Take Risk to Get Experience

Welcome to the Jodi Mayberry Show. Now this episode is going to be epic. And I say that because our guest was the originating creative director for Epic Universe. Epic Universe for Universal just opened. It's currently a big deal. Everyone's talking about how awesome it is. So Jason Sorel is joining us to talk about Epic Universe and his wonderful career that led to it. Welcome, Jason. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be

here. Well, dear, you have such a a great career. I also in case we don't get there, I wanna mention that Jason has written two books. We may end up talking about other things, not getting into the books, but he's written The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, which are wonderful histories about the ride. So if you like those rides, check out those books. So there's our plug in case we don't come back to it, Jason. There's a few more as well. There's a few more.

Oh my goodness. Okay. Wrote a book on the Disney mountains and then a book on screenwriting called screenplay by Disney. And then I also wrote The Art of Marvel's The Avengers. So it's kind of the, making up book for the original Avengers film. Oh my goodness, Jason. That's so we've we've got a lot to talk about. But let's Absolutely. Let's start with Epic. You were at the opening of Epic. That had to be incredible in two ways. One, I've just heard great

things. And two, to have been the originating creative director and then to actually see it in person live full of people that are just having a great time. Tell us a little bit about the your experience at the opening. Well, it was obviously a very emotional experience, you

know, because I left the company last November. So to be able to return for the grand opening as a guest of Warwick Davis, who was there, to help with the opening of the wizarding world of Harry Potter Ministry of Magic, It was just an absolute joy to be there to see seven plus years of of work come to fruition and just the obviously, the the spectacle of of the grand opening was very moving. And,

so far, the reactions have all been very positive. So I I think Universal has a gigantic hit on their hands, and it's gonna be interesting to see how that affects the Orlando vacation experience for years to come. You know, because the the goal, of course, is for everybody to increase the length of stay for our guests who come to visit us from all over the world. And I definitely think Universal had just grabbed themselves an extra day of our visitors'

vacations. And and like I said, going back to the very beginning, it's just been quite a journey. You know, I I was, I started with the project in the fall or winter of twenty sixteen. The way it came about is our director of concept development at the time, Ross Osterman, got called into Mark Woodbury's office. Before he was the chairman of Universal

Destinations and Experiences, he was the president of Universal Creative. So he called Ross into his office, which is normally a very intimidating scary thing, but in this case, it was good news. He said, yeah, I really want you to start thinking about what a fourth theme park could look like for us. Four being in addition to Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure, and Volcano Bay, which is considered a water theme park, not just a water park because it's incredibly immersive and

story driven. So Ross got to work, and started assembling a team. And in fairly short order, I was brought back from the Universal Studios Beijing project where I was the creative director. So I was fortunate enough to join Ross and Thierry Koo, our chief creative officer at the time, in the earliest brainstorming sessions to figure out what this could be. And so I

definitely owe a lot to Ross and Thierry. They were the ones that brought me over to Universal Creative from Walt Disney Imagineering, and they really believed in me and gave me a chance to sort of graduate, as I call it, from being a senior show writer at Imagineering to a creative director and then a senior creative director and executive creative director at Universal. But a long journey, lot of people, lot of great

memories, and you can see the results now. What an exciting opportunity that my must have been to basically have a blank piece of paper and say, what can a fourth theme park look like for us? Yeah. It's interesting because whenever I hear the phrase, you know, blank sheet of paper, I think of Marty Sklar, you know, the longtime creative leader of Walt Disney Imagineering, who very famously said that there are two ways to look at a blank sheet of

paper. It can either be the scariest thing in the world because no one has made a mark on it yet, or it could be the most exciting thing in the world because no one's made a mark on it yet. And what I've discovered in my career is it's possible to feel those two things, those very different things at the exact same time. But, ultimately, excitement wins out because you just can't resist the opportunity, in our business to have a chance at developing a theme park, from day one, you know, from a a

greenfield, as as we say. And that was probably one of the most thrilling aspects of the epic project for me was getting, invited to be a part of it so early on, you know, by Ross and and Terry. So super excited about the opportunity

