Remembering Jim Cora, Disney Legend.

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” - Walt Disney.

Jim Cora, master operator, friend and Disney Legend.

UPDATE: Jim’s acclaimed biography : ”Not another walk in the Park” is available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Not-Just-Walk-Park-Worldwide/dp/136804364X

Collaboration is key

Like making movies, the theme park industry is a collaborative one, as it takes many diverse talents to put on “the show” that our guests may call “the best day ever” or at times it rises to the level of “magical” when all those diverse aspects of fun converge. 

“You’re only as good as your operator”

The one thing I’ve come to learn as a designer is that “you’re only as good as your operator.” What does that mean? To me, that means that the cast members and the attention to the upkeep of any attraction you design is ultimately in the hands of another to truly take it to the finish line and it lives with them. You raise the “ child”and then it moves out and lives with another “parent”.  There is nothing worse than working in some cases for several years, only to have the project you help bring to life decay before your eyes or have the special effects shut off. There’s also nothing more defeating than designing a stunning restaurant environment only to have the food be practically inedible, served on sticky tables, in a sweltering room, and your server gone to lunch. It reminds us of how critical the operation is to the guest experience. Design only sets the stage, the cast acts upon it. If you have an operator that does not “get it”, then the best day a designer can expect is opening day. The rest is downhill, and believe me, I’ve seen this happen on projects I’ve worked on. They go down in flames. Take your pictures day one before the paint falls off! It’s actually a very painful experience. 

Catching up over lunch with Jim at his Orange County home, June 2020.

Values above all

This is why a park operator who is passionate about the overall guest experience is a rare and wonderful find. In my experience, Disney legend Jim Cora was that kind of operator. We worked together on Euro Disneyland and at times sat in heated conflict, but we both were fighting for the same thing. That singular vision of “Walt’s park”, and we both knew that when the dust settled, we’d land with most of what we each wanted and the guest would win in the end. It’s a healthy conflict between creative and operations and maintains the delicate balance to prevent excess on both sides.  

“Tell him Walt sent you”

Jim was an eager young man working as a ride operator walking through Disneyland in the late 1950’s when he saw Walt Disney walking the opposite way. He tried to avoid Walt, but Disney spotted the load of books in his arms and called out to him. Cora was surprised that Walt knew him by his first name, but recalled his name tag was on. Good move! They chatted about Jim’s background and Walt senses Jim’s passion for cast member training. Jim shared how important training was to him and that there was a need to do it even better. Walt agreed that Jim should pursue his ideas and directed him to seek out cast member guru Van Arsdale France and to “tell him Walt sent you.’” Jim took that life changing turn and eventually became a key part of developing what we know now as “the Disney Show” and evangelized such game changing terms as “on-stage and backstage” in relation to Disneyland being a “show” that the “cast” was a part of. Those concepts and values would be capsulized in something called the “Disney University” that Jim would have a hand in developing as well. These tenets were critical to the huge success of the parks in general. 

Taking the park overseas

Jim’s operations career soon extended far beyond training into the opening of bigger things like Walt Disney World. So when the company would “jump the pond” to Asia, Jim took on helping to found a Disneyland for Tokyo. That success led Cora on a string of heady assignments to eventually retire as Chairman of Disneyland International, after opening both TokyoSea and Disneyland Paris. This is where we first worked together and later we reunited when I managed the master planning portfolio of Tokyo Disneyland. 

Paving the way to success

My favorite memory of working with Jim was when we realized that using asphalt to pave the 19th Century “Main Street USA’ in Paris might seem jarring and “out of period” to Parisians accustomed to walking on cobblestone “rues” every day. What works in Anaheim won’t always play in Europe, and worse, I wanted brick pavers which meant asking for more money.  Michael Eisner even sent images of brick streets from Jamestown as a reference, so everyone was in the act at one point. We met with operations. To my surprise, Jim saw the paver enhancement as a plus as they could be easily removed without cutting into the street for repairs and good for show readiness! Sure enough, no sooner had the street been laid than they had to be removed for a large leak. The brick street reminds me that great design can be a “win-win” when both parties hold the guest experience above their own priorities. Jim’s thinking was “the show must go on.” We recently laughed about that experience.  Here’s how Jim approached these situations.

