‘Our company is a bit like a candy store’
Print Edition
BOB Weis may just have one of the best jobs in the world. The 56-year-old American is executive vice president for Walt Disney’s Imagineering Division. He leads the team of Imagineers charged with designing Shanghai Disney Resort.
“I feel pretty lucky because it’s very rare to be able to design a Disneyland,” he said. “And to do it in an amazing place like China is remarkable.”
Weis is what one might imagine a Disney employee to be. He’s jovial and relaxed, a fatherly sort of chap. But, at the same time, the ideas and values of the company are firmly ingrained in his mind. For him, the business of fun is a serious matter.
“Our projects take a long time and a lot of dedication,” he said. “By the time this park opens, I will have been on it eight years. It is a fun job, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t challenging.”
Walt Disney Imagineering is the California-based organization that designs and builds Disney’s global range of parks and resorts. Staff employed by the division come from hundreds of different disciplines. The studio handles every part of the process, from planning different lands for a park to the smallest details in attractions and the construction process. Weis oversees six separate teams in Shanghai, and also works hand-in-hand with various other lines of business, for example, park operation, food & beverage, marketing, etc. to bring the experience to life for the people of China.
“Walt Disney Imagineering is like a little university,” he said. “On the job, it feels like a little campus. We have architects and engineers, researchers and artists, but we don’t put them in different departments. We pull them together. When you are in a room with them, you can debate and argue and design and challenge. That’s what makes the job unique.”
Since 1980, Weis has worked on numerous Disney projects, including Tokyo DisneySea, Disney California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida.
He said he fell into the Disney camp by chance. While studying architecture in California, he spent a significant amount of time working in theatre. That impressed Disney recruiters when they visited the university.
“Then I was doubly lucky,” Weis said. “Almost in the first year of working, I got to go to Tokyo. It really had a long-term influence on my career. I learned how to get used to working in a different culture and with experts who maybe see the world differently.”
His own history with China goes back over three decades.
“My first visit was in 1982,” he said. “We were working on Tokyo Disneyland when tours started where Americans could visit China. It was like a place of legend. I visited Beijing and the Great Wall, Suzhou and Hangzhou.”
When he was first broached about the Shanghai job, he said he had trouble remembering Pudong from an earlier trip that was concentrated on the west side of the Huangpu River.
“They kept talking about Pudong,” he said. I had been to the Bund and stayed in the Peace Hotel. All I could remember about Pudong was just water out there.”
Although Disneylands always attract global visitors, their principal source of ticket sales comes from domestic residents. Shanghai won’t be any different, Weis said.
“It’s important for us to understand where we are building and what’s different here,” he said. “We need to understand the market. We think it will be overwhelmingly Chinese.”
“When ground was broken on the Shanghai Disney Resort in 2011, Bob Iger, our Chairman and CEO announced our resort in Shanghai would be both authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese, and the entire resort is being designed with this guiding principal in mind,” he said. “And starting from the blue sky development, Bob Iger himself, and Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts have personally guided and reviewed each stage of our design work.”
In some respects, the Disney theme is universal.
“We create family experiences, fun, joy and happiness,” he said. “You have to work on the details in some cultures, but those fundamental things are the same. It won’t surprise me if Asians from across the region want to come to this park.”
Weis says a new Disneyland provides a chance to rethink classic Disney stories and allows the company to “push the envelope” in terms of technology and ambition.
“This park will be the newest, so it will have the most up-to-date attractions,” he said “But it will also have a lot of classics, too. We’ve taken a fresh look at everything in the eyes of this decade and this century and this country.
He added, “I love to go to the parks and watch people in awe. That sense of awe is one thing we try to achieve. So once you get about midway through Shanghai Disneyland and stare across the garden at the castle, that will be a moment.”
Weis said Chinese culture will also be incorporated into the park, but he was tight-lipped about details.
What constitute a bad day for a man who designs some of the world’s most popular theme parks?
“Our company is a bit like a candy store,” he said. “Or like a giant buffet, where there are crab and the steak, and you can’t eat it all. You get into a project and you start working on Pirates (of the Caribbean) and the castle, and then all of a sudden you find out the company now has Marvel. We all run over and ask, ‘What we can do with that?’ The only frustration is you can’t do it all.”
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