and just being in those initial conference rooms. We hold up in a conference room at at the Sapphire Falls, resort, you know, on property, brought in the all star cast of internal folks from Universal Creative and and brought in some outside partners from THG and some other outside companies that we work with. So we really have the best of the best assembled around this long conference room table where we started throwing ideas at the wall

to see what would stick. And, because in the years prior to getting underway, we have enjoyed such success with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Hogsmeade, and then the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley, fairly early on, the question was asked, well, what would it be like if we had an entire new theme park that was nothing but these single IP immersive lands that really allow the guests to be completely enveloped by a story, by a world, where you don't

see the seams anymore. You know? You're in that world. And that was really how it all started. And then the other thing you have to consider is, in actuality, there's a very finite number of properties, intellectual properties that really lend themselves to that sort of treatment. You know, my joke was back in the day, you know, we're not gonna build an entire land based on the Smokey and the Bandit cinematic universe. You know, it's gotta be you wanna, fill the

lineup with some heavy hitters. And, of course, that's what we wound up doing with Harry Potter, of course, the Universal Monsters, How to Train Your Dragon, and, of course, Super Nintendo World. It really is an

all star lineup. And then Celestial Park, which was the project of Dale Mason, who was a long time universal creative wizard, worked on Islands of Adventure, and, he was the the creative lead on Volcano Bay. Really incredibly visionary, talented guy. Celestial Park was essentially his baby from fairly early on. And what was exciting about that was that represents new and original storytelling that's

not based on any preexisting IP. And I think that's super important as we move into the future of themed entertainment because you don't want to lose sight of original storytelling. Because without original storytelling, guess what? You don't get Pirates of the Caribbean, you don't get The Haunted Mansion, you don't get Space Mountain, you don't get Big Thunder Mountain. Those are all Disney

examples. But Universal, obviously, being hardcore in the film business, IP properties are their bread and butter, simply because that's the world that we live in, Universal. So the opportunity to have, the anchor land be based on original content was really exciting. And, of course, the portals that serve as gateways to these immersive worlds are all connected to Celestial Park, and that's really what creates the park's master

storyline, which, you know, we all contributed to. The delivery creative director, Steve Tatum, had a huge hand in bringing it all together. Dale Mason, obviously, with Celestial Park. But again, it's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people over the course of of all of these years, seven, eight years. That's what it takes, you know, to

create a project of this magnitude. When you were there for the opening and got to experience it, was there anything that after seven years of being involved in it, seeing it from the very beginning, seeing that blank piece of paper, see and then experiencing what it become, was there anything that you felt this actually turned out better than we expected it would? I mean, honestly, I could say that about most of the park, and I I was not there for the full seven years.

I was there for the first two years before I moved on to other projects. That's why I say originate in creative director because I tend to be on the the front end, the early end of a lot of these projects. The wonderful part about that is you're away from it for so long. There are certainly things that you recognize because there are certain foundational elements

that held true throughout the life of the project. But because I went off and did all sorts most recently working on the part that Universal's, contemplating building in, outside London, in a way, it was like experiencing it along with the guests in a strange way because I'd been away from it for so long. So that was one of the

most gratifying parts about it. You know, you definitely feel the pride of participation, especially on on the front end, but you're also, in many ways, surprised and delighted by what you'd find around every

corner. And every once in a while, you'd have that flash of deja vu, like, oh, I remember seeing that in in a site plan. You know? And now here it is larger than life in real life, you know, for people. But the wizarding world of of Harry Potter Ministry of Magic, going to nineteen twenty's magical Paris is absolutely jaw dropping. You know, unlike so many theme park environments that are built with forced perspective being a key part of it, most of the wizarding world, at Epic is built full

scale, and you can feel it. And, man, there is nothing like passing through that portal and just getting enveloped by nineteen twenty's magical Paris. And then, you know, there's some forced perspective. You can see Sacre Coeur back in the distance. And I I I was reminded of a business trip we took way back in 2017 where we would walk the streets of Paris. We went to Sacre Coeur. We did all sorts of research about, you know, what the area development

would look like. And to see it finally come to life with all of the attention to detail that Universal Creative is known for and that Warner Brothers is certainly supportive of and the Blair Partnership, the Blair Group representing JK Rowling, absolutely stunning. And then because I have such a personal history with the scarier side of themed entertainment, you know, I I was part of the team that originally developed Halloween Horror Nights

