BIG BAD WOLF

Proposal for a dark ride installation.

Overview

What is a dark ride?

A dark ride is an indoor amusement ride in which passengers board a cart or vehicle and are carried through a variety of themed scenes that often contain sound, music, special effects, and animatronic characters. Disneyland has a number of examples, including It's a Small World, the Haunted Mansion, Alice in Wonderland, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

I've been fascinated by dark rides since, as a six year old child, I rode the “Flight to Mars” dark ride, which was a cheap and ramshackle attraction at the old Fun Forest amusement park in Seattle. You got into a mechanized cart and were zipped through a maze of cheap scares, like loud horns and lights, a rubber alien springing out next to the track, before your car quickly turned and slammed through double doors into another chamber. At the end of the ride, I burst out crying and ran to my mother.

Nevertheless, I was transfixed by the ride, and the feeling of being completely engulfed by this mechanical experience was imprinted on my psyche. The dark ride experience swallows you. It's very visceral and all encompassing. You are surrounded, you are vulnerable, and you can't escape. You are no longer a passive viewer, you are a physically captive character in the scenario.

Description of Big Bad Wolf dark ride

"Big Bad Wolf" is a dark ride that explores consumer and car culture through fast food drive-thrus, garbage, firearms, grocery stores, club music, and a live studio audience — all watched over by the Big Bad Wolf.

The ride begins as you are seated in an automobile-like cart and taken through a metal detector into the darkness. The first scene reveals a drive thru nightmare, where garish neon signs and distorted voices beckon you forward.

Next, you encounter a decrepit toll booth, adding to the unease. You speed along an abandoned road, running down terrified animals whose eyes reflect in your headlights.

You then enter a hallway filled with mouths and leering eyes, with walls that seem to close in on you.

Suddenly, you are in the spotlight of a live studio audience of giant hands and feet that stomp and grab at you. The noise of cheers and jeers mixes with pounding music, leading you into a surreal disco club-grocery store hybrid with firearms and air horns among the groceries, illuminated by strobe lights.

Emerging from this chaos, you find yourself in an alley of garbage with heaps of waste and debris. The stench and shadows increase the feeling of dread.

The climax of the journey comes as you are ultimately crushed by a vending machine, consumer destroyed by product. As you emerge from the darkness, a question echoes in your mind: "Are you the pig or the wolf?"

"Big Bad Wolf" is a disturbing peek at fear and consumerism, leaving riders to ponder their role in our chaotic world long after the ride ends.

as Physical Installation

"Big Bad Wolf" is a portable dark ride art experience that could be moved from location to location by semi truck, much like the traveling fairs transport their attractions. The piece could visit both small towns and metropolitan museums alike, and visitors would be initially attracted by the spectacle, excitement, and novelty of a county fair.

The installation is based on a two trailer, portable dark ride design by Don Carson (doncarsoncreativehost.com). The installation will have a single electric cart carrying two visitors through the approximately 1,700sqft ride.

The interior effects and experience will be a combination of mechanical props, projection, lighting, Pepper’s Ghost illusions, and theatrical stagecraft.

Below: Diagrams of physical dark ride layout and exterior, design by Don Carson.

Below: Top down view of populated dark ride track, various angles.

as Motion Simulator

The visitor will first encounter a physical structure in the gallery the size of a large backyard shed. It is brightly colored, festooned with blinking lights and decorations, and would look right at home as an attraction at a county fair. They enter the structure through a facade reminiscent of a fun house door: a gaping mouth, the viewer literally consumed by the experience.

Inside of the structure, the visitor will be seated in an arcade-quality motion simulator chair resembling a barber's chair, which can rotate, twist, and rumble, similar to immersive experiences used at theme parks and industrial driving / flight simulators. There are several large monitors mounted to the walls, simulating the windshield and side windows you would see if sitting inside of an automobile.

The lights in the structure dim, and the dark ride experience begins. The seat begins to shift and rumble, matching and simulating the movement of that the viewer is visually experiencing via the monitors filling their field of vision. 360 degree audio surrounds them, mechanical fans accentuate the sense of movement, and they can even catch the scent of popcorn, axle grease, and farmyard animals. At key moments in the experience, mechanical props such as confetti, noisemakers, projections will activate the interior of the small shack, much like a Rube Goldberg machine in action. Instead of moving through the ride, the experience comes to them.

Below: AI visualizations of interior and exterior of motion simulator.

Below: Sketches.

More information

Other projects by Brent Watanabe