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Just want to share this amazing ad, absolutely magical!

Moviepark Germany

A few weeks ago I went to Moviepark Germany in Bottrop. I honestly had to say that my expectations were a little high. Years ago I had visited Moviepark and the only thing I can remember is that I found it very old, the stunt show was boring and the only fun attraction was The Gremlins. Unfortunately, they have decided to close this attraction. It's a shame! Recent years, Moviepark has found new partners to extend their park. One of them is Nickelodeon which resulted in the biggest Nickland in the world (If this is the biggest, how small are the others?) and recently they finished the santa monica pier.

So as you can imagine, I went with high hopes to the park. Overall I can say that I would give them a seven. A few plusses and minuses:

+ The entrance looks clean, a bit outdated but fine. Staff is mostly friendly and you can hear soundtrack music throughout the first part of the park. Really nice!

+ Moviepark is very close to the Dutch border so all brochures and maps are also printed in Dutch. You might find that usual but it's quite a surprise for me. Even the Shrek 4d show is available in German, English and Dutch. They arranged it better than Phantasialand.

- The shows are German and this is logical because we are in Germany but a lot of Dutch kids visit the park and they do not understand the show and some attractions.

- The staff at the attractions is not very friendly.

- A ticket costs 32 Euro, the Efteling only 28 Euro and it offers much more attractions, shows and service.

- The setting is cheap. The attraction "Time Riders" looks impressive from a distance but the boxes are visible in the building and the windows are painted. Next to that, the maintenance is not really impressive.

To conclude, the park offers a fun day out but not long lasting memories.

Disneyland - Magical Fireworks

A few days ago I was in Disneyland Anaheim and they have a new fireworks show and it is magical. The people of mouseplanet.com were so nice to video the fireworks so I hereby present the magical fireworks with a magnificent soundtrack. Unfortunetely, the soundtrack is not yet released.

The Haunted Project: Part IV

Finally, here is a small part of the marketing campaign but before a small summary of the project. This project is a haunted attraction, this mansion is haunted by a family. Somebody or something cursed this family to haunt forever in the after life. The house has a terrible history and visitors will get to know the past via various perspectives. The first encounter with the story is via the marketing campaign.

The marketing campaign will be based on the marketings campaigns like 2012 and the dark knight (I wrote an article about this kind of marketing campaign). The marketing campaign will contribute to the story for example, in the newspaper, there will be one page of advertisement but in the style of an old newspaper. To clarify this, here is the first page that will reveal a part of the background story. It will make the story more credible because a world is created around the story.

Please click on the photo, in that way you can read the story as the newspaper knows it. This newspaper also has the names of the family members. The marketing campaign will not reveal the exact point of the advertisement and will not advertise with the unique features of the mansion. Another part of the campaign will be held on the television. The ads will be short news bulletins in black and white. Because the television was introduced around 1935 it will be impossible to use the family in the ads. Instead the news bulletins will talk about the abandoned house which is supposed to be haunted. Neighbors are asked for an opinion and shots of the mansion are in the ads. The television campaign will give more clarity about the purpose of the Mansion which is of course being an attraction.

The internet campaign will be launched with a couple of websites. The first will be from the mansion itself and will give information about the mansion, tickets, etc. The second website is from the fake company "The United Sugar Company" (USC) and the third website is from the newspaper "Amsterdam Courant" which will feature the newspapers. This will connect with the newspaper campaign but the website will have more background information.

The radio campaign will be similar to the TV campaign because it will also feature short news bulletins about the mansion. I think I covered most of the mediums. This was it for this time, next time the second page of the Amsterdam Courant.

The Haunted Mansion Project III

Dear readers, finally a new part of the HM Project or as I call it "the Haunted Project". I finally have a SketchUp sketch of the hall. This will be the room where guests enter the Mansion and where they will have their first encounter with the spirits in the house. Already a little spoiler, the HM will feature two identical halls. One is for the first scene and the second for the final scene.

First a little bit of storyline, as I told in the previous blog, this Haunted Mansion (HM) is like a film. The guests will uncover bits of the story in every room with the grand finale in the style of the sixth sense. The main characters are the family and the devil(lucifer,satan,etc) The family consists of five members, the parents and three children. The house they live in (Haunted Mansion) is in the family for many generations and is passed from father to son.