“This is a serious project, and there are plenty of times when the hard work and the stress make it difficult to smile or laugh. But if we can’t have a good time and enjoy what we are doing it will be impossible for us to create a good time for our guests. So we keep a sense of
humor.”- Jim Cora

Jim gets personal in his upcoming book on the family values that drove him.

Greatly missed

Sadly, on March 21st at 83, we lost Disney Legend Jim Cora. We recall the great times working with him, but most of all, park guests experienced those “great times,” thanks to the foundation he helped lay in training the cast and the values he stood for that others emulated in their operating style. Jim was part of running the Disneyland that I fell in love with as a kid and that experience was what I was trying to pass on through design. Fortunately, Jim had just finished writing a book with Jeff Kurtti to emerge soon that chronicles his family and values that drove him during his time at the company. An insightful and highly recommended read to come. Our deepest sympathies extend to the Cora family, his brother John and his dear wife Mimi. 

Jim’s window. Main Street Paris. “Second Opinion Surgery, our operations will keep you in stitches”

When it comes to the repetitive nature of operations, Walt said it best, perhaps to Jim Cora because he practiced it so well! You are treasured and very much missed by all of us.

“Whatever you do, do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do”  -  Walt Disney

"Wacky Soap Box Racers" turns 40 with new Site.

The time: 1980. The place: Knott’s Berry Farm, America’s first and third largest theme park. A 21 year old Eddie Sotto had as his first project, the conversion of a “Motorcycle” racing ride that was deemed to be hazardous into a 1920’s themed ”living cartoon”, or “outdoor dark ride” called “Wacky Soap Box Racers”. That was 40 years ago and even though the ride is gone, the memories live on with this new and exciting website.

Check out WackySoapBoxRacers.com

Soap Box Racers race through Catnip Junction..

Wayback Machine 1992. Main Street Disneyland Paris

Here is a video made back in the early nineties that was done for cast member training to give them the inspiration and details of the project. Hope you enjoy the passion and detail that went into the design.

The Mind behind the Spire.

The world was stunned to see fire consume the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral, punctuated by it's 300 foot spire, falling like a sequoia wrapped in flame. No matter how you feel about it, it's an event we will not soon forget. That spire was just one of many features that made the cathedral an historic and architectural wonder. Truth be told, the spire was not original to the structure, but reimagined in the 19th century to replace another as part of a restoration by 30 year old French architect and gothic revivalist, Eugene Voillet-Le-Duc.

An interesting character indeed.

Eugene Auguste Voillet-Le-Duc

1840’s construction of the spire addition.

His name came to mind in the early 90's when I was living in Paris as a Disney Imagineer, involved in directing the design of what would soon become Disneyland Paris. The city fascinated me (as it does all of us) and at times I wondered who was the "Walt Disney" of french culture? Hugo, Hausmann, Moebius? Touring the many restored monuments, castles and cathedrals, you'd eventually learn that many of the interiors were actually reimagined and enhanced (versus restored) in the late 1800's by the same Eugene Viollet-Le-Duc. He was a romantic that wanted to deliver the heroic medieval designs that only could be imagined, going well beyond restoring what was there. In fact, he changed it. He seemed to embrace the reason the building existed as his directive and the story that inspired it . Kind of like what a theme park is to historic reality, only he was remaking real places! He imagined his castles filled with knights in shining armor, versus their stone cold reality. Very Disney. Very experiential.

Character Design

The sinister Gargoyles added by Voillet-Le-Duc have become souvenirs to many. Very theme park.

Like any good storytelling environment, you need colorful characters. Like Disney, Voillet-Le-Duc added his own, the signature Chimera and Gargoyles to lend a sense of medieval fantasy. Ironically, they eventually became animated Disney characters in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”!

