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Nathan: A few weeks ago Lou and I had the opportunity to travel to Walt Disney World® and interview some Disney imagineers about their experiences at Walt Disney World®. One of the imagineers we interviewed was Disney imagineer Jason Surrell. Jason is an author, screenwriter and show writer for Walt Disney Imagineering where he develops concepts, scripts and storylines for new attractions, restaurants, shops, resorts on land and sea. He is the author of Haunted Mansion from the Magic Kingdom to the Movies , The Pirates of the Caribbean from the Magic Kingdom to the Movies, The Art of the Haunted Mansion, Screenplay by Disney and he contributed to Essays in the Imagineering Way. Last week on the show we heard the first part of the interview with Jason, this week here comes the conclusion of the interview with Jason Surrell Walt Disney imagineer extraordinaire.

Lou: Jason you and I and so many other people seem to share a common interest because like you, two of my favorite attractions are the Haunted Mansion and so many of us love Pirates of the Caribbean. You just came out with another book Pirates of the Caribbean from the Magic Kingdom to the Movies.

Jason: An ingenious title!

Lou: Obviously, you know based on the success of the previous book I guess this was a logical next step. Is this something you pitched?

Jason: Yes absolutely, in fact I pitched them at the same time in the summer of 2002. I don’t know how to put this delicately. But I think what happened with Pirates was the last two books that were major film tie-ins hadn’t done terribly well. The book on Armageddon and the book on Pearl Harbor, and I think they felt at the time that at the time the Haunted Mansion already had a type of cult following and more of a fan base so they decided to go with that one first and take a wait and see attitude with Pirates. And then of course I said well I think you’re making a mistake because with Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp and some of the people you have involved, I don’t think there is going to be a problem with this movie. And then sure enough the next summer I believe it was as the movie was streaking past $250 million at the box office I get a call from my editor saying we’re really kind of disappointed we didn’t do a Pirates book. Oh…Really?! I seem to recall saying something along those lines last year but ok. And that’s when within a couple of months we knew that there were going to be sequels, plural so they thought we’ll bring this book out to coincide with the two films that are in production. So that’s how that came about.

Lou: There’s a book you had already started writing in your mind and collecting research for.

Jason: Yeah absolutely. And the format is almost identical to Mansion in that the first section is about the history of the attraction and all of the parts. The second section is a scene by scene ride through so to speak that takes you through the story and also tells more behind the scenes and tales. And then the last third of it is on the making of the first film.

Lou: And you know we were saying before their actually their beautiful books their more than just a soft bound book, I mean their almost a collectors. The production value is great and some of the artwork inside that you were able to collect, and some of the photographs of the original models and things like that is absolutely amazing. Especially for people that really just want to get behind the scenes of the attraction, and know that they could never see it from where they are.

Jason: Yeah. Well Imagineering, not to put to fine a point on it is an art form. And you know these attractions are works of art and the work that goes into them is composed of thousands of individual pieces of art. That’s what we want to do with these books, collect those and preserve them and then preserve the stories of these attractions creation. Because they are fascinating stories and in the case of Pirates, it was the last attraction Walt Disney personally supervised. One of things I discovered is there is a lot of Walt Disney in the Haunted Mansion too you know which followed Pirates by two years. But Pirates was the last thing that has his definite stamp of approval on it. In fact at his last meeting at Imagineering in Glendale was a meeting on Pirates of the Caribbean and it was at that meeting that he made the decision to tell the part that they wouldn’t have the attraction ready for a Christmas opening. Because every last detail was not worked out to his specifications and that decision cost him the opportunity to see the attraction up and running and I think that’s just very telling, I mean that’s who Walt Disney was. It’s also very poignant and I spend a bit more time in this book talking about the day Walt died and the impact it had on the people who worked closest with him. As a matter of fact at my signing last week I had two ladies come up to me, they had bought the book the day before and read it already. And they said this is going to sound really corny but when we read the section on the day Walt died we cried. And to me that was, I felt like oh homerun. And again not to sound corny myself but that’s what I was going for, because when I collected the stories, you know Harriett Burns and Alice Davis both teared up when they were talking about that day. I teared up, my camera man teared up so I was trying to capture a little bit of that to give fans just the tiniest insight into what it must’ve been like on that day to lose such a mentor figure and a powerful creative force.