and helped, you know, transform it into this juggernaut that it became. And then working with the Haunted Mansion and writing a book about the Haunted Mansion, a dark universe in many ways was a dream come true because it's really the first time the Universal monsters have taken center stage in not just an attraction of their own, which is mind blowing, but this entire immersive land, the village of Dartmoor, which takes you to the ancestral home of the Frankenstein

family, where Victoria Frankenstein, who's a character that I created originally years ago, and then so many creative directors and writers took her, through the evolution. But she's moved back home into the ancestral Frankenstein Manor. And when there's a Frankenstein in the manor, there, trouble is bound to follow. And that's exactly what happens, in Dark Universe. You know, and then How to Train Your Dragon is just simply breathtaking. The Isle Of Berk is beautiful. It's one of the reasons

we chose it. Universal had acquired Dreamworks Animation, not too long before this project went into development. So we knew we wanted to prominently feature a Dreamworks property in as part of the park, and, How to Train Your Dragon just seemed like a no brainer because it's an absolutely fantastical environment unlike anything you could visit in the real world. And, obviously, the coexistence of dragons and the vikings who live there make for a lot of wonderful visual possibilities

and comedic possibilities. Because what the main decision we made there was it's essentially How to Train Your Dragon 2.5, meaning it's set between the second and third films. The reason that's important is because at the end of the second film, the dragons basically move in and and start to coexist alongside the Vikings. And that

really gave us so much to play with in terms of the environments and the dragons and how they're organically and sometimes it's not so organically integrated into the Isle Of Berk. And then, you know, Super Nintendo World, obviously had opened at Universal Studios Japan and a version of it at Universal Studios Hollywood. This one, we pulled out all the stops. You get the Mushroom Kingdom and you get Donkey Kong Country. And it's, again, I think one of the single most immersive environments,

I think, that's ever been created. And once you pass through that portal, for all intents and purposes, you are in a living video game, and it's absolutely mind blowing. How fun. It's fun for me having not been there just to hear you talk about it with such enthusiasm. One of the things I like about Jason's story is there's so many pieces along the way, different stops where he learned something new that ultimately ended up helping in the work he did for Epic Universe. So when I look at

what you've done in the past, Jason, it is really interesting. I'm just gonna name some of the the assignments or the companies you've had, not the actual roles. The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Imagineering, NBC Universal, Universal Creative. Like, that is just four places where someone could spend an entire career and be satisfied

and you've been at at all of them. I'd like to look at I know there with each one, there's so many stories we could go into, but I'd like to look at each of those to see how it impacted the work you did at Universal. Because you are a good

example of showing how where you pick something up along the way. It's maybe a dot or a piece of something that you don't put together for much later. And you were bold. I've never asked a lot of yet about your career leading up to Universal, but a lot of people will stick in one place, which is a great career choice. But some people like Jason are bold enough to move from place to place and pick up different

experience. And and I think there's something to that too. My background is rather diverse like that, having moved around, tried different things. And I I really have enjoyed doing it. It it builds such a rich background and there's so much to draw from. So when you look back at starting at Walt Disney Company, can you see pieces from your first roles with Walt Disney, how it played

into what you did at Universal? Yeah. Absolutely. And it's it's interesting that you say that because I I've been in the business for over thirty years now. And, the sheer majority of that time was spent either at one of the two giants of the industry, as you mentioned, the Walt Disney Company and NBC Universal. And the way I look at that is it's interesting because I move back and forth, but they were very strategic points in time for me and

my career. And the reason I did it really without reservation was because, for me, it's safe to say the worlds of both Disney and Universal have been part of my DNA since earliest childhood. Obviously, you know, Disney is a huge influence on a lot of people, certainly a lot of people that go into entertainment, specifically themed entertainment. But I was also very much a Universal kid in that I love the Universal classic monsters from an

incredibly early age. Love the films of Abbott and Costello. And then, a little bit later, absolutely fell in love with the work of Steven Spielberg, and some of his best work was done at Universal. And I'm thinking, of course, of Jaws and Jurassic Park. So all of that had been part of, my experience growing up. They were all very formative experiences. And, yes, initially, I did have the Disney dream, you know, to come

