Condor Flats Imagineer Interviews, Interview 1

Condor Flats Imagineer Interviews
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Interviews
The first interview is with Alec Scribner. Scribner was the show producer for Condor Flats and Soarin' Over California. His past projects include production designer for the Comedy Warehouse at Pleasure Island and art director at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World including involvement in Mickey's Toontown Fair and Ariel's Grotto.

The second interview is with Mark Sumner who was Mechanical Engineer, Ride Systems for Soarin' Over California and Grizzly River Run. Sumner has tackled difficult mechanical problems for everything from The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to Splash Mountain to Maelstrom to the world's largest telescope and observatory atop Hawaii's 14,000-foot volcano, Mona Kea.

The two interviews were conducted separately in the week leading up to DCA's February 8th Grand Opening. Sumner's interview was conducted first but is presented second in this article.

Alec Scribner

LaughingPlace.com: What were the specific California influences for the design of Condor Flats?

Alec Scribner: When we set out to design the park we wanted to make sure that we captured the geographical diversity of the state. So of course we have Hollywood that represents the city, we have Paradise Pier that represents the sea. We wanted something that represented the high desert. So we thought, why not tell the aviation story which is quite extensive - aviation history here in California. Why don’t we set that in the high desert, akin to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, so that’s kind of why the aviation story is in the high desert. Aviation history - it really started 20 years before the Wright Brothers flew in the 1880s when a guy named John Montgomery flew a glider off the coast of San Diego, and then it really developed from there into the building of the Spirit of St. Louis to the space shuttle and all the way up to the present day. It’s quite extensive.

More than 35 locations were scouted for use in Soarin' Over California. Below is the list of the locations used:
  • The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
  • Over rafters, fishermen and waders in Redwood Creek.
  • Vintners tending grapes in Napa Valley vineyards
  • Point Loma's coastline with fishing boats bobbing on the surf below.
  • The slopes near Lake Tahoe past fast moving skiers, then skimming low over a tree-topped crest for a long view of the lake itself.
  • Golfers teeing off at a Palm Springs golf course.
  • Yosemite Valley past Yosemite Falls and up toward Half Dome
  • Orange groves near Camarillo.
  • Anza Borrego State Park, little known but the state's largest. Roaring past are six jets from the Air Force Thunderbirds.
  • San Diego and the Coronado Naval Yards, the flight comes across the aircraft carrier USS Stennis.
  • Malibu over a wave of surfers.
  • Downtown Los Angeles freeways at night
  • Disneyland at Christmas time at night.

LP: Did the concept for Soarin' come first with Condor Flats developed around it?

AS: Yes, it did. That’s a good question, it really did. We wanted to celebrate the diversity of the landscape somehow. We wanted our guests to walk away with an appreciation for how diverse the landscape was here in California, so we thought wouldn’t it be great if we could do that from the air? So that’s when we started thinking about what if we flew over it. and then how are we going to do that. Then we started thinking about how we were going to project it on this big dome screen and all of that. So we knew we wanted to do that. We knew we wanted to tell the aviation story also. So from there, basically the aviation story grew out of Soarin'.

LP: I already talked to Mark Sumner about the ride mechanism for Soarin'. We talked about how unique it was. Given the thought of such a unique attraction and, from what I’ve heard, such an incredible attraction, was there a lot of pressure to make sure the area around it really lived up to the attraction itself?

AS: When we design our parks we always want to do the best job possible that we can. We always have our self-inflicting pressures to make sure that everything is designed as accurately and as best as possible.

LP: Condor Flats is pretty small. Is there any room at all for expansion there?

AS: Not really. We want to respect our distance between ourselves and the park hotel. We felt that the hotel needed some breathing room so we always had a set distance that we really did not want to encroach on because it would crowd the hotel. We felt that wouldn’t be good for our hotel guests. So what we have is what we got.