Nathan: Right and basically I feel the same way as far as Pirates always had a special place in my heart. It is actually my favorite attraction inside the Magic Kingdom. I was a little too young to remember kind of the revolt that went on here at Walt Disney World when they announced Pirates was not coming and they rushed and decided to have Pirates come in. Now as far as just because I’m a fan boy, geek when it comes to certain things for instance Pirates of the Caribbean is one of my favorite movie; how much were you involved on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean. As far as were you actually on the set at all to do research for your book or anything like that?

Jason: Much like the Haunted Mansion folks, the filmmakers on Pirates spent a lot of time at Imagineering. They have all the original artwork. There are things that I see in the movie that I know, the inspiration came directly from a piece of Mark Davis art beyond the obvious things like the dog in the jail and all that type of thing. I was working on the Haunted Mansion book at the time so I was out in California and I actually did get to spend some time on the set of the first Pirates film and I’ve spent a bit of time on the sets of two and three as well. As a matter of fact I went to the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago to go for another project I can’t talk about, but I got to watch them film a scene and there’s nothing like it. It’s one thing to interview someone like this in a situation like this but to be on a film set and watch Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly in costume performing those characters to me is absolutely mind blowing. Imagineering has had a great relationship with the filmmakers on both of those films, Pirates in particular because they are very serious about honoring that legacy and obviously they’ve taken things in a new direction and they’ve gone onto to do their own thing as they should but we’ve had a great collaboration trying to infuse with the spirits of the attractions that inspired them.

Lou: Exactly, that’s what I was just about to say. Was that, while the stories and the movies themselves distance themselves from the attractions there is so many elements from the attractions themselves, especially in Pirates. There’s so much that’s so true and characters like Johnny Depp that bringing the attraction to life, faithfully recreating that. They did a great job in that respect.

Jason: Well, it’s amazing in Pirates in particular Ted Elliott and Terry Rosseo who have written the scripts for all three of the movies, they felt that there was something in the attraction that gave the movie its distinction which is the notion of cursed pirates. And in the Disneyland version certainly and also here in Florida if you listen to that piece of narration as you’re going down that long rocky passage way right before you come out in the bombardment scene, if you listen to that narration the concept of the cursed treasure and the effects that it has on those who disturb it is right there. Ted and Terry pulled that right out of the attraction and that turned out to be the element that made Pirates so unique and Ted and Terry had said that from the very beginning. They said you can’t do this movie without that supernatural element and that’s a notion that has extended to two and three, you know with the characters of Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman and some of the other elements that are safe to talk about now and that’s really what separates that movie from your average, I shouldn’t say average, you’re golden age of Hollywood pirate film starring Errol Flynn or Terrell Power. You know that supernatural element that came right out of the attraction is what made these stories what they are I think.

Lou: Were you surprised at the success of the Pirates movie and how it’s just exploded?

Jason: When you have a film that is that big a hit because Pirates is like a full fledged cultural phenomenon. That’s one of those things that every studio would give its eye teeth for and you know comes along once in a generation. As a matter of fact the way Nina Jacobson put it; she’s the head of the studio. She had said we never, we had had huge hits with animation you know Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast especially Lion King. She said but we never had a seat at the live action table. You know she said the other studios they have their Spiderman their Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. We never had that, now we do. And to think that what got us there is something that came directly out of Walt Disney’s brain is incredibly cool. And it is, it’s amazing. Pirates instantly became one those ten pole franchises that most studio executives would sell their souls for and have! And we have that now and the other interesting thing is people didn’t gradually warm up to Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow; this character instantaneously was enshrined in the pantheon of great American movie characters. You know it wasn’t like you know ten years later “Oh Forest Gump was such a wonderful film creation”. I mean Jack Sparrow people took to him instantly, and really this is one of those movies that became an instant classic and from everything I’ve seen two is actually better than one. And I think this is just going to explode into something that much bigger.

Lou: Considering the success of the first movie that’s really something as a fan to look forward to. With the obvious success of the movies and the two that follow there’s been a lot of conjecture that, you know as attractions tie into the movies, is the movie now going to reverse tie into the attraction? Obviously without divulging anything, is this something that is outside the realm of possibility?