down to Florida and be an imagineer. But I wound up after a couple of years in Disney Live Entertainment getting a chance to go over to Universal Studios Florida Entertainment, to work on Halloween horror nights in the early years of its existence. And that was kind of the first juncture where a deviation from the path was presented to me or the path as I thought I knew it. So as a, you know, twenty four year old

kid, I'm like, okay. I can either continue on with Disney as a performer and try to get some of these shows and ideas that I had into production, or I can take a leap and go over to Universal as a paid writer, you know, and and suddenly act as a professional creative person. And that obviously was just an opportunity I couldn't pass up, an offer I couldn't refuse to

reference The Godfather. And, it turned out to be the absolute right thing to do because I spent the next five years at Universal Studios Florida Entertainment. I wound up being part of the team that developed the initial entertainment package for Islands of Adventure, And that was when I first met Ross Osterman, who I met mentioned earlier. And as we were working on some of the live stuff, he said, well, would you ever consider working

on the attraction side doing what I do? And I said, well, yeah. That's actually why I moved my life down here. But I always worried that I wouldn't have the necessary chops, to work for a Universal Creative or a Walt Disney Imagineering because I wasn't an artist, engineer, or architect. But through Ross, I realized that as a writer, I had every bit as much to contribute to the art of the theme show as any of those other

disciplines. So he gave me the assignment to be the show writer for Jurassic Park, one of the lands at Universal's Islands of Adventure, and that was really the key moment that allowed me to cross over from entertainment to the rides and attractions side at Universal Creative. And then a a couple years after that, I had the opportunity to return to Disney, but this time to Walt Disney Imagineering as a show writer.

So everything that I've done is built on what came before, and then history repeated itself fifteen years after that when I left Imagineering to go back to Universal, but this time at Universal Creative as a creative director. So I can look back on the thirty years and see how pretty much every moment influenced what came after it, and everything was, you know, an evolution.

And that's how, as you say, by the time you come to a project like Epic Universe or Universal Studios United Kingdom, you're basically drawing on any and everything that you've learned over thirty years. And with me having one foot in the live entertainment camp, which is live shows, parades,

fireworks, nighttime spectaculars, you name it. And then the other foot is in attractions, which is obviously rides and attractions, but also shops, restaurants, hotels, Disney Vacation Club, cruise lines, you name it. So at the end of the thirty years, you really see the vast array of everything that you've done and how everything was influenced by each step along the way. Well, and it's such a good

storyline to show why it's important to just take the chance to go ahead and make a move that does maybe seem scary because it's a big deal to have a job with Disney and decide to leave. It's a big deal to have a job with Universal and decide to leave. But Jason just illustrated how it makes a difference. It's all part of gathering the right experience that eventually, you gather enough right experience and you'll get to

do something epic. Yeah. Absolutely. And to that point, when I reached those junctures, and I think there were, like, four of them over the core course course of thirty years, I was fortunate in that each time I realized that I was effectively taking a chance on myself, and that made it easier. You know, it's it's one thing where you you know, like the proverbial actor who gets off the bus, you know, in Hollywood or goes to New York to try to make it in a creative field and and you're

really, you know, up against some incredible odds. In my situations, the position I was going into was pretty solid and was there and was dependable. So, therefore, the only real decision making I had to deal with was, did I feel ready? Do I think I'm capable of doing this job? And at each of those four junctures or whatever it was, I felt that the answer was yes, and I took a chance on myself. Not that there's not risk, that there's always risk, you know, that things

are gonna go sideways. But I think if you do build up enough confidence in yourself, you can feel pretty good about your odds, you know, when you're presented with those opportunities. Let's go back to what you said before about a blank page, and you mentioned what Marty Sklar said, it reminds me of something that Joe Rodey said to me once, and I may

have the words wrong, but the essence is right. He said that when an imagineer gets a blank piece of paper, because I guess you you all draw on fancy pieces of paper that it's worth like $30. But the moment an imagineer puts a mark on that paper, it goes from worth $30 to worthless until an imagineer is done and then it's priceless. And I I think a lot of people get scared to make that first mark to make it go from worth

