Lecture 8

Question 1

What are story worlds?

Answer 1

“Story worlds are defined as “places people can visit and live in for a time”

○ You feel like you live there, this is very immportant
○ Immersive experiences make you want to like there

Question 2

What are the other worlds for story worlds?

Answer 2

subcreated worlds, secondary worlds, diegetic worlds, constructed worlds, and imaginary worlds, media worlds,

Question 3

What is the interface?

Answer 3

The concept of the interface (used within media studies and fan studies scholarship) offers a productive means to examine theme parks.

“The interface is a concrete material object that helps open the door to another’s imaginary universe.
It makes concrete the imaginary”
-○ Concrete reminder of the place when you go home, make you feel like you’ve gone to the place
-Is a physical thing you purchase that connedct you to thee fantasy wrorl

Question 4

What do interfaces potentially allow fans to do?

Answer 4

allow fans to see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and interact with story worlds.

Question 5

What should we not confuse interface with?

Answer 5

It is important not to confuse Lancaster’s use of the term “interface,” a material object allowing physical interaction with story worlds, with computer, new media, or other electronic interfaces that allow virtual interaction with story worlds

Question 6

What re the 2 kinds of immersion?

Answer 6

Physical and conceptual

Question 7

What us physical immersion?

Answer 7

in a theme park ride or walk in video installation; the user is physically surrounded by the constructed experience.
○ Physically immersed in the space

Question 8

What is conceptual immersion?

Answer 8

relies on the user’s imagination; for example, engaging books are considered ‘immersive’ if they supply sufficient detail and description for the reader to vicariously enter the imagined world.
Via multisensory material interfaces, theme parks enable not only the most basic physical immersion of rides or attractions…
…but also conceptual immersion in story worlds that inspire those forms of entertainment.

Question 9

What can you find in an immersive theme park?

Answer 9

all of the material things—the streets, the bricks, the tables and chairs, the lights, the fountains, etc.—that make up the themed or immersive space can be used to tell immersive stories and/or create specific feelings or moods in guests

Question 10

What are fan activities?

Answer 10

Corporate-created and controlled theme parks frame and market ‘fan activities’ to encourage consumption. Consumption of the spaces
Yet fans and other visitors, active as always, often use such merchandise as additional interfaces to participate in WWoHP’s attractions and to facilitate immersion in the wizarding story world

Question 11

What is the suspension of disbelief?

Answer 11

“the willingness to accept the world of the imagination as real…which allows [fans] to renew and extend their belief in the imaginary beyond the confines of the book or film.”

Not only a fan’s mind but also a fan’s body experiences immersion in a story world via such suspension of disbelief: both conceptual and physical immersion.

Question 12

What are theme parks?

Answer 12

are the multidimensional descendant of the book, film, and epic” in which… “…rides are mechanisms designed to position the visitor’s point of view, much as the camera lens is aligned, moving riders past a series of meticulously focused vignettes to advance the narrative.”…have changed their emphasis from rides perceived as spectacles where guests passively view wonders letting a story unfold around them…to understandings of rides…featuring interactivity and immersion…
• Immersed. Into the world and participating ..allowing visitors active participation or even taking the lead role in the adventure.

Question 13

What happened to the set of Popeye?

Answer 13

Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, selected the hitherto-undeveloped inlet of Anchor Bay to construct a set for the film Popeye, a musical based on the cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.”
After the completion of locational work in 1980, the set’s future was uncertain. The filmmakers
painted the buildings with grey protective paint and left, passing ownership to the Malta Film Facility
The Malta Film Facility hesitantly decided to
retain Sweethaven as an attraction, seeking to generate revenue by drawing in tourists interested in visiting the sites of the film’s production.

Question 14

What did the movie people do to the landscape to make the Popeye movie?

Answer 14

The film-makers forever altered the landscapes of the bay. By creating the village
The attractions of the ‘Popeye Village’ are now consumed by paying tourists who visit what is effectively a 20,000-square-metre theme park…
…with the additional expectations that the experience of theme parks elsewhere bring.
Taken together, there has clearly been no fixity surrounding the interpretation of the
landscapes of this…
…paradoxical, fictional-yet-existing place.
Popeye dooesnt exist but you can view this woorld

Question 15

How did Santa become an industry?

