The Disney+ original series Behind the Attraction peels back the curtain to give a glimpse into the magic of Disney Parks, as it explores how Imagineers created, designed, and developed various theme park attractions around the world. Over the course of 10 episodes (five of which are available now, and the remaining five will be out later this year), viewers will get to learn about current and previous attractions, with archival and never-before-seen footage and photographs, and see how they’ve been refined over the years as new ideas arise and technology evolves.
During this virtual interview with Collider, which you can both watch and read, Mark LaVine (Executive, Story Development, Walt Disney Imagineering) and Vanessa Hunt (Senior Design Asset Specialist, Walt Disney Imagineering) talked about their early Disney theme park experiences, how they came to work for Disney, whether knowing the secrets can ruin the magic, the ride they always have to go on, and which ride they still want to experience.
Collider: I absolutely love this series. I’m from Los Angeles, so Disneyland is my theme park and I’ve been going there since I was very young, have continued to go throughout my life, and now actually cover theme parks as part of my job. What was each of your first Disney theme park experience and when did you realize that there was so much more to it than just what you see?
MARK LaVINE: Wow. I have to admit, I did not get to my first Disney Park until I was an adult. I was in my early 20s when I moved here, and that was my first experience. While I had been to theme parks on the east coast, my family didn’t go down to Walt Disney World as much as I would have wanted to. So, my first experience truly was walking into Disneyland and it was unlike any other theme park I’d been to before. It immediately captured me, emotionally, just being there and seeing that train, going underneath that train, and going down Main Street. I’ll never forget that experience.
VANESSA HUNT: I’m a California native from Northern California, so Disneyland was my first Disney Park experience. I was about six years old when I first went. I don’t have too many memories about it, but my parents like to tell me that, from that moment on, I was pretty much obsessed and they had to take me to Disneyland once a year, every year from that moment on. It just became a tradition for my family, who would drive down to Anaheim and go to Disneyland for a few days. Eventually, Disney World was added to that itinerary. We started to go there when I was in my teens. And then, as a 20-something, I finally got to go to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. I love visiting our parks, around the world. It’s just fun and exciting, and there’s so much to see and do. It’s an incredible experience.
Did you guys always have a goal of someday working for Disney? At what point did you decide that was something you wanted to do and what kind of a path did it take to get there?
LaVINE: I moved to Los Angeles, and I hadn’t been to a Disney Park until I moved to Los Angeles, but I came out to be in the entertainment business. I wanted to be a writer and filmmaker. That’s the career I started in. I started working in television, in both production and as a writer. But Disney, of course, is one of the biggest entertainment companies, with some of the greatest stories ever told in the entertainment business, so I wanted to absolutely work at Disney right from the get-go, first in television. But then, as soon as I started doing my first Imagineering project, I never wanted to leave. That was 20 years ago.
HUNT: I’ve definitely always wanted to work for Disney. I started with my local Disney Store about 20 years ago. That was my foot in the door to the Walt Disney Company, and I’ve been a part of it ever since. I came to Imagineering as an intern about 15 years ago, working with this amazing art collection, and I’m still there. It’s always been a passion of mine and I’m honored to get to be part of that and part of the team that continues to care for the collection and the artwork.
The average theme park goer enjoying the parks likely takes the blood, sweat and tears from all the work for granted because they’re just experiencing the finished product, but every little detail on any Disney property is important. However big or small, is there something that most excites you, every time you’ve seen it or just learning about it? Is there a little detail that you think is really cool?
HUNT: That’s a tough one. I don’t know. I experience our parks differently now. I like to just go and wander, if that makes sense. I’m not necessarily there to ride a particular attraction, or anything. I like to be in the place and experience it and people watch, and spend time with friends and family. It’s a nice environment to just hang out in. That’s really something that I enjoy with the parks.
I do that myself, so I completely get that.
LaVINE: I completely agree. I’ve never stopped being curious about the parks because there’s so much there. There are nooks and crannies that I haven’t really spent time in, that make you go, “Wow, I haven’t really hung out in this part of the park before.” And that can be at any of the parks. Some of the parks, like Disney’s Animal Kingdom, you’re encouraged to do lots of wandering down trails and wondering where it’s gonna go. What’s wonderful is that we have different kinds of parks too, not just the castle park. Even just walking down Main Street, you can go, “I’ve never seen that before. That’s really cool.” There are always those surprises.