Jason: No, not at all. Tom Fitzgerald talks about this a lot. You are going to have entire generations of kids now for example whose first frame of reference when you say the words Pirates of the Caribbean is Jack Sparrow and the films, and not the attraction. We all grew up with the attractions and so when we hear Pirates of the Caribbean we tend to think of that first although it’s getting pretty much neck and neck with the films now. But you know we have kids even today coming up to Pirates here at the Magic Kingdom and at Disneyland saying oh is Jack Sparrow in there?, and we have these cast members saying well ummm no. And they don’t get it because to them Pirates of the Caribbean is Jack Sparrow, Will Turner you know Elizabeth Swan, so there’s really no way for us to disregard that as we move forward so I think it would be pretty much irresponsible not to let these films have an influence on the attraction that inspired them so Pirates could very well be the first film to make the journey from the Magic Kingdom to the movies and back again. And you’re also talking about an attraction that was inspired by a very successful genre of film to begin with because all of Disneyland was influenced by movies, I mean that was Walt’s whole intention was three dimensional story telling and the first Pirates was very much informed by the films of Errol Flynn and Terrell Power and the pirate film the swashbuckler was a staple of the golden age of Hollywood so really it’s not that big a leap.

Lou: While researching both books, and being such timeless attractions you obviously must have encountered some incredible stories either about the creation of the attraction or the attraction themselves those little secrets or details maybe that people don’t realize. What are some of your favorite stories or secrets about the attractions?

Jason: You know for me it’s not even for me so much secrets as just these little stories that come out, like for example something I touched on earlier. I was really touched by the fact that Walt Disney’s last visit to Imagineering concerned Pirates of the Caribbean and it was in that meeting that he made the decision not to open the attraction for Christmas. So he effectively denying himself the chance to see it up and running. That had kind of a profound effect on me; I really got chills when the imaginers were telling me that story. And then also one of the funny things about Pirates is there has been a lot of talk about how we altered the chase scenes so that the women were chasing the men and not vice versa and all of that. The funny thing is that kind of squirrelishness about if that scene was appropriate goes all the way back to the beginning and goes all the way up to Walt Disney himself. I mean there were a number of occasions where he would turn to his imaginers and kind of say, “Well this is ok isn’t it? I mean this is going to be alright.” So it occurred to even Walt because you’re dealing with an attraction that is pretty much glorifying a lot of bad behavior and it’s funny to read about the imagineers attempts to soften it up. Mark Davis is a master gag man going back to his days at animation so his characters and the humorous situations he put them in softens up a lot of that. And even Ex Atencio tells a great story about how they added that banner to the auction scene that says take a wench for a bride. Like well their marrying these woman so that makes it perfectly ok, I mean it’s an arranged marriage that’s all it is! So some of those attempts to soften up the behavior really blew my mind and just made me laugh. And the fact that even Walt got a little iffy on it here and there is just I think really really funny.

Lou: You know it’s funny; it never struck me as anything until the change was made. And I said being a purist and loving the attractions just as they were the first time I saw it, you know I was one of the people that said why change it. But in retrospect you say take a wench for a bride or buy a bride which kind of sounds better.

Jason: Well exactly, and I always considered myself a purist too and then the more I talked to Tony Baxter and some of the imaginers who were responsible for the enhancement you realize it’s not the strongest scene in the world to begin with. Especially when you compare those figures with something like the auctioneer who is incredibly life like, you’re basically talking about two figures with limited animation moving around on a turn table. So ultimately is it that big a loss? But if you look at the scene that is there now with the pirate balancing the chair on the keg of rum and the rum going into the mugs and the pooped pirate now waving a turkey leg, you’re basically replacing one vice with another. Gluttony steps in for lust I guess, but honestly at the end of the day it’s a much stronger scene now and to be honest with you when I was doing my research and really listened to the dialogue of that pooped pirate back when he was waving the slip and the girl was hiding in the barrel behind him, some of that dialogue was actually pretty hard core and intense and you have to get up pretty early in the morning to offend me. But as I was listening to it I was like you know what I think we’re ultimately a little better off.

Lou: And you know nothing that changed altered the story or the integrity of the attraction at all.

Jason: Not at all.

Lou: It was really relatively minor and the people like me that have the scenes memorized and know it, you know like I said it doesn’t change the story at all.

Jason: Yeah and you know Tony and the show producer for the enhancement Bob Baraneck took that so seriously that they actually went to feature animation and hired an animator Kirk Hanson who had kind of been a Mark Davis débuted, to generate the new sketches for that scene so they actually made it a point of finding someone who could emulate the Mark Davis style so the gags are very much Mark Davis. You know from the pirate that’s caught between the horse and the goat with the food, that’s a Mark Davis gag. As a matter of fact the pirates balancing on the kegs of rum and holding up the mugs to catch the spraying rum, that was actually a Mark Davis gag originally intended for the cantina in the auction scene, you know the pirates sitting on the steps and it never made it into the show so not only did they emulate Mark Davis but they actually got one of his gags into the show 30 years later.

