as the other theme parks have different traffic patterns at Walt Disney World.  For example, Epcot sees a large afternoon-to-evening rise in local visitors who come to eat at the many restaurants in World Showcase.  "We won't know about patterns until later.  In an month or so we've had a tremendously warm response.  People have been entertained, delighted, even surprised.  There's a lot of energy."  About the food and restaurant offerings in the park: "We worked from the design point directly with the food and merchandise offerings developed with the park.  They are integral to the park, entertainment, too.  You'll never see the Eureka! Parade at Disneyland or The Magic Kingdom, and that's appropriate.  It keeps the parks distinct."

But what about Westcot? "When Michael brought us together, the Westcot idea was all ready shelved.  Dead.  We went in another direction with a fresh, new idea.  A Blank Sheet of Paper*, in August of '95 in Aspen..." (I was gonna ask about The Aspen Summit, he beat me to it!) "...We were brainstorming, and came up with the germ of the California Adventure idea.  We set to work in September, and by February we had a menu of sorts, a basic park layout."

I asked Barry if his success with Epcot's Innoventions was the reason he was picked for the Second Park Team, and he talked a little about his history as the Overall Creative Lead for Epcot Innoventions, which is completely different from the one at Disneyland.  (If you have only been to the one in Disneyland, don't skip the one at Epcot.  You'll be pleasantly shocked at the difference.) "I worked on Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, Ellen's Energy Adventure and the Land redo, and on the Test Track concept..."

"Not on the Imagination redo?" I interrupted.

"No.   Oh, no, no." 

"Oh good."

"Is DCA your baby?" I asked, finally.  "Yes, but I'm only one of it's parents."  I pressed him about the t-shirt they were selling with his quote on it.  He told me that the quote was actually a Mission Statement that he had come up with earlier in the Park's development, that Merchandising had gotten from the WDI Research Library.  Walt Disney had never made any sweeping statements about what the California Experience was about, so they used Barry's quote instead.  "I lived and breathed this park for the past 5 1/2 years." he said. 

What's next for Barry?  More work on Disney's California Adventure, and on all of those new attractions he wouldn't tell me about.  According to his bio, Barry is involved in   Imagineering's Development Steering Committee and Senior Staff Management Group.   I wonder if he could help me with my campaign to get Alice Davis a window on Main Street?   But that's for next week.  See you then!

*The Blank Sheet of Paper is the basis, according to Imagineering Theory, of everything they create:  it all starts out with a Blank Sheet of Paper, which is then filled by the skill and creativity of the Imagineer.  For more on this subject, please see the Walt Disney Imagineering book

-- Michelle Smith

-- Posted March 9, 2001