Theme Park Discussion / WDI ImagiNations Design Competition

http://www.disney.go...ions/index.html

I wanted to see if anyone is interested in entering the WDI ImagiNations design competition with me (see the above link). I entered with a friend last year, we didn't get anywhere, but I think I could do much better this time, and I figure NE people would be perfect teammates (aside from having to do all communications online).

The competition is to have groups of 2-4 people make some kind of conceptual proposal for Disney (a park, attraction, hotel, etc.), send it to Imagineering, whereupon they select ones they like, and have the finalist teams present their ideas during a ten day paid trip in California. So the main meat of the project is coming up with a good original idea and developing it using concept art, descriptions, models, etc.

According to the guidelines, you need to be a university level junior, senior, grad. student, or a recent graduate with one of the following majors: Architecture, Digital Art / Animation, Interior Design, Theater Design, Construction Management, Engineering, Project Management, Creative Writing, Fine Art, Media Production / Interactive. However (this I just noticed), it also says that you can be a member of an association which is involved in one of those fields, which I think means pretty much anyone interested could enter, you’d just need to join a related association, which is usually pretty easy to do.

Let me know if you’re interested or if you have any questions. It’s a pretty detailed thing, so there’s a lot more I could say about it, but I figure I’ll wait and first see if there’s any interest.

I don't qualify of course, as I've just graduated from high school, but this is a very interesting idea. Who says that RCT is just a waste of time? Well, it is for people like me with no urge to create realistically feasible work, but this is a very interesting development so long as it doesn't turn out to be heavily biased and judged by corporate hacks like the dreaded Hersheypark contest. For those of us unable to enter for various reasons, would you mind showing us what you came up with for last time, or were you using the terms in an absolute manner?

Edited by Ge-Ride, 10 July 2008 - 02:11 AM.

I would be if I was a US citizen

Just send 'em DisneyAir man, you're set.

I do want to enter one day, when i'm old enough, and can actually be bothered.

I would love too. Only problem is I'm not old enough. I'll help you work on it. I have some great ideas!

-Storm

^Same. Im not old enough. Good finding someone.

Well, it would be fun to do, but then again I don't live in the US and be it's not like I have time the coming half year because of my required internship, sigh.....

I would be if I was a US citizen

You don't need to be a US citizen or resident.

Just send 'em DisneyAir man, you're set.

I first found out about this when I was finishing up DisneyAir, and I asked if I could. They said that if it was released on NE for PT2, I couldn't use it for this, since it would no longer be original.

Oh my. That sucks SO MUCH about Disney Air. Maybe you could finish up that back corner, and then it will be new and original??? Anyway, I actually was planning on doing this this year with a few sophmores I met (I'll be a freshman), but I guess none of us knew about the grade level requirement. I would have invited you to our team of 3 to make 4, but alas, it doesn't look like we will be able to participate. I REALLY want to, though. I'd be willing to work on it "under the table" if you get what I'm saying, just for the fun of it and for the experience so that I can do another project in years to come.

Like I said, I'm not entirely sure if junior standing is necessary, as they also say something about that you can be a member of a related association (I'd recommend asking them though). Joining as a student member usually only costs about $25, and there are a ton of options out there (I'm in about half a dozen for engineering).

And yeah, I tried pretty hard to convince them to let me enter DA. I said that it'd be totally different, since I'd be pretty much restarting from scratch and adding in a lot, but they didn't go for that.

Build another one and call it DisneySky

Great Idea Milo!

I can help!

-Storm

well i'm interested then, need some more details on deadline, how you want to present it (i.e rct2, etc)

Build another one and call it DisneySky

Yeah, I ran that by them too.

well i'm interested then, need some more details on deadline, how you want to present it (i.e rct2, etc)

We need to send in our entry form by January 30, our entry by February 28, we'd be notified if we're finalists by April 17, and the final presentation is sometime during the summer.

The entry needs to be reviewable within 10 minutes, so it'd be somewhat brief. However, if we're finalists and we present it to Imagineering, we'd be able to continue working on it up until then, and then I believe some portion of the 10 days in Glendale would be spent working on our final presentation under the supervision of Imagineers. So we'd have room for new material, if necessary.

As far as our preliminary presentation, using Rct to some degree is a possibility (it might be handy for planning, even if we don't use it in our report), but we technically wouldn't be able to release what we make until the we know the judging results. Generally though, I'd expect the report to be similar to what you showed here, that is, some amount of written descriptions, drawings, computer generated models, concept art, & scale models. For our last entry we used a lot of written descriptions (easy to do, not terribly impressive), some concept art & drawings (we should've used a lot more, as they're fairly easy to do and look nice), & scale models. For our main scale model I was too ambitious and spent most of my time on one for the entire indoor pavillion, but I didn't get nearly enough done, so it was mostly wasted effort. If done correctly, I think a scale model could be very impressive, but in the future I think a few smaller, more detail oriented models would be better, since it'd be easier to do all the detailing, wouldn't take as much time & planning, and wouldn't put all our eggs in one basket. I'd also like to do some CAD work this time, as it generally looks clean and professional. However, how we present our idea will mostly depend on what our idea is, so we'll need to decide that once we get a few ideas going.

Also, while our project generally sucked (in short, it was messy and unfinished), we didn't seem to entirely fail. About a week before we got our rejection letters, they sent us another letter asking permission to send cameras so that we could document our future work on the project. So it seems we might've been close to being finalists, though it really just ended up worsening the disappointment, since we figured that the camera permission letter meant we were in.

Here's an example of a finalist entry from a few years back.

That Monsters Inc. entry was pretty impressive, but honestly there's numerous people on this site who have the creativity to compete with that.

Meld all of the Pixar films together with one fitting story-line.

Just a theme off the top of my head.

I want to and plan on entering in about 4 years but alas don't meet the age requirement. (I am most likely going into engineering so...)

Just curious here but you ran by making a revamped park with a totally different name and they said no? That's lame....

Well good luck with it though... would love to see you use rct as the medium for this as well. Keep us updated on how it's going too... even if you can't show any of it.

I've been working on a couple projects for this myself. You really need to impress them without "showing off" so much as being realistic and practical, while still thinking "outside the box"

Good luck.

Do they hold this thing every year? I might have to try this when I meet the age requirement. I've been thinking about trying to intern at Disney for Imagineering if possible, and the fact that my sister is interning for entertainment right now makes me really want to.

If you don't know how awesome it is, let's just say they live in essentially a condo for free, have free park admission, and discounts. They do have to work, but if you enjoy it, its at Disney so its not like its anything bad.