In a bold move of personal branding and despite a scriptural mandate against idolatry (2 Cor 6:16), Eugene adds his own likeness to the spire, joining the apostles as St. Thomas, the patron saint of architects! It makes sense, as he wasn't religious, nor a catholic, but a patriot that wanted to romanticize French history as a thematic inspiration. I think that's one reason so many see the cathedral as central to the identity of France beyond any religious significance.

Voillet-Le-Duc (as St. Thomas) looks up at his tower while the other Apostles look back at the city.

“Superfranco-heroistic-expalidocious!”

After Notre Dame, he tacked many more assignments across France. I visited his last project before he died, the nearby Castle of Pierrefonds, restored for Napoleon III. The once crumbling and scarred ruins were transformed with color, pageantry and regal splendor. A personal favorite. He brought the fairytale emotion and romanticism to the events that made French culture, decorating the walls with shields and patterns, polychrome capitals and sculpture, fleur-de-lis and crests. He did similar at Saint Denis, Amiens, Vincennes and more. As Walt Disney took fairy tales or secular history and romanticized them in his theme parks, Eugene brought "story" to these places and used architecture to bring emotion to the lifeless ruins and monuments. Today most just accept what they see as the way things really were, but like the spire mourn their loss as they made an emotional impression.

Chateau Pierrefonds interior as reimagined in regal splendor. Stunning and you should see it.

Pierrefonds intricate use of pattern, color and detail bring history to life..

Twice upon a Dream

To make the connection between the two an even closer "six degrees of ornamentation," The Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland lends it's own tiny nod to the French master with a faux gilded version of the famous spire.

As they say, if you’re gonna borrow…..borrow from the best!

“Six Degrees of Ornamentation”- The famous spire lives on Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland.

Point being, some of the places we are moved by are conceived and designed with an emotion in mind. Eugene Voillet-Le-Duc and Walt Disney were both visionary romantics and used their skills to inspire. That's experiential design at it's best.

Dick Dale, Dead at 81, "King of the Surf Guitar" was also "King of Space Mountain."

According to the NY times, “Dick Dale, who was known as the King of the Surf Guitar and recorded the hit song “Misirlou,” which was revived on the “Pulp Fiction” film soundtrack, died on Saturday, March 16th, 2019 in Loma Linda, Calif. He was 81. Dale was a surfer, sound pioneer and guitarist whose unusual, percussive playing style and thick, thunderous music earned him the nickname the Father of Heavy Metal. He influenced the Beach Boys, the Cure, Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix, among others.”

I saw him play live several times and have “heard” greats like Keith Richards and Rick Neilson, but only Dick Dale makes you feel those chainsaw licks right in your gut. I guess you’d have to be there. There was no one like him.

I feel that in his own way, Dick Dale was every bit an “Imagineer” himself. He questioned the status quo, drove himself to make his sound and his shows everything they could be, and invented his own sound that others envied. Bob Gurr…. with a guitar.

“Surf music is a heavy machine-gun staccato picking style to represent the power of Mother Nature, of our earth, of our ocean,” he told The New York Times in 1994. His almost constant tremolo created friction so intense that it melted his guitar picks and strings as he played.

“The staccato is so fast it heat-treats the strings,” he said. “They turn purple and black and they snap. And when I play, you’ll see a flurry of plastic — it just falls down like snow. I used to think it was dandruff. But I grind so hard that the guitar picks just melt down.”

His quest for a sonic impact to match what he had felt while surfing also led to innovations that would change the technology of electric guitars and amplification.

Leo Fender, one of the electric guitar’s trailblazers, worked with Mr. Dale to create a guitar sturdy enough to withstand his style — Mr. Dale called it the Beast — and an 85-watt amplifier that could crank up loud enough to fill a dance hall.

“Leo and I went to Lansing Speaker,” Mr. Dale said in 1994, “and we said, ‘We need a speaker that will not burn, will not flex, will not twist, will not break.’ ” - NY Times.