Answer 15

Though Santa Claus has a longer history of living in Lapland, the idea of using this connection as a tourism marketing tool was realized only in the 1980s.
The Finnish Tourist Board, eager to promote Finland’s
tourism image, wanted to create some new marketing program that would reflect positively on Finland in general and on Lapland in particular. Used santa as a hook to attract tourist
The Santa Claus idea, though focused only on Lapland,
would attract tourists in greater numbers and would have spill-over benefits in the rest of Finland…
…since foreign tourists inevitably pass through Helsinki and might be convinced to visit other parts of the
country as well.

Question 16

Where is Santas villages?

Answer 16

○ In lapland Finland

○ Takes advantage of the natural beauty

Question 17

How did Finland make Santa clause a spectacle?

Answer 17

The Santa Claus Village and its related constructions are clearly contrived touristic sights…
…tourists perceive the inauthenticity of the
attraction, yet are nonetheless attracted to the sight.
○ There us authenticity case we see santa and the buildings
○ Plays on the nostalgia of childhood
The authenticity of the Santa Claus Village lies in its representational connection to the idea of Christmas and Santa Claus.
The nostalgia for childhood, to become and remain a child, and to find meaning in a perceived or romanticized happier childhood, is a powerful motivating force.

Question 18

Because Santa is marketed in Finland what do people going there go to do?

Answer 18

Christmas is now available in a consumable form.
○ Can visit christmas and purchase goods, this will act as an interfecae and connect you more deeply wth the place youa re in

Question 19

How does the Ann of green gables industry survive?

Answer 19

the Anne tourist industry thrives near sites historically linked to Montgomery.
Tourists can visit the north shore sites of Montgomery’s birth, childhood, employment, marriage, and burial; thehome sites of her maternal (Macneill) and paternal (Montgomery) grandparents, and of
her Campbell cousins.

Question 20

What is the green gables heritage place?

Answer 20

operated by Parks Canada, interprets the house upon which Montgomery claimed to have based her most famous setting.
Furnished to depict the 1890s-era Green Gables
(“the house is decorated the way she imagined the house in the novel,” a guide explains), with bedrooms
staged to represent each fictional inhabitant,

Question 21

What is immersive theatre?

Answer 21

‘Immersive theatre’ may be broadly identified as theatre that…
…surrounds audiences within an aesthetic space.
In which they are frequently, but not always…
…free to move and/or participate.
• Engages you in the theater in differetn ways, immersing you into the experience and interacting with the actors

Question 22

How is immersive theatre different from other forms of theatre?

Answer 22

Immersive theatre may be distinguished by the
sensory acts that it demands of audiences, such
as touching and being touched, tasting, smelling
and moving…
…this latter often (but not always)
being characterized by freedom to move within
an aesthetic space.
The audience is an audience of
participants

Question 23

What are dark rides?

Answer 23

The dark ride is a format of immersive media that originated in the amusement parks of the USA in the early 20th century.

Whilst their numbers have decreased, classic rides from the 1930s to the 70s, such as the Ghost Train and Haunted House experiences have been referenced is films, games and novels of the digital era. Although the format is well known, it is not well defined.

Question 24

What Isi the thematic journey?

Answer 24

At the end of the boardwalk in Blackpool England is the Pleasure Beach Amusement park, built in 1896, it features the oldest running electric dark ride on earth.
Even before the concept of the theme park had arrived, the dark ride design created the sense of a fantastic but sequential journey that could be understood and engaged with before the experience began.
Everything from the ride’s name, the façade design and in most cases the shapes of the carts themselves built
context for the ride theme.
• Builds up the theme with the marketing before you enter the rid

Question 25

What is 360 degree imagery?

Answer 25

In the 1950s new “wall-less” track designs placed items away from simply the front viewing position of the cart, forcing the rider to look, left, right, above & behind.
As you move through the space you are forced to look all around you

Question 26

What is triggered sound?

Answer 26

In 1954, in Sylvan Beach, Laffland features great examples of rudimentary sound devices that required no electricity to function.
At various moments in the Laffland ride, a thud and a crash are heard from outside of the riders facing direction, without any visual cue.