FATHER: The father is a caring and loving husband and parent. He had a very easy childhood due to wealth he grew up in. The family company makes sugar and trades it via the harbor in Amsterdam. When his father died (grandfather), he took over the company but times are getting worse and Amsterdam is not an important harbor anymore. The incompetence that he could hide for all those years is finally revealing and the company is almost broke. Next to that, his youngest daughter (8 years) is becoming more and more sick every day. One day the doctors tell him and his wife that there daughter has just a few more weeks to live. In a state of desperation and powerlessness, he runs out of the house to the yard. He falls down at the grave of his father and cries.......... (I will save the spoiler for later)

After a few days, his daughter is significantly feeling better and the doctors are puzzled in mystery. They do not understand how this young girl could have healed so quickly from her deathly state. Father cannot be happier and on top of that his company starts to make a profit again. The other companies are loosing money due to a mysterious storm that wiped all their ships from the atlantic ocean.

Two years of wealth are past but not of happiness. After the success of the company, father became obsessed with power and became more cruel by the day. When he is not feeling well or business is low then he beats up his first daughter. She has done everything wrong and the family lives under tyranny.............. (again, I already told to much about the story)

MOTHER: Mother is ten years younger than father and is a weak defenseless woman who likes to do her regular jobs and not to ask to many questions. There was a time when she was happy, before father took over the company he was a pleasant man and they raised there children with joy. That all changed after there second daughter got sick. She remembers when the doctors told her that they could not save her little girl. She was in shock while father ran out of the room. She cried for hours before father came back in the house. He comforted her and told that everything would be fine. She looked at him and saw tears in his eyes but not tears of desperation as he had seen for so many months but tears of hope.

Her child became better and she remembers the conversation with the doctors. They had never seen something like this and this family was blessed with an angel. Her happiness was complete when father was becoming more cheerful due to the profits of the sugar company. After a few weeks, father became more aggressive and started to beat their first daughter. She wanted to help her daughter but she did not had the courage to do so. She also noticed that father never looked in the eyes of his youngest daughter anymore..........

SON: The eldest of the children with an age around twenty. He works in the company of his father and can be influenced very easily......

ELDEST DAUGHTER: She is around fifteen.........

YOUNGEST DAUGHTER: Around ten....

All the described ages are of the persons at the time of the accident.

Here is a sketch of the main hall, notice the paintings, these will not be the real paintings in the mansion because it will be paintings of the family (actually it are screens because the paintings will show a video.).

I hope you enjoyed this part, the next part will feature a very old newspaper with a large story about the "accident" that happened in the house.

The Princess and the Frog

If you are following the Haunted Mansion project then I am sorry for not posting anything but I am still working on the story. In this post I want to pay special attention to the upcoming movie of the Walt Disney Animation Studios. "The Princess and the Frog" will be the best movie ever. Why? Because Disney finally listened to all their fans and they went back to the good times of animation. I love 3d and I work with it on a regular base but 2d has something magical and if you see the screenshots I have added then you see what I am talking about.

The directors of this movie made a smart decision to make the backgrounds hand-drawn and to scan it into the computer to add special effects or some parts of the coloring. The result is that the scenes are beyond beautiful, they are magical and you get the feeling again of the old Disney movies. If you watch the trailer, click here, you will also here the fantastic new soundtrack.

Just watch the trailer and I hope to see you in theaters december 11 because this movie is going to be the revival of the Walt Disney Animation Studios and a new era of animation.

The Haunted Mansion Project II

Welcome to part II of the Haunted Mansion Project. Last time I discussed the general idea of the Haunted attraction and a small part about the location. I have made a small guideline of the subjects you can expect in the upcoming posts:

• Part II: the detailed vision of the HM and what guests can expect.
• Part III: Storytelling, what has happened in the house.
• Part IV - X: The big tour. I will discuss all the seperate rooms as I have them so far.
• Part XI Storytelling, what will you discover in the house.
• Part XII: Theming: the overall style of the building.
• Part XIII: Marketing: How to get attention.

I do not know if I will stick to this outline because I sometimes drift away if I have a new idea but at least it gives you a good idea of what you can expect.

Let’s start with part II, the detailed vision of the HM. As mentioned in the previous post, this is not just a walk through haunted attraction like the ones you find on the fair or professional scare attractions(the darkness). This HM is one big show and you are in it. I love films because a good film can trigger dozens of emotions using right camera angles and music and the HM will also use this. This HM is not just to frighten guests, it is also about laughter, sadness and sympathy. That is also why the story is so important. The basic outline of the story is about a family that lived in the house and that got torn apart under mysterious circumstances and was murdered(more about this in Part III). During the trip in the HM, the guests will hear and see each of the family tell their side of the story. This involves that some family members are malicious and some are pitiable. Guests will hear the story from multiple angles and do not know how it all connects. Slowly it will all make sense and the stories combined will form a story. The big finally will be like “the six sense”, it will blow you out of your seat. Guests will hear the last and most important story that will combine all the angles into one genius plot. A story is important but I also like technique and I know what is possible. The Haunted Mansion will be filled with state-of-the-art Hollywood effects to make the experience as real as possible because I believe that the only way to really feel afraid is to think everything is real. That is also why I would like to avoid animatronics where possible because the technique is not far enough to make them run fluid all the time. There are some parts that will use animatronics but those will be the best in the market and custom made to ensure that the world we create in the mansion will not be undone by sloppy engineering.