In all the glowing obituaries you hear of his career, including this one, no mention is made of his contribution to Disneyland’s Space Mountain. Always the pioneer, (and he told me so!) little or no mention is made that his licks were part of another pioneering achievement, in 1996 the first digitally synchronized music on a Rollercoaster. Hear it here

Why Dick Dale? Then Disney CEO Michael Eisner wanted a recognizable classical score as in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey", but a waltz, given the dynamic speed of the ride, felt inappropriate to the action. Composer Arrin Richard and I finally settled on using a classical melody that was familiar, but with a faster tempo. Although the mood was there, it was not driven by the action and movement of the vehicle. We wanted to accentuate the G-forces guests feel when pressed into the twists, turns, and drops each rocket endures. An electric guitar "lick" or "riff" over the score might give us that effect. To that end, we wanted Dick Dale, the man who invented them. We rode Space Mountain after hours at least 30 times, listening and timing each solo of Dale's guitar over the score till they were synced perfectly to the action. 

Perhaps only surpassed by the renaissance in “Pulp Fiction,” was his sound exposed to more people in recent memory than on Space Mountain. Dale’s throbbing “Ghost Riders in the Sky” was synced to a music video depicting the development of the NASA space program and played on a loop for waiting guests, later Camille St. Saens “Aquarium” melody played out on a revolutionary on-board audio system attached to each ride vehicle. Arranged and performed by Disney’s Arrin Richard, Dale (who did not read music) would then add his “chainsaw” riffs that were to be triggered to compliment each twist, turn and drop of your “rocket”. Dale’s music played continuously on the attraction for millions till 2005.

Guests thought the ride was faster after hearing Arrin and Dick’s score. Experiential design at work!

I called and persuaded Dick to be a part of the Space Mountain experience in part by promising him he could play live atop Space Mountain ( I started with the Matterhorn and was forced to renege when they would not let him up there, ) which he agreed to do on the re-opening of Tomorrowland on May 21st 1998. That moment meant a lot to him personally, and to us as well. From a tiny platform between the spires of the Mountain, high above the park and a packed Tomorrowland… Dick yells to the crowd

“It can’t get any better than this!”

We agree, thanks Dick for all your musical “Imagineering!”

Marilyn Sotto Erdmann. My "Auntie Mare"

A Disney Career and far more.

This October 27 will make it 4 years since we lost my Aunt Marilyn to Cancer. So much gets written about me, but few of you know of another Sotto who was a Disney designer (and more!), Marilyn Sotto Erdmann had a longer Disney tenure than I, and an amazing career before that in and out of the studios, illustrating and designing costumes for some of the most memorable films of all time. We all miss her and she believed that we will one day be reunited as described here.

Her “how-to” book inspired many designers like Isaac Mizrahi

Her “Ten Commandments” work (Pharaoh) is now in the collection of Imagineer and fan of hers, Tony Baxter.

Here’s what I emailed to those who knew her at the time.. Leonard Maltin ran it on his site as well.

"It’s with great sadness that I pass on that yesterday, October 27, at 4:12 pm, my Aunt, ex Disney Costume Designer Marilyn Sotto-Erdmann lost her fight with Cancer at age 82. 

As you may know, Marilyn brought us skills she honed after several decades in the film industry working as an illustrator for costume designers Edith Head, Jean Louis, Norma Koch and others. Her credits are numerous. Classics like Cecil B De Mille’s The Ten Commandments, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window, A Place in the Sun, White Christmas, Sabrina, and Hud, to name a few. She received screen credit for her design on Man of a Thousand Faces, something actor James Cagney demanded on behalf of Marilyn and she got it. 

Marilyn at Universal on “The Man of 1000 Faces”

As a kid, I’d stop and watch her work on Julie Andrews “flapper" getup for Thoroughly Modern Millie Diana Ross’ gown for Lady Sings the Blues, and many others. What an inspiration. Her talents were many; she transitioned to uniform design to bring her Hollywood touch to the opening look of the Beverly and Havana Hilton Hotels in the 1950’s. She went on to write and illustrate her own book on the subject, The Art of Costume Design. The daughter of a portrait and MGM scenic artist, she kept busy in the field of art till one day in 1986, while working on Euro Disneyland, I suggested that Marilyn consider bringing her cinematic sensibility to the costuming being designed for the Paris park, “Auntie Mare” was up for the challenge, showed her stuff, and was hired immediately.

