This is simply not correct. One of the great things about technology is what was expensive years ago, is more accessible and affordable years later.
Technology moves on regardless of budget. You might not be able to use technology on the same level as Disney. But to suggest it doesn't move on regardless is simply not true.
To an extent, but unfortunately it does also encourage laziness. It's the old paradox of choice problem, we may have more ride design options now due to modern tech, but that doesn't necessarily translate to better
decisions being made. The painful irony of much of our modern world. Just look at how bland and undetailed so many of our modern buildings are... squared aluminium panelled buildings and boring glass skyscrapers, mostly. Or weird silly looking shapes. Even with more tech available. Theme parks have followed the same kind of trend. Yeah you do get brilliantly detailed stuff like Avatar and the brilliant ride scenes Disney imagineering and co did for the Rise of the resistence (who were given absolutely gigantic budgets), but even Disney/Universal are relying on screens and VR more and more, and many of their practical effects have been neglected.
Laziness is exactly what we've seen with dark rides, with the heavy use of VR headsets and projection mapping hardware in most major recent UK dark ride additions, whether it be DBGT, Grufallo, David Walliams. "Theoretically", we could be building the best indoor rides ever now, but the industry has shifted to short term cost effectiveness, and the quality and detail suffers as a result. It doesn't help when you have a risk averse monopoly dominating much of the industry.
As an aside this is where I think Mark Fisher was going with his "Victorian effects" comment in that interview the other week. First appearing in the 1800s, but the evolution of the effect has seen it being utilised using projectors and TV screens in more modern times.
Back to the physical vs screen argument though. Screens are fine when they're used to complement the physical theming, or where they're used to produce effects like Pepper's ghost. Everything looks a little flat when they're the sole way of telling the story, or where they're obviously just bog standard projection screens/TVs. But if used together with those physical scenes and props then they can do a really good job of enhancing a scene.
Well said on the physical v screen argument, and definitely true for Haunted House. Jurassic park (the 1st film, not the ride) followed that formula pretty closely . Most of the dinos were animatronics, some life size. The dinosaur scenes that they could do feasibly they did using hydraulic driven physical animation. Where they wanted to do stuff that wasn't feasible like the dinsoaurs running or walking, they overlayed the images of the props with computer generated effects. I agree with you that this kind of physical/digital approach is a good one, for rides like Haunted House especially. What we want in Haunted house is as much possible that's physical with only the completely unfeasible effects being done by projection mappers.
Where I disagree though, personally, is the idea that you need some kind of projection mapper to produce the peppers ghost.
Using a large angled piece of glass in front of a dimly lit room that reflects light off a
lit physical prop from inside another (hidden) dimly lit room actually delivers a more realistic looking ghost effect, in my humble opinion. I know mappings are getting better and better, but I still think the old fashioned way works best and delivers the most detail for a ghost.
Especially if you were to paint UV pigment on a ghost prop, so that it emitted blue/green visible light directly towards the angled piece of beam splitting glass. Pirate Adventure at Drayon Manor used that technique for its final scene and it worked really well (before it burned down, of course...). The room behind the angled glass had a themed backdrop and a chair, and the hidden room was to the right of the glass and reflected the light towards the passing boats to make it look like the pirate ghosts were sitting on and around the chair. One of the pirates had an animatronic head which spun upside down too. I don't think any other peppers ghost method could of done the effect as well.
And with Haunted House, we can definitely agree that there is space available to do this, because the building is huge, and there are plenty of slow and long sections for people to appreciate that kind of effect.
It's in the style of a Victorian cottage similar to other real cottages around the Alton grounds, not really Gothic but some gothic styling.
Not really Victorian. The half timbered design and the turrets on Haunted House make it more of a cross between a tudor style and the neo-gothic styles of the towers. I don't think there are any tudor/half timbered buildings or cottages in the towers grounds. But who cares; It worked though, and that's what matters. Since 1992, it has progressively looked a lot faker and less authentic though, that's for sure.
everythingverysmall.com
