Five years ago a team of scenic painters at Universal Studios Florida spent days carefully whitewashing the walls at the new Schwab’s Pharmacy on Hollywood Boulevard. They painted tiny rust spots on the bases of brand-new lamps, twisted and hammered overhead light fixtures and washed new windows a dingy shade of gray.
Then, late one night, the cleaning crew arrived.
They put down their mops and brooms and, in a huff, went to work. For three days, they scraped and washed, polished and waxed. Basically, “they scrubbed off all the old age,” said Mark Woodbury, director of Design Planning & Development at Universal.
“We absolutely slaved over that rusty old pipe,” said Reid Carlson, the senior art director at Universal. “And they came in and steel-wooled all the rust out.”
After all, he said, aging is an art.
Such an art, in fact, that Florida’s two largest theme parks-Universal and Walt Disney World-actually employ a cadre of trained artisans to make the new look old, the clean look dirty. They craft concrete facades from blocks of Styrofoam, battered beams from brand-new plywood.
They attend to the details, said Woodbury, “that really create an atmosphere.”
When Universal built the Kongfrontation ride, graffiti artists were hired to recreate the New York City subway system, circa 1940. But their fastidious elimination of the ripe scents and racy language that have generally emanated from the caverns beneath New York City was anything but rewarded.
This time, it was a bunch of humorless New York City politicians, complaining the remaining graffiti was “yet another example” of the disrespect New Yorkers suffer at the hands of foreigners.
Carlson shrugged. Woodbury shrugged. And the graffiti stayed.
At Walt Disney World, for example, there are few exceptions to the aging rule. Only Main Street at the Magic Kingdom, Future World at Epcot Center, and all of the restaurants have been spared the aging pallet, said Ken Danberry, senior show designer for Walt Disney Imagineering Florida.
Typhoon Lagoon, quite literally, appears as if a hurricane hit it. In reality, Disney artists took a hatchet and saw to pieces of wood, knocked off the edges and used a sandblaster to leave the impression of rotted timber, Danberry said.
At both Disney and Universal, there are artists who specialize in “graining”-recreating every type of wood imaginable, weathering new beams, depending on the project. Artists who paint only a faux marble on plywood. Artists who lay bricks a dozen different ways to recreate different construction eras. Artists who use a paint wash on new awnings, then streak them to appear as if they survived decades of torrential rain.
Artists paint building facades onto molded foam. Artists turn new lampposts into period pieces, painting them an oxidized green replete with rust spots.
Last year visitors plunked hundreds of dollars into parking meters that line Universal’s streets of New York. Scores of letters were dropped into decorative mailboxes. Even seasoned maintenance workers couldn’t distinguish between decorative and real manholes and fire hydrants at the park-prompting park officials to seal all the mailboxes and label all the operative sewer lids. The parking meter coins are donated to charity.
Usually, Universal Studios Florida employs about six full time artists. Their job, according to Woodbury: “To go out and keep the place looking old” without it looking “grungy.”
“It’s a delicate balance,” he said.
Disney World employs four full-time artists whose duties include aging and maintaining the parks.
But when a new attraction is set to open-and both Universal and Disney are planning major expansions-dozens more are put to work.
“The people who do the maintenance are so busy-they don’t normally get into the new stuff,” said Carlson, who studied theatrical scenery at the Art Institute of Chicago, worked at Ringling Bros. circus for a decade doing production design and then at Walt Disney World before joining Universal in 1991.
Aside from the obvious goal of attracting tourists, the aging of Universal and Disney-MGM Studios are conceived with the movies in mind.
Everything is built to scale; what can’t be recreated by artists is found at tag sales, flea markets, auctions and specialty stores, Carlson said. Even the New York cityscape behind Kongfrontation can be reconfigured to represent another town.
“The entire park was conceived to be a working movie studio,” said Woodbury, an architect who worked for an Orlando development company before joining Universal in the initial design phase. “It’s flexible enough that it can be turned around into something else” to meet all sorts of different production demands.
The facade at Macy’s is an exact replica of the Herald Square department store. A visiting actress (Universal won’t say who) nearly tore down the Max Factor facade looking to buy cosmetics.
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Most attractions at Walt Disney World are accesssible to visitors with disabilities, but for some, assistance may be needed. For the free “Walt Disney World Guidebook for Guests with Disabilities,” call 407-824-4321; the guide is also available at the park at all guest relations and information locations. At Universal Studios, special arrangements and aids for handicapped visitors are available. Most attractions are accessible and most employees have been trained in aiding the handicapped; a free guide for disabled guests is available at any guest services location in the park or by calling 407-363-8000 and asking for guest services.