Opening Day, Disneyland Paris. Marilyn created many of the costume designs, including Casey’s.

Many of you knew her and her "bigger than life" passion for design and flamboyant personality. She brought the company and her peers a great passion for what could be, always “pushing the buttonhole” to make the costumes less “uniform"-like and more theatrical to drive the story. It was always about the show. Her work did not stop after Disneyland Paris. She went on to relocate with her husband John to Florida to design Walt Disney World parade costumes, resort and cruise ship attire, Super Bowl spectacles and more. A high point to her was researching ancient animatronic costuming for Spaceship Earth’s recent facelift. She told me that she felt she had come full circle, reminding her of doing the Egyptian garb for The Ten Commandments,  decades earlier. 

With her work from Walt Disney World Entertainment and costuming.

Always working, Mare rose to Senior Costume Designer at Walt Disney World, where she could inspire young artists. They can speak to that. One thing that amazed me was how she embraced technology and never allowed her mind to tell her she was too old for something. When she saw that I had given up paper to "draw" on a Cintiq digital screen, she had to have one and demanded she be the first in her department to draw on one. How many people in their 70’s would embrace digital in order to be on the cutting edge? Only a true “Imagineer." Auntie Mare. Eventually she mastered it, others followed suit, and she shared her tips. She retired from a stellar career at the Walt Disney Company after nearly two decades. Even in retirement, Mare never stopped designing and at 82 she was setting the tone for the hosts and hostesses of Embraer Executive Jets. I only hope I can stay that active! 

Marilyn Sotto Erdmann is survived by her husband John, daughter Cynthia, brother Ed and wife Adrianne, myself, wife Deena and Mare’s grandniece and nephews, Brian and Venice."

Not every “Disney Legend” gets a plaque, but Marilyn was a great Imagineer, at least she was to me! - Eddie Sotto (“the nephew”)

Wayback Machine: ABC's One Saturday Morning.

Back in 1998, Animation Producer Peter Hastings (Pinky and the Brain, Tiny Toons) contacted me about sketching some ideas for a "magical expanding building" to open his new TV show "ABC's One Saturday Morning". We discussed the deco optimism of there 1939 world's fair, modern architecture, even the Matterhorn as to this amazing building that he wanted to rise from the ground. After sketching for some time, I submitted a sequence to him and the he and his producer Prudence Fenton were happy with. It was even more than a building, it had a ride in it! Fenton and her team ran with it, making my sketches of a "cereal bowl splashdown" and calendars being torn, chasing bulbs and satellite dishes, come to life and better than ever! A fun memory that in a way inspired our "thrillboard" project...

A "hole" world of detail at Disneyland Paris.

Art underfoot. Guests find antique manhole covers from American cities.

Art in the Park. Stories told in layers.

Melnick's book has beautiful examples. 

Main Street USA for Disneyland Paris was designed to satisfy a European audience that was accustomed to living within "layers of history." Buildings in Europe have lived and still carry on many "lives," evolving to meet ever changing needs, yet sporting their 19th Century roots. Everywhere you look in your stroll down the streets of Paris, those layers of history stand out and remind you of another time just beneath the modern signage. People flock to the "city of lights" to experience those layers that were once called  "La belle époque." Far from the mid-century suburban world of Anaheim, California, (the site of the original Disneyland,) our 19th Century "Main Street USA" needed to reward it's guests similarly with layer upon layer of it's own changes, gas lighting becoming electric, horses yielding to cars, etc. or it would feel hollow and insincere to this historically sophisticated audience. 

Designing for the audience. Details in Context.