Lou: And it’s so funny you mentioned the pirates on the turn table because I was happy they kept it the same way because while kids today or people who see some of the new animatronics say that’s a little cheesy effect. I think the fact that it’s like that, that it uses the technology from the original from way back when, I think that’s what makes Pirates a really special ride.

Jason: A good point there is special effects in general. You see in film today this explosion of digital effects and everything is computer generated now. And most filmmakers will tell you that just because you can do something doesn’t mean necessarily mean you should do something. So in our theme park world which is three dimensional storytelling, three dimensional filmmaking if you will, some of the gags that are effective today the Haunted mansion is a perfect example are the same gags that were there on opening day. And the Haunted Mansion, most of those special effects are based on turn of the century stage magic. So here we are in the early years of the 21st century relying on something from the early years of the 20th century and it still blows peoples minds and most people have no idea how we do it and they go through the ballroom and say it’s lasers, it’s holograms, it’s alien technology and it’s none of that. It’s turn of the century stage magic and I think that’s an ultimate testament to just doing what’s right for the story and not having a spectacle for spectacles sake and I think your figures on the turn tables in the chase scene fall into that category, they still work.

Lou: The attractions and the effects are timeless, even the ghosts that pop up in the graveyard scene it’s nothing, it’s a head on a stick that’s going up and down but that’s what makes the Haunted Mansion what it is.

Jason: Exactly all of these individual components together create that experience. You know it’s all of those elements intricately woven into the fabric of the Haunted Mansion experience and that has become part of our collective childhood really. And that means a lot to people and they carry that with them.

Lou: And obviously it all comes back to the story. So many people who may ride Pirates for the first time or even a few times may not recognize the story behind. They just see scene after scene, the same thing with the Haunted Mansion. But there is a story behind it that’s why these attractions 30 years later are as popular as they were on day one.

Jason: Exactly, and the story of Pirates in many ways is one of those happy accidents because originally it was meant to be a walk through wax museum and then especially after of the experiences at the 1964 World’s Fair the decision was made to make it a ride through specifically a boat ride you know when they had such success with the Small World attraction. And Walt said ok well it’s going to be a ride through and we’ll take them down in boats, it’s a pirate story it’s perfect! And the imaginers were kind of aghast. Their like well Walt we have this whole in the ground over there in New Orleans square and it only hold a walk thru. How are we going to do this? And Dick Newness actually told me this story who was a major operational figure at Disneyland and later went on to be the President of Disneyland and Disney World, he said yeah we were at a lunch meeting at the studio commissary and we brought that up and Walt solved it on the spot. He said oh it’s no problem we’ll just tunnel under the railroad tracks and do the whole show in a big sound stage outside the burm. And then they said ok well great, but what do we do with that hole in the ground in New Orleans Square? And this is Walt’s response, oh I don’t know just put in some caves or something. So this casual off hand remark by Walt Disney winds up being one of the most beloved scenes in the show, the haunted caverns. And then they figured what do we do with these caves and then that evolved into the skeletons and you’re seeing the ultimate fate of the pirates before you go back and see them in their heyday. And then to kind of put a capper on that story, during the 1997 enhancement Tony Baxter and Bob Baraneck said you know what we ought to pay off that story and give it a little closure so now as you’re going up the up ramp at Disneyland you see these pirates trying to escape up the waterfall with their sack of treasure their loot and then as you get further up the up ramp sure enough you see skeletons trying to make it out. And the ultimate effect of that is saying to the audience while crime doesn’t pay, greed doesn’t pay they don’t make it. Dead men tell no tales so we actually have a nice little piece of closure at the Disneyland version now.

Lou: It’s great. I haven’t been to Disneyland in a couple of years. I know Disneyland’s ride is a little longer.

Jason: Yeah about twice as long as the one here at Walt Disney World. But here at Walt Disney World that always bothered Mark Davis too. He hated the fact that the skeletons were first and the story was arguably out of sequence so here at Walt Disney World the scene ends in the treasure room where sure enough the pirates have found the towns treasure. So here at Walt Disney World, Mark Davis in particular made it a point to end that story and pay it off with the pirates actually finding what they came looking for. Dead men still tell no tales however. I’m towing the pirate company line.

Lou: Now as much as I would love for you to reveal the deep dark secrets, I know you probably can’t but are there any kind of projects you’re working on now that maybe you can give us a little insight on?