When you know about the secrets, can you still experience the magic? Does it take anything away, once you know how it all works?
LaVINE: I do think you have to put that out of your mind and try to get yourself back into the mind frame of being a guest. Luckily for me, as a writer and someone who’s focused on the story the whole time, I may be on a project for five years, but I’m living in the story the whole time. For me, I know there’s this technology here and that crazy wall is over there, and all of that, but I’m always thinking about it truly immersed in the storytelling, so I’m always thinking about it as a real place.
HUNT: Once you’re on an attraction, you just forget about that. You’re instantly immersed in whatever that story is or space you’re experiencing. For me, I’ll sometimes think of a piece of art that inspired the space that I’m in. It doesn’t detract from it. For me, it adds to it to go, “Oh, that started looking like that, and then that’s what was built.” That adds another fun layer for me.
Vanessa, when you started working in the position that you’re in, did you have any expectations of what you might learn from the work that you would get to do, as far as working with all of these collections of content? Was the volume of it more than you ever expected?
HUNT: Coming into the interview for my current role, I didn’t even know what I was interviewing for. I was told it was a library, so I was expecting books, which is part of what is in the building I’m in, but it’s the art library where all of the artwork for Imagineering is stored. We’re known as the art collection. So, I figured it would be a lot, but I didn’t know it was as much as it actually is. It’s overwhelming, at times. There’s so much history there. So much artwork has been created over the years. It’s an amazing archive, for sure.
Is there an attraction or land that has never materialized, that you still wish could someday end up in one of the theme parks?
LaVINE: That’s a hard one because the creative process is such that these things are never really not happening. They’re always just in a state of creative process. We’re thinking about things all the time, and pieces of one thing may end up in another thing, so there isn’t really that thing that never happened. It’s really just this idea that there are those things that we’re working on and thinking about and working towards.
HUNT: Yeah, I agree. A lot of times an idea maybe evolves, so it’s not exactly what was planned, but you can see that it inspired what was ultimately built in the parks.
Is there an attraction that used to be at one of the parks that you wish you could bring back, if there were no restrictions to being able to do so?
LaVINE: I can’t think of one I would say should come back because I think the things that may be there now are equally exciting, if not more so. It’s always an evolution of things and offerings, and that’s what’s so exciting about the work we do. It’s always evolving into these new things.
HUNT: Yeah, I don’t know that there’s necessarily something I’d wanna see come back, but it would be fun to time travel back and maybe experience some things. Magic Skyway is one of those attractions I always wish I could have seen in person and gone to the World’s Fair in New York and experience that. But I can still see the dinosaurs from that, so I’ll take that.
My heart will always wish that I could see the Country Bears again in Anaheim. I love how there’s this running theme in these episodes that, if you can’t do the ride when you imagine it, just keep at it because eventually the technology will catch up.
LaVINE: Yeah, that’s a big part of it and the show captures that really wonderfully shows. With the Star Wars episode, I think about Star Tours and how they had ideas and they had technology, but those two things had to come together in the right sequence of things. This show does a wonderful job with capturing that discovery that happens during a project. You’re always trying to discover things and figure out how it’s gonna go. It’s not always a straight linear line from a piece of concept art and an idea to the attraction. There are a lot of twists and turns on that road, but we do get there. What makes the work in Imagineering so exciting is not necessarily knowing fully, at the beginning, how you are gonna get there, but you are.
Is there a ride in one of the parks that you feel like you always have to go on, even if you only get to go on that one ride?
HUNT: Yes. For me, it’s a grand circle tour on the Disneyland Road. That’s my go to. When I go with my friends, I tell them, “You have to take me on the train. That’s what we’re gonna do.”
LaVINE: I will try to go to one of the classics, like Haunted Mansion or Pirates, but sometimes the lines are too long.
For me, it’s always definitely Haunted Mansion. I’ve always loved that ride. Is there a ride that you guys haven’t gotten to experience that you still hope to?
HUNT: Yes. I’ve only been to Anaheim, Florida, and Tokyo, so I really want to go to Shanghai and ride Pirates of the Caribbean over there. All I hear are great things about it. I’ve seen some photos and video, and I wanna experience that in person.
LaVINE: Same, I wanna get to Shanghai’s Pirates. I have not done that.
I’m a third vote for that one. That ride seems incredible.
Behind the Attraction is available to stream at Disney+.