What would guests think if they saw our street of modern asphalt (as it was in Anaheim) when Paris still has it's cobblestones? Not a very credible representation of "turn of the century." What story could the street itself tell while waiting for an hour on the curb for the parade? In addition to making the street from brick pavers, we decided to go a step further with a tribute to those boulevards of the past. I had run across a book (Manhole Covers) that brought attention to the fact that even back in the 19th Century, manhole covers were a symbol of civic pride and stunning craft, so I asked our team create a small art installation of various antique american manhole covers for guests to discover right in the street. If the guest saw how we went to that length to embed detail, they'd assume everything had that level of thought.

Seen Below. In addition to the star-studded Baltimore Fire Dept. example, we installed covers from Chicago, New York's Croton Water (sporting a DWP intertwined logo), and the elaborate filagree adorning the Central City, Colorado cover. It was so pretty, we reproduced that one and used it in two locations! All of these spanned the late nineteenth century and are great examples of how cast iron was used in simple and decorative ways all at once.  Story is where you find it. 

Thanks to David Goebel for his images and research.

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Wayback machine 1986. Finding Nemo in Baltimore.

While working for Landmark Entertainment Group we got to design and build this great victorian Submarine in the manner of designer Harper Goff's "Nautilus," made famous in Disney's "20,000 Leagues under the Sea" epic. It was made for the "Six Flags Power Plant" family entertainment center in Baltimore, Maryland. The theme was that a professor named Phineas Flagg created many technical wonders prior to Jules Verne, Edison and others and guests could visit his world. The amazing model seen below was built by Terri Cardinali, a very talented sculptor from just one drawing! Also seen are a few shots of the finished sub. This was built on a shoestring budget and I was shocked it did not get cut from the project. Designer Joe DeMeis did the color styling. So fun and from such a small staff. 

Ed Sotto's original design drawing.

Terri Cardinali worked at hundreds of insanely tiny details! 

We had to "frost" the windows because we had to choose between having the Sub, or no interior.! Still an amazing piece. 

Knott's "Chicken Dinner Restaurant" Reimagined.

Back on the farm after 30 years.

Eddie Sotto began his design career at Knott's Berry Farm in 1979 as an assistant project designer. His first ride design and production was the successful  "Soap Box Racer" and created some of the thematic structures and iconic character Clock for "Camp Snoopy." It was a great thrill to return decades later to produce a conceptual presentation and analysis for a remodel of the historic "Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant."

Recommendations, sketches and images samples, graphic designs, plans and market trends, even historical providence went into a slide presentation. Everything matters. Here are just a few random slides to give you a sense of the extent to which we delved into the project. We tend to be ambitious and throw the net wide to capture the vision and then rein in some of the inspiration with the client based on what they can execute in the time and budget they have. The reason we do this is that the best ideas need to get on the table and usually they can be executed in a more modest way and still retain their power. At times, the client goes with the full vision. If you never see "the wow," how can you achieve it? Many of those suggestions were adopted by the in-house team that executed the final remodel. Happy to have had a part in the inspiration. 

Telling the historic story one room at a time.

Truth be told, Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant began as roadside berry stand that grew into a dining phenomenon during the great depression. Served on her wedding china to make bit more money, Cordelia Knott prepared her famous fried chicken in their humble home, which still stands today inside the restaurant. We wanted to bring guests into that story and let them experience the sense of family in a recreation of the Knott home.  SottoStudios would love to do the same for your brand or your story. Everything matters! 

A "bird's-eye" view of the Restaurant. Several dining environments suited to today's tastes. The kitchen, parlor and living room of the "Knott's Farmhouse", "The Patch" Bar and Campfire, and the eclectic "Cordy's Barn" dining hall. Simply Knott's and the DNA of the brand. 

Workflow of Design, Disneyland Paris

By Edward Sotto

We often get asked what parts of project we can do and where we stop and others begin. In the case of my working on Disneyland Paris, I had to serve as both creative producer overseeing and approving virtually all of the design, but also as a designer, generating the "macro" or  "the big picture," with conceptual sketches (especially after Herb Ryman was no longer available.) and the "micro," the details.

On a job like Main Street USA where architecture plays such a large role in telling our "story", we begin by  building on loose directional sketches that are shared with the architect, and then over a series of elevations passed back and forth with the architecture team, finally refining or driving the details and other design intent in the "micro" sense. 

