In these cruel, compassionless times, we need less ghost busting and more ghost understanding.
Think about Slimer. The little green guy was minding his own business, scarfing down hot dogs and destroying a rich man’s ballroom, something we all dream of doing. For this “crime,” Slimer was subjected to assault by a privately operated, wise-cracking police force that uses unregulated nuclear weapons to capture free ghosts and lock them up in a “containment unit, which is corporate jargon for ghost prison. Maybe if Slimer had a proper home to haunt, he wouldn’t have needed to scare the Sedgewick Hotel’s snobby clients or their underpaid staffers. Haunted houses are a human right!
In the spirit of loving spirits, I designed EGADS! – the Electronic Ghost Adoption and Delivery System. The world’s first mobile ghost adoption van will provide homes for happy haunts. No longer will ghosts be subjected to abusive proton packs or forced to hitchhike. Now you can boast that you host a ghost!
As you may figure out by my liberal use of Scooby-Doo plot keywords like “hologram,” “projector,” and “pepper’s ghost” on the above diagram, EGADS! is not a real ghost adoption service. EGADS! was my final assignment for a six-week virtual class I took at The Essential Art Department called “Designing for Themed Entertainment and Experiences.” I’ve always been a big fan of theme parks and the art of Imagineering. My detailed critique of the Star Wars hotel last year probably gave me away. Even as a kid, when I went on attractions like MuppetVision 3D or Star Tours, I wanted to walk slowly through the queue, letting other riders go ahead of me, so I could appreciate all the story details in the queue. I’d laugh at every joke and soak in all the sweet, precious lore you can’t find on a Six Flags coaster. Sure, it’s a fun ride, but what’s the story of The Pukenator? What are the designers trying to say with that catapult launch into a 360 corkscrew?
I’ve never formally studied themed entertainment before, so I thought it’d be fun to learn the kinds of challenges designers have creating rides, restaurants, museums, and interactive theater. Story is at the heart of what they do, which made me feel at home. In class, I learned how a creative director and/or show writer establishes the story and narrative themes of an attraction, then all creative decisions – from an attraction’s logo to the exact color of the fake brick on the walls – are made through the prism of telling the story and supporting those themes. Good game design does the same thing, only our prism isn’t usually the story, but rather, the game’s core mechanics. So, if the game is combat-oriented, my story needs to dovetail with actions like shooting or face punching to encourage players to pick up their giant gun sword and slice some heads off.
The class was on my radar because the instructor for the course is super talented designer Justin Martin, the Art Director of Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station. I was so excited to learn how Meow Wolf creates their inspirational exhibitions. Every Meow Wolf location is part art gallery, part Disneyland, and part sci-fi acid trip. Each exhibition is a “portal” to another world, painstakingly crafted by hundreds of artisans all working together to create a living, breathing alternate universe for guests to explore. Amanda and I went to Denver last year specifically to visit Convergence Station, because we were floored by the genius OmegaMart in Las Vegas the year before. Convergence Station did not disappoint. It’s bigger and more ambitious than its Las Vegas sibling.
My favorite section of Convergence Station is Pizza Pals Playzone. Imagine a Chuck E. Cheese hiding a sinister corporate secret. (More so than the real Chuck E. Cheese.) They built an interactive animatronic pizza god mascot, filmed employee training videos, Photoshopped vintage advertisements on the walls, and developed a creepy video game for guests to play. It’s nostalgic, satirical, ambitious, and highly experiential. Someday, I’d love to try my hand at creative directing a project like Pizza Pals Playzone. I think it’s a few years down the road for me. I need to learn more about the tricks of the trade, like animatronics, holograms, and alternate game controllers, so I have the toolset to take on a (pizza) monster project like that.
Justin’s class was a great first step. After a few weeks of knowledge dumps from Justin, who knows a great deal about themed entertainment design and was a delight to learn from, the class ended with each of us presenting a themed cart. Over the course of a month and a half, I pitched my concept to Justin, developed it further, created a mood board, drew roughs in pencil, then learned how to “ink” and color in Procreate. (I tried to learn Blender to attempt 3D modeling my cart, but Procreate was a lot easier for me to figure out and way more fun.)
I gave a 5 minute presentation to Justin and the class, walking them through my vision for EGAD! Guests purchase a jar from the front of the cart with a micro-computer inside and a reflective acrylic sheet, which creates the effect of a holographic ghost. The computer has a built-in microphone and voice recognition, so the guest can talk to their ghost. In the back of the cart, guests select a ghost to adopt, then watch as a ghost “enters” their jar vis-a-vie a holographic show.
The feedback was very positive. Justin said it was fantastic work. He recognized that I’m not a professional designer, but complimented how detailed and well-thought through the execution was. Justin said if I was a creative director, the sketch would be perfect to pass along to a concept artist or show set designer for continued development. The class chat lit up with comments. My favorite favorably compared my ghost pet idea to Tamagotchi, with the bonus that they can’t die because these pets are already dead. Yay! Already dead!!!
When I showed my sister the concept art, she said the idea was excellent and people would pay money for this. I’m not looking to make big bucks on my harebrained art schemes these days, but will I start messing around with creating a pepper’s ghost of my own? We do have room for a ghost in our home, assuming our cat approves.
🎲 Your Turn: What’s your favorite theme park attraction, either currently running or defunct? Do you prefer amusement parks, with more emphasis on fast coasters and thrills, or theme parks grounded in story and world-building? Reply to this email to let me know, or tell the world by hitting the big orange button below.
4 responses to “Wanna Adopt a Ghost?”
Ghost in a Jar is a brilliant idea. Solar power it too and I know what I’m getting everyone in my life for Christmas.
Thank you so much! Solar power is a cool idea, but I’d want to be certain folks could use it for a long time in the dark. Ghosts love darkness, my friend!
Ghosts aren’t the only ones who like the dark. *Says a guy who probably wouldn’t have a lightbulb in his home if he lived alone and who thinks windows are highly overrated architectural features.*
And to be fair to the Ghostbusters, a lot of the ghosts they deal with are destructive, if not outright malicious… but now that you mention it, it is a bit… livingist? Alivist? I’m not sure what to call it, but it’s a prejudiced example of the Always chaotic evil trope that media focused on fighting ghosts so rarely touch on themes of the antagonistic ghosts being misunderstood or being conflicted between not wanting to harm people but being of a nature where simply being around people inflicts harm or they have to inflict harm to maintain their own existence and that it’s so rare for such media to have more than a token good ghoast and you almost never have innocent ghosts as victims of the malicious ghosts or just as bystanders.
Where’s the media where ghosts have their own society parallel to that of the living, the heroes are a team of humans with tech and heroic Ghosts dedicated to protecting beings on both sides of the veil, and the episode level antagonists run the gamut from well meaning butdangerous to those around them to misunderstood to actual villains with a sound motive with the malicious for the evols and destructive forces of nature types actually being somewhat rare?
It’s true there are many destructive ghosts in Ghostbusters, but as you put it, we often don’t know why they’re destructive. That’s why I think trapping immediately on sight is very alivist, as you put it. The ghosts are treated like pests, but many of them seem like people. You mean to tell me Egon, with all his genius, can’t develop a proper ghost communicator?
Oh my god, I love this pitch of yours! It’s like Star Trek for ghosts. A team of people dedicated to exploring, protecting, and learning from those on the other side. “There’s Nothing to be Scared Of.”