Jason: Actually I’m working on a couple projects for Disney Cruise Line® that are really exciting; I can’t really talk about what they are. You know we just had one of the cruise ships go into dry dock so that gives us an opportunity to constantly refresh the experience. So I’ve actually been involved with the redesigns of some of the clubs and restaurants on the Disney Magic and the Wonder that’s been a lot of fun. I mentioned that I did get to work on an E-ticket attraction over the summer, that’s something that’s still ongoing that I can’t really talk about. But most of my work revolves around Walt Disney World so actually a perfect example is in a couple of weeks we have an attraction opening at the Disney MGM Studios called Journey Into Narnia creating the Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe, and basically that’s a celebration of the film we’ve got coming out. And what we do on sound stage four at the studio is we recreate the lantern waste set, that wonderful snow swept environment that little Lucy encounters when she goes through the wardrobe for the first time. So essentially what we’re doing there is we’re giving the guests the experience of stepping through the wardrobe, because they get to step right through the wardrobe like they do in the film and experience what it’s like to literally journey into Narnia. I think they are destined to have an encounter with the white witch before all is said and done and at the same time we have some wonderful media pieces that were produced in conjunction with the filmmakers themselves that offer and insight into the making of the film and that will be opening the same date as the film November 9th, so we’re really excited about that and I got to work on the scripts for that attraction.

Lou: If time and obviously money and creative freedom, throw all of that out the window. What would be the ultimate concept the ultimate project that you could do for Disney either an attraction or...

Jason: If my bosses came to me and said you can work on whatever you want my response would be a Magic Kingdom. I mean during my time at Imagineering I would love to be able to say that I got to work on a Disneyland style park. And considering that is our crown jewel of all of the theme park work that we’ve done, I don’t think that’s out of the question sometime. So that would be my first choice to get to contribute to a version of Disneyland somewhere in the world. Beyond that, considering that we have reproduced these classic attractions in different parks all over the world as you can imagine I would love to work on any future incarnation of Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean, because as much fun as it is to work on brand new things and original concepts I have also found a great deal of gratification in getting to contribute to what has come before and to me there would be no bigger thrill than to get to contribute a verse of some kind to a version of Pirates or Haunted Mansion.

Lou: Like you said with the tombstone at the Haunted Mansion that you were able to...

Jason: Yeah I’ve gotten a taste of that already and I would just love for that to continue.

Lou: To know that you could come here and see a piece of you here and hopefully forever has got to be such an honor.

Jason: Exactly, it is. It’s a real thrill and you know the time that I got to spend with Ex Atencio that’s one of the things I think about when I’m sitting with him. Here’s the guy that wrote all of those wonderful rhymes that I grew up with and now I have a little something sitting along side his stuff and it absolutely means the world to me because most of us imaginers are fans first and foremost too. That’s what enables us to do what we do. So we just do what we think will make us happy hoping that it will make the lion’s share of our guests happy too.

Lou: Well Jason, like you said you went from fan to cast member to Imagineer. You’ve taken the journey that so many of us wish we could take at some point and the work that you’ve done and both with the two books the Haunted Mansion and the Pirates book as well as what you’ve done for the Disney theme parks is really wonderful and I’m sure appreciated by everybody that’s listening. And we want to thank you for taking the time to sit with us and talk to us a little bit about this. This has really been a thrill for me as I’m sure it’s been for Nathan. Jason: No, thank you it’s a pleasure. You know for anyone else who dreams of being an imagineer; you know literally if you can dream it you can do it. I’m positive I’ve read that somewhere but it’s true. I’m living proof and if you have something like that that you want to do, if you have a dream in your life literally you’ve just got to get out there and work toward making it happen. And I’ve met to many people for whom its worked out and I am living proof too so if you’ve been dreaming just start doing.

Lou: Your story is a great story and you’re passion for what you do really comes through in what you’ve produced. I love both the books and I highly recommend them both. Again it’s Haunted Mansion from the Magic Kingdom to the Movies and Pirates of the Caribbean from the Magic Kingdom to the Movies.

Jason: They look great sitting next to each other on the shelf.

Lou: Absolutely or on your coffee table.

Jason: Or on the coffee table! Exactly! And they also make great Halloween treats.

Lou: And good Christmas presents!

Jason: Exactly because Christmas is coming up! I told people that last week, you know instead of the bite size snickers hand out these babies. It promotes literacy and the kids love it.

Lou: And it doesn’t rot your teeth!

Jason: Exactly! See we’re on the same page.

Lou: Absolutely, Jason thank you again so much, we really appreciate it.

Jason: Thanks for having me.

Nathan: And that’s the conclusion of the Mouse Tunes interview with Disney Imagineer Jason Surrell. We would again like to thank Jason for taking the time and allowing us to interview him and talk about his experiences inside Disney’s Imagineering.

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