Disneyland Paris Railroad Station.

The train was to "pierce" the central marquee as to be seen moving through a section of the new station. Stained glass and wrought iron were a component of the welcoming marquee over the central entry portal. Detail had to be envisioned that would pull all of this together. 

First Sotto elevation sketch of the Station marquee facing the Disneyland Hotel©Sotto

Closeup details were also provided...Sotto was obsessed by each detail. 

Eddie's final elevation with detail produced once the architects have laid out the basic structure.

Ornament was also considered, like this sketch of a bronze station clock. - Unbuilt Ed Sotto 1988

Herbie Ryman 1988, always teaching.

At WED Imagineering I had the honor of working with Disney legend Herb Ryman when heading up our Disneyland Paris Main Street design team. I was looking for talent to help visualize the project and Marty Sklar arranged to bring  the now retired Ryman back into the company to help out this young producer. I had met Herb working for industry legend Gary Goddard a few years earlier, and knew of his ability to illustrate an idea like no one else. After all, he had done the original rendering that sold Disneyland, I was hoping he could help sell this new vision of the 1920's themed Main Street for Paris. Sklar warned me that he may not be very productive, but I learned that listening to him and spending time developing a relationship was the key to Herb finding a reason to enjoy the project. And he did, and produced many great things, the best being our friendship. We enjoyed each other very much. He taught me so much that goes beyond the art, but in fact, the "why" of art.  Although he turned in some amazing pieces, his health was in decline and our time was cut short. He brought me along to his Thursday lunch group of retired Disney greats, known as "The Dinosaurs." and after his passing, I learned that the best thing he could leave me was not a painting, but his place at the table.  

Herb always had "business" going on in his work. This Main Street piece has the police and everyone else looking left as if something just happened.

Ryman can tell a story almost as good as he paints....this is no exception. 

When I see this image, I'm reminded of a story. The dark object you see by Herb's hand was the failed fan clutch from his Mercedes. Fascinated by it's shape, I told him I thought it would make a great modern hotel design for the Paris project. (It reminded me of the Tower in the 1929 Film "Metropolis") My sketch is on the board...and he is here telling the photographer the story.. I even photographed it and later developed the design, hoping to later reveal how a "massive German car part landed in the French countryside", Herb and I laughed so much about it...now that's Imagineering! 

Art lesson. Herb explains how to best leverage both sides of tracing paper with color.

Herb put a bit of himself into his work and encouraged me to do the same. "Bad taste costs no more" he'd say and encourage me to go the extra mile, researching the history of a period design, not just copying what has been done, but start with the story and the emotion of why something should be there. Good advice, and as a company, that's exactly what we do today. 

On Mocking up. "Measure thrice, cut once..."

The battle for real gaslights versus light bulbs was not easily won, but in the end they proved to be what sets the arcades apart. Made by Sugg Lighting of England, they tell the story of a small town in transition from Gas to the new Electric light. . 

Building mockups for scale is an experiential fundamental and something we strive to do on our current projects. Beyond computer modeling, simple mockups lend a tactile impression CGI does not.  Having a sense of how a space can experientially feel can be overlooked, but when your success depends on how much people love it, it pays to focus on experiential massing. This image from the late 1980s shows Disney Imagineering Chief Marty Sklar reviewing a "mockup" of the enclosed arcades of Main Street USA for Disneyland Paris. We had never attempted to create an alternate route to the center of the park,let alone an indoor one. It had to feel just as warm and intimate as the rest of the park. Part of the scheme are the 80 or more flickering Gaslights (shown in white paper and styrofoam and pictured right) that highlight our path . In that dusty Imagineering parking lot within view of the Interstate 5 Freeway, Marty gave us his approval. The real arcades emerged in 1992 and the reviews have been great, thanks to the foresight of "mocking up" the height and width to great effect. 

