During a recent tour of the Walt Disney Company’s Imagineering building in Glendale, California, io9 was able to take a look behind the scenes of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, coming to the Walt Disney World Resort and the Disneyland Resort this year.
On hand during the tour was the lead Imagineer for the upcoming The Princess and the Frog-inspired attraction, Charita Carter. After sharing a look at the incredible Audio-Animatronics for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Carter sat down with a small roundtable of journalists to discuss her journey at the Disney Company from accounting to Imagineering, and the milestone she’s hitting by bringing a continuation of Princess Tiana’s story to life in attraction form at Disney Parks. Here’s what you need to know about how it all came together, what to expect from a story that sets out to include park guests in the narrative, and how the magic of New Orleans comes to life through the timeless relatability of Tiana’s dreams.
One of the really interesting things that Imagineering pointed out about Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was that we’re not watching a story unfold in front of us—we’re actually a part of it. How did that come into play, in regards to the story editing of this journey, with telling a new Tiana story but also including the audience in the narrative?
Charita Carter: In addition to all the research that we did, we have a lot of feedback in terms of, we had access to a lot of feedback from the film and how Tiana resonates with what age groups and all of that. And as we were looking at those stats and just realizing how important she is to so many people, we wanted to create a situation where people could connect with her. So that was one of the tenets that we were looking at in our storytelling. You know, this is your opportunity for Tiana to leap off the screen, and now you get to be in the in her presence. So if you’re going to be in her presence, we really want our guests to be able to connect. That was the thought process as we were looking at telling the next chapter [of her] story.
Going back to the animatronics and movements and everything we’ve seen with the characters that’s so advanced now, what is comparable right now in the parks?
Carter: Internationally, if you look at like what we just did with Zootopia in Shanghai or Frozen in Hong Kong, you see something comparable. But I think this level of complexity, this will be the first time guests get to see it domestically.
The last time I think people were really, like, stunned by an animatronic was probably the Na’vi River Journey Shaman [at Pandora – World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park in Florida].
Carter: We make our selection as to how we’re going to approach our execution of our characters based on the environment, the look, everything that we’re trying to accomplish. So certainly everything we’ve done, [like] the [Na’vi] Shaman, we have continued to build upon that. If you’ve had the ability or the privilege of going over to Hong Kong and seeing Frozen with Elsa and Anna, we actually took what was done there and continued to just to build upon that platform.
Just on a personal level, how would you describe this chapter within the context of your time at Disney?
Carter: I originally started out on the other side, doing accounting and finance and then becoming a business partner for the creative group. But once I got into the creative group, one of my initial focuses [while] statused in our Blue Sky studio, where we do a lot of our upfront ideation, we were looking at how we actually execute our stories. And so it was this look at taking the technology that was out there, coming up with new techniques, [and] integrating it in unique and different ways. To see that just continue to migrate over the years and then, after being in that space in that what we used to call the concept lab, for about seven years or so, a lot of the techniques that we had been able to develop, all kind of came together with Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway [Carter was a project lead on that as well]. It’s really a challenge for us to stay at the cutting edge. That’s our goal. And it’s not just one area of the organization. It’s every area of the organization moving together with the goal of making Walt really proud of us. Because if he was here, that’s exactly what he would be doing.
Have you gotten to test the ride at Magic Kingdom?
Carter: I had the opportunity last week. I had to do some rides with my media producer as well as my audio designer.
Was it what you expected?
Carter: Yes, it is coming together, it is really coming together. There’s so many beautiful things that are happening. So I was really pleased. I was really pleased with what we’re seeing.
What does it means to you to bring [Princess Tiana] to the park?
Carter: When I got the call from the president at the time [Bob Chapek] to lead this team as the producer, I cried. I did because I felt like it was a realization of how important bringing Tiana to a dimensional space, being the first African-American princess, being an American princess that’s from a real place. And knowing that there are people who live in New Orleans, live in the south, are in the culture that would be able to relate to her in a special way… knowing that this is one of the first opportunities, it’s just I think the weight of that.
[The real-life inspiration behind Tiana, Leah Chase and the Chase family] are royalty of the city because Leah was so integral to New Orleans. And she had nothing but love for the city, and her interest was to advance the city and then to bring everybody with her. So that legacy continues with [her daughter] Stella and with the fifth, the fourth and fifth generation of the family—the amount of love that the family has, and I think they’re really a great representation for the city as a whole. There’s a lot of people in New Orleans we’ll never know their names, but their spirit in terms of the friendliness and just the love for community, the love for their city, it’s there. The Chase family embodies that. To be able to work so closely with them, knowing that Leah was one of the inspirations for Tiana. I unfortunately didn’t get to meet her in person, but I feel like through Stella and the family, we got to know who she was. And so that really influenced us as we were designing for the attraction as well.
It seems like you’ve taken so much care to ground it in New Orleans. Is that story that you really wanted people to have a sense of the real place?
Carter: That’s how we want people to feel when they experience the attraction—when they enter into the queue line, it’s like, “Oh wow, we’re home.” Even though they haven’t been to New Orleans. So we’re hoping that they book a trip. And then those who are from the area, we really hope that they really feel like we represented them well. Tiana is one of the few princesses that really comes from a real place, so it’s a place that can be experienced. [It] sounds like a cliché when you say it’s a magical city, but it’s a magical setting. I mean, when you get off the plane and you hear the brass band in baggage claim—where [else] in the United States can you go and have an experience like that? So the rhythm and the cadence of the city you’re already exposed to before you leave the airport. When you marry someplace that is that special with a fantastical story, it’s a wonderful, beautiful blend.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is opening soon at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and in New Orleans Square at Disneyland.
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