Question 27

What is perspective and illusion?

Answer 27

The goal of the dark ride is to transport
the audience somewhere fantastic, regardless of the physical footprint of the ride, the attraction must create the illusion of greater space. In the 1960s dark rides, this was achieved with painted perspective.
There were extensive experiments with perspectival illusion, sometimes extending the space with mirrors.
• Would look like the space goes on when it was really tiny

Question 28

What is light and touch?

Answer 28

Where lighting is completely
mediated and controlled, the use of haptic feedback can be applied to enhance the illusion and the feeling of unease in the dark ride design.
• You feel like something is pushing back or a movement to make you feel like you’ve done something

Question 29

What are characteristics of themed restaurants?

Answer 29

• There is an organizing concept or narrative that is drawn from widely-known cultural resources.
  
  • These typically include cinema, sport, fashion, popular music, popular history, the natural world and locality (drawing, for example, on cultural stereotypes of place, nationality and ethnicity).
    
    • Draws on things widely known to attract more pople (sports bar)
  • The narrative is made visible and tangible in the physical structure of the restaurant’s interior and very often of its exterior.

Question 30

What is not the defining feature of themed restaurants?

Answer 30

• Eating is not the central defining feature of a visit to a themed restaurant.
  * You are there for the theme

Question 31

Why is the menu of themed restaurants standardized?

Answer 31

• The menu is typically standardized and the dishes are designed to facilitate efficient production and presentation.
The menu items are not necessarily related to the theme itself. If there is such a relationship it is often in connection with the naming of the items rather than their culinary content.
• Name of ingredients are reflective of the theme and standardized to move people in and out efficiently
• Don’t expect customers too play along but staff and décor are reflective of the theme

Question 32

Why is three an emphasis on accessibility in themed restaurants?

Answer 32

First, in terms of literal geographical accessibility, which usually involves proximity to large population centres and/or well-developed transportation facilities (usually by road), and;
Second, in terms of the cultural accessibility of the thematic motif, i.e. it must be readily comprehensible to large sections of the prospective client population.
• Don’t use a these. That’s. obscure, need a theme for people to understand and identiy with

Question 33

What is a parodic restaurant ?

Answer 33

is primarily concerned with engaging patrons’ imagination by placing them in ‘the stylized atmosphere and theatrical setting of a reconstituted reality’.
…the ambience is created by emphasizing diversion and entertainment and by relying upon devices drawn from ‘popular and stereotyped ideas and images’.

Question 34

What are examples of parodic restaurants?

Answer 34

• a wild west saloon;
  
  • a village market;
  • a magic grotto;
  • a sailing ship;
  • a licentious eighteenth century tavern, or;
  • a Hollywood diner.

Question 35

What are the main characteristics of themed restaurants?

Answer 35

• There is an organizing concept or narrative that is drawn from widely-known cultural resources;
  
  • The narrative is made visible and tangible in the physical structure of the restaurant’s interior and very often of its exterior;
  • Eating is not the central defining feature of a visit to a themed restaurant.

Question 36

What are theme parks in Japan?

Answer 36

Though there are significant distinctions to be made between museums and theme parks, in the case of anime there are overlaps worth investigating.

Japanese parks do sometimes have rides, but they are not essential and they are often separated from the main ‘cultural’ areas by a long walk or boat trip.”

Also… “Most [Japanese theme parks] do, however, include museums and displays about the people and cultures represented, and several offer food, drink and goods imported directly and advertised as unavailable elsewhere in Japan.”
-Cultural places, share a deep connection to the deep cultural rtoots of the theme

Question 37

What are Japanese anime museums like?

Answer 37

focus on the culture of anime in Japan and not American-style theme park roller coasters or other rides.
• Both feature short animated film screenings and souvenirs that are exclusive to the museum spaces, making collection of themed goods and special events part of the attraction of visiting the sites. (Fujitsu 2002)
The Studio Ghibli Art Museum, as seen in its promotional and user discourses, represents a different kind of tourist site to either of the polemical positions…
…of high cultural or McDisneyised tourism.