I worked on the
original Tussauds in-house team that designed and built the 5th Dimension. As
an AV technician, I was responsible for many of the special effects on the ride.
The ride had great
aspirations and design ideas but the storyline was a bit too wordy and the sets
were not convincing - you didn't feel as if you were going into another world,
it just felt like a load of sets in a metal shed built by humans!
Some of the effects were good, though I say it myself! I designed a laser/strobe
tunnel (travel through galaxies) which you ascended up through after entering
through the computer screen. Steve from the Planetarium designed and built the
laser unit which consisted of 20 x 100mW lasers (if my memory serves right)
and a massive array of mirrors and servos. These lasers were chosen because
they were the only low-powered lasers that you could legally and safely point
directly at the public at the time. They also didn't require a massive cooling
system which I seem to remember lasers used in those days!
Unfortunately, we were installing everything into a cold, dirty industrial environment
- not suitable for such delicate equipment! These were pioneering days for us!
Needless to say, the laser unit needed nursing and it wasn't clear (certainly
to me) how or who had the expertise to undertake the maintenance. This was the
same for all the animations, light focussing, etc.
A month or so
later, a memo went around the studio heads mentioning me in all but name for
the ride's failure to meet expectations. It was true that many of the effects
needed maintenance (which wasn't happening) but it showed how essential the
effects had been.
So, I trotted off to see Ray Barrett, who was director responsible for new projects
at the time, and said that I would like to go down and sort things out. John
Wardley agreed to supervise me, Tussauds put in a further sum of money, and
I was very much left to my own devices!
I worked very closely with Chessington's resident scenic theming team (who hadn't
been involved in the original work). They 'filled' up the scenes to make the
sets more encompassing and atmospheric, which I think was successful. We also
re-thought through the whole ride, including the script.
I cannot stress to you how appalling conditions were working in the cold winter
months in a blacked-out unheated barn. It doesn't matter how many floodlights
you use in a black box - it's still dark and dangerous!
The refurbishments
had to be ready for the new season (88?) and we just about completed on time.
I kept a small team on to fine-tune the show with the public on the ride, checking
timings of all the trains, etc.
So. after all the work, was it worth it? The answer, I'm afraid, is probably
not really. It was a good ride but in the wrong place at the wrong time and
operated by the wrong team! I'll explain:
I think we as
the designers took short-cuts in creating solutions; unfortunately, we didn't
have the resources that Disney would have available for such a dark ride. When
you design something new it is always a prototype; ideally the prototype is
tested and then re-designed and re-engineered into a final product solution.
Unfortunately, we never have that luxury! The problem with the operation of
the Fifth Dimension was to do with the fact that it was not really a 'suitable'
theme park ride. It was a 'show' and should have been presented as such. As
a 'performance artist' I understood this. When I supervised the operation of
the re-vamped ride, I would ensure that all visitors were held back and I made
sure they listened to the video introduction in the queue area.
To assist the operator, the loading bay entrance door, video sequence, trains,
special effects were all synchronised to ensure that the visitor's 'experience'
was maximised, and a similar experience for each visitor. Under my control,
I would insist that every train went into the ride full (try performing to an
empty auditorium - it's not fun!). When the trains came out of the ride the
visitors would often burst into spontaneous applause!
I would train up the operators and explain to them that they were managing a
show, a performance, and how important timing and hype was to the 'adventure'.
I'd leave them to it and all running to perfection!
The next day I
would come in and the staff would have changed! Chessington employs 10s of low-paid
casual (student) labour over the season, so I realised I had no hope of training
them all. Anyway, they didn't work for me and they had other priorities!
So, I would come in the next morning and take a test ride. My first observation
was that only a few people would be put on the train. The passengers hadn't
seen the introduction properly so they had no idea what the ride was about -
many thought they were going on a roller coaster (and you couldn't convince
them otherwise!). Worse still, the park's ride engineers had been in that morning
to inspect the trains, etc, and they would leave a door open somewhere, which
would flood a scene with daylight and completely ruin the dramatic effect. [Actually,
as a point of interest, it only takes a single LED to ruin the effect of a black-out.
Try standing in darkness in a room that has an infrared sensor for the home
burglar alarm].
And that basically
was the problem. It was a theatrical show and should have been conceived and
operated as such. And like all shows the balance between brilliance and appallingness
is a fine line. The ride part is an irrelevance - it perhaps would have helped
to have advertised the 'ride' along the lines of the 'travelling laser theatre
show'! Well, the psychology is the hardest part to get right, or perhaps I should
say 'communication' is...
Dan Longley MBA BA (Hons) MAPM
Visiting lecturer in Tourism Studies
Birmingham, UK