If you ever been to a dungeon like the London Dungeon, Amsterdam Dungeon, etc then you know how they work. Guests are moving from one room to the other in groups of 20 persons. In each room they are told a story and then a door opens that will lead to a second room. Between the rooms is a small hallway to get a walk-through effect. This is exactly what I want to use in the HM. Guests will move in groups of 20 - 30 persons through the mansion. Let me make one thing clear: guests may never hear/see/smell anything that should not be in the scene. Audio calls like “attention, the doors will open in your direction” are prohibited in the HM. We will make sure that the doors will open the other direction to avoid this call or make sure that guests can never be trapped between the doors. Another example is that an attraction employee says “Please proceed to the next room.” WRONG, the show elements will make sure that guests want to on the other side of the door. As you may understand, I am very consistent in keeping the experience real. Compare it with this: Would you be impressed by David Copperfield if you knew how he did his tricks?

So what can guests expect? A part of the attraction is walk-through this also includes a maze. Next to that I would like to implement a Madhouse (best madhouse in the world is Villa Volta in De Efteling, click here to see a youtube movie of the attraction, a kind of freefall ride because I have a really good idea how to implement a story in an elevator and perhaps some kind of a roller coaster/ dark ride.

At the moment I am designing the Mansion in 3ds max and Google Sketchup to get a good overview of the shape and room division of the house. I think I will post the first pictures in two days. In the next post I will start with the story, I will only tell one side of the story and that one is the information we will use for the marketing campaign that I designed (Part XII). Later on in part XI I will connect all the rooms with the pieces of story. For now, I hope you like the idea and suggestions are always welcome.

© 2009 Pieter van den Broek

Haunted Attraction

Since a few years, I am fasinated by Haunted Attractions but then not the type you see in the USA. Every halloween thousends of Haunted Attractions open their door, the most famous and biggest are Scarehaunt, the Darkness, etc. What these attractions have in common is of course the scary part but also that it should be disgusting. They should have blood on the walls, intestines should be splattered all over the floor and the puke should be dropping from the ceiling. The monsters are as ugly and possible and the smell is horrible.

I have a total different idea of a haunted attraction and I came to the idea when I was in the Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris. The Phantom Manor is one of my favorite attractions and what I like about it that it is not scary but beautiful. That is exactly my idea of a haunted mansion. The mansion that I designed is beautiful but also scary (in contrast with Disney).

I am not a big fan of the evil dentist with his slaughter machines or the deranged psycho. I like subtle effects more like claustrophobia, darkness, cold air and ghostly appearances. This is why I choose for a haunted mansion as the basic outline for the attraction. Guests will walk through the house that reveals parts of the story in every room. More details about the script will be given in a different article.

The first question I ask a person when he/she wants to make something new: "What is the Story?" I believe that something only works if the story is solid. Look at movies, the story is most important aspect of the movie and that is also what Disney does. The Phantom Manor has a whole background (You can read it here) and that makes it credible. My haunted attraction will follow a story like a thriller. Guests will receive little pieces of information in every room but they will find out the truth in the end with the grand finale. The walk through is a mix of attraction and show. In the next few weeks, I will share my idea of my haunted attraction that would be situated near Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I will discuss technical details, storytelling, theming and marketing because I thought about almost every aspect of this plan.

Location

First the location: I choose Amsterdam in the Netherlands because I live in this country and it is easier for me to find information to give the story a credible background. Next to that, Amsterdam has a lot of tourists visiting every year and has a perfect setting.

A short market analysis would show that guests would be interested in this kind of entertainment as long as it is not too scary. Same with Amsterdam Dungeon: it is more a dark museum tour than a haunted attraction. The most ideal place for my haunted attraction would be the USA because Americans are more in the Halloween theme and they are more effusive. Stil I like the setting of Amsterdam because it has something sinister and I love the style of the old side of Amsterdam with the canals and high buildings. I will talk later about the style of the house but it should be free-standing.

I hope you enjoyed the first edition of the Haunted Mansion Project. In the next post I will give a more detailed idea of the story and how guests move inside the Mansion.

© 2009 Pieter van den Broek