$30 to worthless. But you have also done that not only in your creative work, but in your career work. Like, when you you left, it's like putting a mark on a piece of paper because you don't know how it's going to turn out. So whether it's with creative work or just making a big move, talk to us a little bit about just having the courage to make that first mark

on the piece of paper. Well, it it's funny because you actually just made a a parallel that I don't even think I've ever made in my life where, you know, I talked about those junctures where I was betting on myself. Well, when you're facing that blank sheet of paper, you're also betting on yourself and everyone else that you're collaborating with that that mark you put on is gonna because the goal, obviously, is to take it from worthless to priceless as quickly as possible,

meaning you want it to be worthwhile. I that's not even a commentary on schedule or budget. It's just, in general, are you doing something worthwhile? And because, as human beings, most of us are not overly thrilled to be judged, you know, in any way, shape, or form. And when you're in a creative field, you're pretty much getting judged every day of your professional life, and that can be formidable. That can

be scary. And I think for me, and I I certainly can't speak for everyone, but I have to imagine that this is a fairly common answer, fairly common motivation. It's passion. You just love the art and act of creation so much, and you love entertainment and specifically themed entertainment and theme parks so much that you're willing to take that

mental and emotional risk because that's what it is. You know, it's not like you're going off to war or facing a firing squad by any means, but mentally and emotionally, you're putting yourself out there, you and your team. And as a creative director, when you're the creative lead for a team, if something goes badly, you're typically the one in the crosshairs because you're the one up there pitching.

And then when things go well, the smart creative director will say, as I believe, that it's absolutely a team effort, and then everybody wins. But, yeah, it's absolutely or can be absolutely terrifying to look at that blank sheet of paper, and it does take courage fueled by passion and determination to make that mark. And, you know, to kinda build off of what, Joe Rohde said a little bit, that first mark, is very likely not gonna be the right

mark. All of these projects evolve so much over the course of time that very rarely are you going to build anything that you've come up with on day one of a brainstorming session. So that's another thing you have to be prepared for is being prepared to kill your darlings, being prepared to see a project evolve in ways that you like and sometimes in ways that you don't necessarily like or agree with. But it's

just part of the creative process. It's part of the evolution that any one of these ideas goes into. But if you have that passion, hopefully, that's gonna be enough to give you the courage to make that first mark. And once you make that first mark, every mark after that is inherently easier because what? The paper is no longer blank. And it may not be exactly right yet, but you're not staring at that formidable blank sheet of paper. All of a sudden, it's

got work on it. It's got thoughts on it. It's got the essence of everyone you're working with on it, and then you can kind of band together and mold it and evolve it into what it's ultimately going to be. That is wonderful. Jason, now I I mentioned the books in the beginning. I wanna make sure I I bring them up again. It's clear you're passionate about the stories found within theme parks or you wouldn't write books about individual rides.

What is it? So was, Haunted Mansion was the first one. Am I

right? Was the first one. Okay. So what was it about Haunted Mansion that you go in there and you say, I love this ride so much. I'm going to write the story about it and what's behind it and share it with the world. Well, it's interesting because when I started writing books, there weren't nearly as many titles as you see now. So I like to think that the work that we did, you know, twenty some years ago really started to fuel what would become a boom in books about themed

entertainment. In my case, it was the February, and, I think things were a little light around Imagineering at the time. So part of it was I was just trying to drum up something for myself to do that I could get really excited about and sink my teeth into. But then a big part of it, as with a lot of these things, is I wanted to experience something, in this case, read something that didn't exist. So I thought, alright. Well, I'm gonna see if I can make it exist.

