Ride Profile
parkworld-online.com
“On a dark ride, the story really has to be told in one sentence,” highlights Nick Farmer, “otherwise it’s too complicated and doesn’t hang together. Thrill-O-Matic is low-tech in its appearance; these are the physical embodiments of clay characters and fancy animatronics would not really be appropriate. We are, however, making best use of current technology to control the ride and make sure everything happens on time.”
According to Nick Thompson, the Pleasure Beach was certain Thrill-O-Matic would not be an interactive dark ride. “How many have you been on?” he asks. “It's all about how many red dots you can hit. There may be other opportunities for interactive dark rides in the park, but Wallace & Gromit is not one of them. There’s plenty going on already, with a lot of audio and jokes to link all the scenes together, and I think you’ll need several rides to take it all in.”
Built over multiple levels, backing onto the Ghost
Train and over the top of the River Caves, previously a small section of the ride used to interact with the latter attraction. Such interaction has now been eliminated, for fear of spoiling the immersive nature of the Wallace & Gromit ride experience. “You can’t suddenly have a slipper emerging into an old dark ride,” notes Thompson, “it destroys the storyline.” “As we were working inside an old ride envelope,” continues Farmer, “we had to move tonnes of old mine tunnel, pit props and timber beams. Then we had to create a built environment, because Wallace & Gromit live in rooms and buildings rather than in an underground mine shaft. The challenge was to squeeze everything into an area that was originally designed for something else, however we did have a few big spaces where we could do bigger scenes such as the rocket scene that many people know from A Grand Day Out, Nick Park’s first feature film.”
Human Touch
A lot of effort went into making the sets and the figures look authentic: “It’s our IP [intellectual property] so it’s very important that they look right,” notes Crossingham. “We took a load of the original models up to KD’s facility in Yorkshire where they were laser scanned. We then posed the digital versions into the relevant scenes before a big robotic arm was used to carve the figures from polystyrene, which was then hard-coated and painted. The faces and hands were actually hand carved, however. Neil Crompton, KD’s head sculptor, was really good and got about 98% of the way there, but then I got my hands dirty and did the final tweaks and touches that only I would be fussy about. The faces and hands are key; that’s where you engage with the character, where you read the human touch.” Since the original clay models used for filming were only about 9.5 inches (24cm) in height, it was a little daunting at first for Crossingham to see the characters recreated on a human scale. “The strangest thing,” he says, “was that because the characters have cartoon-like proportions, Wallace’s hands turn out to be huge – dinner plate size! Things you take for granted in real life, like a
MAY 2013 Caption Cheesy rock in the gift shop!
newspaper, a cup or a knife and fork, then look ridiculous when you scale them up to the size of his body. You just have to take a leap of faith, but when the scenes come together it all feels right again.” Working with Nick Farmer was an enjoyable experience, adds the Wallace & Gromit creative director, because “he was very supportive and really understood our IP from the get-go. He embraced our world fantastically, and we couldn’t ask for any more!” Crossingham doesn’t rule out further theme park attractions, either for Wallace & Gromit or other Aardman brands such as Shaun the Sheep (which travels better internationally) and notes that there is already interest from Australia and the Far East. For the time being, the Pleasure Beach enjoys an exclusivity clause for the UK. As with all of IP-based attractions, merchandising plays an important part of the offer, and the Thrill-O- Matic shop features a number of bespoke items including T-shirts, plush, pin badges and even cheese- flavoured rock (a hard, sugary confectionery sold at British seaside resorts). Wallace & Gromit costume characters now also make daily meet-and-greet appearances at the park.
The eccentric duo are currently fronting a domestic TV campaign for Visit England, but there are no immediate plans for a new feature film. Nevertheless, Nick Thompson believes the Pleasure Beach has chosen an IP with longevity: “It’s been around for over 20 years already so I don’t think it’s going anywhere, and there’s a lot of affection for Wallace & Gromit from many different age groups. You can’t say that with all IP.”
blackpoolpleasurebeach.com
The ride’s facade with the Big One rollercoaster (left) and Ice Blast towe ride on the horizon
A cracking
creation Nick Park created Wallace & Gromit, an eccentric cheese-loving inventor and his savvy sidekick dog, for a student film project called A Grand Day Out. In 1995 he developed the clay characters into a 30-minute film called The Wrong Trousers, one of the most successful
animated movies ever made. The Wallace & Gromit feature films that
followed, including A Close Shave, A Matter of Loaf and Death and The Curse of the Were Rabbit, have gone onto win many awards, including several Oscars. A idiosyncratically British brand, Wallace & Gromit introduces overseas audiences to such colloquial terms as “cracking” (meaning really good). “Riveting” is a reference to Wallace’s riveted-together contraptions, but Thrill-O-Matic is also a compelling ride.
Ride scenes from Thrill-O-Matic
wallaceandgromit.com
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