In fact, the Arcades were part of a mandate for the Paris park to allow the guests to warmly circulate during inclement weather. An initial proposal was covering the entire Main Street with a steel and glass roof as was done to ill effect in Tokyo Disneyland. To his credit, Tony Baxter, the executive in charge, did not want to cover the street or create an extensive network of porches and awnings, but rather to create alternate fowl weather route, which allowed the guest to experience Main Street the way it was intended, and the arcades developed from there as a way to avoid covering the entire street.  

"The issue was crowd flow and what would be the right height to allow 15 feet between the columns, so we had to make it feel tall enough to have an optimistic and romantic feeling... the mock up with a pop-up clerestory led us to the right proportion."- Eddie Sotto

Welcome to the SottoStudios Archive.

"We have 30 years of sketches, details , stories and wonderful imagery from past projects, so we created this section to share some of that art and process from the past. The process can be as exciting as the product!" - Eddie Sotto

So to start things off, I often get asked if I had an interesting Disney project that never got built.

Here's one.

"Lafitte's Island (and Catacombs)- 1998 Disneyland"

The Crypt

Guests find a small cemetery across from the Haunted Mansion along the river. Standing tall above the headstones is New Orleans most notorious pirate citizen Jean Lafitte. Upon closer inspection, thieves have dug up his brother's grave and opened his crypt. Dare we venture inside?

Once inside the crypt, guests discover that grave robbers opened the wall revealing a spiral stair leading to adventure.

In the late 1990s, long before Johnny Depp wore mascara and brandished a sword, I was on vacation in Hawaii, sketchbook in hand when the notion of transforming Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland into "Lafitte's Island" (in honor of New Orleans most famous privateer) hit me. Disneyland had references to Lafitte in the form of naming the landing after him on the Pirates Attraction, and even an Anchor in his honor along the river. 

The fact behind the fiction.

Historically speaking, Lafitte had a real thieves market of stolen goods on an island (Barrataria) across from New Orleans and the wealthy would shop there, so the logic made sense to me. I quickly read his alleged memoirs where he claims to have faked his death. The "driver" of this while thing was that park's operators wanted to eliminate the Tom Sawyer Rafts that transported guests back and forth, even explore closing the island for economic reasons. The Lafitte suggestion set out to address this issue by improving it's daily visitation and profitability while lowering operating costs (limited by the capacity of the rafts.) By tunneling under the river and creating a 2 way "underpass" of sorts, we would bring an unlimited flow of guests on and off with little operational cost. How? In the form of "Lafitte's secret crypt and Catacombs."  Story was that Lafitte faked his death and created a burial Crypt in a small graveyard along the river in front of the Haunted Mansion. Grave robbers, knowing it was actually a secret passage had broken through to the series of catacomb like chambers, littered with  treasure and the remains of Lafitte's conquests. This led to the island where a capsized series of scuttled ships hulls were covered in Earth as secret interior rooms and hideouts were there to be explored.  Even though there are only a few sketches and some of them are pretty rough, others have been cleaned up in living color, so let's go!!! 

The Catacombs

Guests explore the remains of lost crews, treasure and Lafitte's piratical career, chamber by nefarious chamber. 

Land Ho!

At the end of the catacomb, we find a shipwreck buried below ground with stairs leading to the light of day and Lafitte's Island. 

Pirate's Court

Violations of ship's articles and embezzlement were taken seriously. Lafitte held court from a Spanish throne in this cavern where we hear the splash of the surf and witness the plank of the convicted. 

Lafitte Bros. Treasure Lair

Capsizing the remains of a shipwreck and disguising it with earth, the Lafitte's were free to trade from a grand cache of treasure with the New Orleans elite. Food, Pirate grog made from gunpowder, baubles and trinkets, along with challenges in gunnery await adventure seekers. 

The Gundeck

Here we see how the underground fort used to protect itself with demonstrations of captured Spanish cannons. 

Avast there! 

Next time you are at Disneyland and stroll along the river near the Haunted Mansion, note this bricked up entry. Could this be the sealed entrance to Lafitte's lost catacomb? Guests have been wondering this for more than a decade, and ironically some of his legend has made it to the Island, but someday we may explore the rest of his legacy...till then, our caves are sealed ;-)