by Andy Sinclair-Harris, Katapult
You know that adage, “It takes a village to raise a child”. Well, the same can very much be said for creating a themed entertainment experience.
It is not a solo act; it absolutely takes a community of diverse, creative individuals who need the right tools and who operate in the right mindset to achieve something inspiring.
At Katapult, my role is creative director. I have the deep responsibility and great privilege of overseeing our creative product and leading our wonderful design team in helping to create incredible experiences and places.
My philosophy of creative leadership has always come from a place of empathy and understanding, fostering an environment where everyone feels valued and where all voices are heard.
Leading creative people can be quite a challenging job. I’m often in a situation where one of our team members is presenting their creative work, whether that be an idea on a piece of paper, a written story, or a piece of concept art. In that moment, what they are really sharing is a small piece of themselves, and that can sometimes be an incredibly vulnerable act.
The challenge of creative direction
It is my job to firstly acknowledge that endeavour, in some instances, provide guidance and feedback on how it can be better or move in a direction closer aligned to the intent of the overall project.
I believe in creativity, in making new things; there are no mistakes, only opportunities for new and better ideas. When a team is motivated, empowered, and happy, amazing things can happen.
A friend and mentor of mine is a jazz musician, and he once perfectly summed up what it was like to be a leader of creative people. Imagine an orchestra, with all its unique instruments, talented players, and the different colours and textures those instruments provide. Can you imagine if they all played at the same time? It would be a deafening cacophony.
The beauty in music lies in when to play the instruments, the tempo, the volume and the music itself. Personally, I have never conducted an orchestra, so I’m definitely painting a visual picture, but a lot of the principles in creative direction remain the same.
At Katapult, our first consideration is to understand our audience, who we are telling our story to, and to understand not only their wants and needs, but also, more importantly, their wishes, hopes, and dreams.
When families and friends visit a themed experience, they are entering into a contract of fun and make-believe. They want to be entertained.
Ultimately, we are all working towards the same goal: to provide emotionally engaging experiences for our audiences, allowing people to connect with and experience a story.
From trash cans to mountains – the details matter
Themed entertainment sits at the intersection of film and theatre, but in our work, our audience gets to step into the film, into the theatre set.
They get to explore the world in front of them; they don’t just see an aged stone wall from their seat, they also get to touch and understand its texture. More often, there is no narrative voice for this journey; our guests wander and explore these fantastical worlds themselves. We have to provide those cues as to where to go and how we might want them to feel.
For instance, is this a welcoming place, or frightening? Is this in the past or the present? Has a dragon scorched this wall with its fire, and could I be next? All these questions that guests may ask, we first have to consider ourselves, several months or years before an audience will ever see it.
Being able to lens in and out of all the varied requirements of a project is one of the requisite skills of being a creative director. From the micro to the macro, in themed entertainment, all of the details matter.
‘From trash cans to mountains’ is a playful way to describe the weight and thought of design and creative direction within themed entertainment.
A trash can and a mountain – these two things could not seem further apart and do not seem to be all that connected. However, in a potentially themed environment, they would very much be a part of a design.
One is towering and ginormous, the other is small and nondescript. Is the mountain warm and lush, or is it cold and icy? Is the trash can hand-carved from wood, or is it metal and futuristic?
Every single one of these decisions must be thought about, designed, and implemented.
Pirate Cove
In telling a story, everything has equal weight. It might not mean they cost the same or that a park guest will notice it more, but in a story-led environment, its place has to be curated, and it has to be thematically consistent within that environment.
This summer, we launched a fictional theme park land called Pirate Cove. Just like most of the themed entertainment industry, we work on many confidential projects. However, with our own creations, we can share with the world the way we work and the talented team we have.
As I write this article, I’ve realised that Pirate Cove is the epitome of every creative director’s goal. My goal was to bring together an eclectic mix of individuals from around the world to create an inclusive and exciting environment with a twist on the traditional story.
Just like our key characters in Pirate Cove, our team has brought parts of their histories and cultures together, making an island that’s inclusive and well-rounded.
With creative direction in the world of themed entertainment, every day is an invitation to blend the boundaries between imagination and reality. It’s a role that requires more than just a sharp eye for design or a knack for storytelling.
It requires heart, patience, and an unwavering belief that every project, regardless of its scale, is an opportunity to create something that will leave guests in awe and wonder.