And, I used a little bit of kinda showbiz logic with the company in that I went to my vice president at the time in Florida and said, how do we go about pitching the book? And he said, I don't know. Ask Marty. You know? And it's like so again, it's like off to see the wizard. So with Marty, I basically said, okay. Next year, we have a movie coming out about the Haunted

Mansion. So we know that there's gonna be all of this tie in merchandise, because I don't know if you've seen, but Disney likes to bring out little trinkets and merchandise to support their films. It was a really novel idea. So I kind of said, well, what if we use the Haunted Mansion movie as sort of a Trojan horse to do a book that really tells the story of the attraction in all of the Magic Kingdoms around the world, and then maybe the last third of the book is about the

film. And that was a conscious attempt to get the Disney marketing machine excited about it and behind it, and it worked. Marty said, I love this idea. Write me a book proposal. So I I said, great. Hung up the phone and went, how do I do that? I've had no no idea whatsoever. I'm a writer, but I don't know how to do a book proposal. So, essentially, I just wrote up a treatment just like I would for a show or a ride or an attraction or anything else that outlined what the book was

going to be, sent it off to Marty. He had some notes, helped me revise it, and then he said my next phone call, he said, okay. Now I want you to write me a proposal letter for our publishing unit, New York. And I said, great. Hung up the phone. How do I do that? I don't know what that looks like. What does it need to be?

So kind of like I did with the book proposal, I basically just wrote out a pitch and pitched the book just like you would any other project, ride show attraction, Sent that off to him, and the next thing I knew, he said, this is great. I've sent the whole thing to New York. We'll wait and see what they say. And it was about two weeks later that I got word, from Jody Revenson, who was the lady who would become my editor on my books at Disney.

She said, we love it. We wanna do it. We're gonna take it to our sales and acquisition meeting on Wednesday to see if they're interested. And the the key there was getting the park merchandise division behind it because they wanted that guaranteed place to sell the book. Obviously, it it's gonna go to Amazon and Barnes and

Noble and everything else, but you want the part behind it. So all that Wednesday, I was waiting with bated breath, and this is getting into, I would say, late summer, early fall of '2 thousand '2. Jody calls me back and says, okay. I've got good news and bad news. And I'm like, uh-oh. What does that mean? She goes, well, the good news is we wanna do the book. The bad news is for this to come out with the movie, we need a completed manuscript by January.

And, again, this is late summer, early fall, you know, in the previous year. So I I went, okay. You know, again, not knowing what it took to do any of this stuff, so I was just excited that we got a green light. And, obviously, needless to say, I immediately dove into research and interviews, you know, with all of the imagineers, whoever was, still living, you know, who had worked on the haunted mansion. And then the film didn't even go into principal photography until

January. So the good news was I actually had a little bit more time because I wound up, going out to the film set, in January for two weeks and interviewed cast and crew, and then the the book, was ready. I think it it was ready a little bit early in August or February, and then the film came out in November. But what was interesting was around the same time all of this is happening, I was trying to get them to do the same thing with Pirates of the Caribbean. And, I still remember to

this day, Jody, Godlove her going, no. No. No. Our Bruckheimer books always go right in the toilet. We don't wanna do that. And I go, what do you mean? And she said, well, we did a big coffee table book for Armageddon. We did one with Pearl Harbor. They just didn't sell. And, I kinda gently poked a little bit and said, well, I I think this might be a little different. You know, it's based on this legendary attraction. They've got Johnny Depp. I I think this is gonna be different.

Nope. Nope. Nope. So then flash forward to

February, it was around the time Pirates of the Caribbean, the curse of the Black Pearl was sailing past $300,000,000. I get a call from Jody going, you know, we're really kind of disappointed that we didn't do a Pirates book. And I go, oh, really? Because I seem to recall having a conversation like this about a year ago. And that was really how Pirates started, and then that came out in 02/2005, in between films, in between

the first and second film in the trilogy. And same thing, it was primarily a show business biography of the attraction with about a third of the book dedicated to the the making of the film. What a great story. Well, Jason, this has been an epic conversation. I'm so glad you joined me. Where can people find out more about you, what you're up to, or connect with you? Well, I don't have much of a social media presence. I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is always a great place to find me, certainly for anything, in in the professional realm. And then at the risk of sounding, awful, I think if you're interested in my work, if you just Google me, there's some YouTube videos that come up of panel discussions about my work and my career. And there's a lot of fun stuff, interviews and stuff you can fall down a rabbit hole, which I don't advise anyone doing. But if if they're so inclined, the material's out

there. Alright. Jason, it's it's been wonderful talking with you. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. And thank you for listening to the Jodie Mayberry Show. Stone the crows. It's Sugar Jay.